Four

I’m 19 weeks pregnant and haven’t written a thing about this pregnancy! What a slacker. So here goes.

Remember when I was all, “This is the last one. This is the last time we’re doing this. The factory is closed. I can’t handle more than 3 kids…” ? Remember that? Well, in the middle of December, we found out that the Lord had other plans. I want to type out a couple of things about the way this all went down. Because who knows how much of this I will remember when this pregnancy steals the last good brain cells I have left.

A couple of days after I came back from Arizona (for my brother’s reception), I started to become a tad concerned about the delay of…you know…some things. As I was going to bed one night, I started counting the weeks in my mind. I thought, “I must have my dates all wrong…November was a crazy month and I really can’t remember what happened when…” And then out of nowhere I got this super strong feeling, like a voice, talking in my mind saying, “You’re pregnant.” It caught me by surprise and I thought, did I really just think that? There’s no way that could be possible. The second thought that came into my mind was, “It’s a girl.” I couldn’t shake the feeling, even when I woke up the next morning. While Marcelo was at work, I took a test and I can’t express to you enough how completely and utterly SHOCKED I was when it turned positive right away. SHOCKED. STUNNED. FLOORED. I don’t know how else to say it. I sat there staring at myself in the mirror with my mouth hanging open. I then began to text Marcelo saying, “Do you think you can come home early today? I just need to see you.” I was trying to play it cool so he wouldn’t figure it out while he was at work. He called me and asked if something was wrong and I was all, “Ohhh, nothing. Everything’s fine. I’m just wishing you were home today.” He must have thought, “Holy needy emotional wife,” but all he said was that he couldn’t come home early, unless I had an emergency. So I waited patiently until he came home. My mom had the kids for the evening, so I sat him down on the couch and said, “Um, so….I’ve been feeling kind of ‘off’ lately…” and he interrupted with, “You’re pregnant.” I nodded and it immediately became clear that he wasn’t totally serious when he said it and did not expect me to say yes. He stared at me wide eyed. It was really like a deer caught in the headlights. It’s so funny now to think about that moment. Pure shock in that poor boy’s face. I could see the wheels turning in his head trying to calculate and figure out the same things I had been trying to figure out earlier. We both came up with scrunched up eyebrows and the same questions: how? when? what???

Of course we got rid of every last baby thing in November. I had already given away all my maternity clothes, baby boy clothes, and even Eliana’s 0-9month clothes months and months before that. Why couldn’t we have just waited one more month??

Anyway, the shock lasted a good 2 weeks. But in those 2 weeks I had some really great moments that gave me comfort and peace. I had a dream where I felt like I was being told that this was the plan for our family and that everything would be okay. I woke up feeling so blessed to have a loving Heavenly Father that knew I needed to hear that. As the weeks passed, I began to feel like I was being given a gift. I had no idea that there was still someone missing from our family. I thought 3 was it for us. So to find out that there’s one more little person coming to join us felt like an unexpected gift. I thought I never wanted to go to the hospital and have another c-section ever again. But as I started to look back through my pictures from when Eliana was born, I felt surprisingly excited to have the opportunity to do that again. As my pregnancy has progressed, I have only felt more and more excited to do the whole thing all over again. Okay, saying “only” is a complete lie. I have also felt extremely overwhelmed, terrified, and all around incapable of handling 4 kids. I have felt completely panic stricken at the thought of having this baby the first week that school starts for Diego and Celo. BUT, I’m a mere human…an extremely hormonal human…so I’m not going to kick myself too much about all the fear that has run through my mind. Because above all, I feel supremely blessed and excited to meet this little baby that I didn’t know would come.

So ever since that first night where I felt like I was pregnant with a girl, I have not been able to think of this baby as anything but a girl. I had dreams about it being a girl and I’ve had many instances when I’ve had to catch myself to remind myself that I don’t know for sure yet. There was one day where without even thinking, I filled an online shopping cart with some killer sales on baby girl clothes and was just about to check out when I stopped myself and thought, “What are you doing??? You don’t know if it’s a girl!” Anyway, this week, it was confirmed that we are indeed having another girl (which makes me feel pretty sad that I didn’t buy all those super cheap clothes that day). Two boys and two girls!! I’m beyond excited. I can’t even believe this is happening.

Before I had Celo, I had a dream that I had a girl who was a total Diego clone. I could see her perfectly in my mind, wrapped in a pink blanket, with reddish-blondish hair like Diego had (and very little of it) the same dainty little nose Diego had, and light eyes that look so much like his. Then I found out I was having a boy. Then when I found out I was having Eliana, I thought, “Maybe this will be the baby from my dream!” And then she came out with a head full of black hair. So if this little girl looks nothing like the one in my dream, I will be left wondering who the heck that baby is. But I can assure you that we will not be going through this all a 5th time to find out! Marcelo thinks we’ll be having another hairy girl, but I’m betting she’s bald. I can’t get lucky with a hairy girl twice! I think this time I will feel all my friends’ pain of having to wait and wait to be able to clip a bow in my baby girl’s hair.

Marcelo kept his 100% record for guessing the gender of all the babies in the family. Out of our 4, his sister’s 3, his brother’s 4, and his cousin’s 2 kids, he guessed correctly every single time. (Btw, besides Diego and Celo, all of those babies were girls.) Celo was the only one in our family (well, besides Eliana who had no idea what I was asking her) who guessed wrong. He was a little bummed that he didn’t guess right, but he’s really excited to have another sister. He thinks Eliana is the most hilarious little girl on earth, so he thinks it’ll be fun if we get another one like her.

The way we announced to our parents was by showing up at their houses with each one of the kids holding a pink balloon and me and Eliana wearing pink. I had my dad snap this picture so I could announce it to the rest of my friends and family.

This is easily one of my favorite pictures of all time. I’m so thankful for my family!