So how about a slightly lighter post today? Since this pregnancy is already nearing the halfway point (!!!), and especially since it is my last, I should backtrack and catch up with the story of Baby Number Three… beginning with WHY ON EARTH we would get pregnant AND try to sell our house and move out of state at the same time. At first I wondered the same thing!

This timing was not exactly planned. Even last spring, we were still undecided about having a third child at all. But facing a crisis makes you think about Life and it can change your mind about a lot of things. My mom’s pre-surgery diagnosis in May 2011 was ovarian cancer, and since family history would put me at higher risk, I was ready to take preventive measures–possibly even surgery. And that raised the obvious question: Was I SURE we were done having kids? The answer, suddenly clear to me, was: not yet.

I got pregnant right away in June, shortly before my mom’s surgery and diagnosis of a different, terminal type of cancer. After an early miscarriage in July, followed by two erratic cycles and annoyingly unsuccessful marathon-like efforts, George and I almost put things on hold because he was interviewing for a job in Pittsburgh. If he got the job, we’d have to sell the house and move, and of course that would be too hard if I was pregnant, HA HA.

The other discouraging factor was the miscarriage (my third overall). My OB offered to refer me to a specialist for testing, which would mean No More Trying until they sorted things out–and it would still not guarantee any answers, because in many cases a specific cause cannot be determined. The fact that we already have two healthy children made me think we would probably land in the Cause Unknown category (and might disqualify us from insurance coverage for testing anyway), so I declined the referral.

I did, however, research ovulation prediction kits (OPKs), albeit mainly out of curiosity. I’ve never used birth control pills; I charted my freakishly regular cycles for many years, successfully avoiding pregnancy when that was the goal and easily getting pregnant when we tried. I felt I already knew my own body extremely well. Plus, OPKs can cost $15-25 or more PER CYCLE. I just wasn’t convinced we needed extra help yet.

Then I went to Target. And we all leave Target with something that wasn’t on our list, right? Wandering over to the Pee Stick Aisle on a whim, I found some OPKs marked as 50% off. Hmmm. George hadn’t heard back about the job yet (we later found out the company doing his background check was really backed up, leading to long wait times–a blessing in disguise?) so October was still fair game. But in case this was our last shot for a while, why not?

I followed the kit’s directions precisely, so I was a little frustrated after six days of Negative… Still Negative… Seriously, Forget It, Just Ask For A Back Rub Instead. I naturally concluded the kit was marked as 50% off because it was faulty/old/stupid. Great, I thought. We didn’t try all week and now we’ll probably have to wait until next spring.

The next day, I showed George the positive result on my last test stick, shaking my head with confusion. “It should have been four days ago. This can’t be right.”

Less than two weeks later:

BOOM. Who’s faulty now?

So, um, I humbly retract previous claims to being the expert on my own body. I don’t know why it changed, but four days is a big difference in Egg Time.

When George finally got the job offer a few weeks later and asked me whether or not moving was an option anymore, I just laughed. (I also cried at certain points, but I laughed, too. Hormones are fun!) We looked at the situation from every angle and we still had no idea HOW we could make it work. We just… trusted that it WOULD work, somehow.

As crazy and stressful as the timing is, we decided that if this baby was up for the adventure, then so were we. We could have waited until after we moved so I wouldn’t have to switch doctors in the last few months of my pregnancy or pack boxes with a big belly in the way. But how boring would THAT be?