Early Birthday Surprise

So last Friday, I was contemplating how tired I had been lately.  I was the one who drove back from USNA, and while it wasn't anywhere as bad as coming back from McGuire, I still had a very hard time staying awake and alert.  I realized that I was over a week late (not that I've ever been extremely regular, however), and I needed to go to Sams to get more milk and fruit, so I stopped by Walmart and picked up a pregnancy test, which I took as soon as I got home.  It was quite positive, which immediately explained all the extreme fatigue, but I was still quite surprised.  Last month I had all those cases of weird forgetfulness, so I would have not been as shocked.  This month?  Nothing at all.  (ETA:  That's not totally true--I just remembered the embarrassing case of me totally forgetting that I signed Nathan up to help with the monthly food pantry distribution. I did not remember a thing about it until a week after the actual event, even though I did write it on the calendar.  Oops!!)  Plus, I've been going to bed very late, and Bob's been going to bed very early, so it hasn't exactly been a month full of romance, LOL.  Also, since I wasn't pregnant when Drew turned one, I think I just figured it wasn't going to happen anymore.  I remember one of my co-op friends (who has 8 kids herself) telling me, "Once I turned 40, my body just shut down", so perhaps I was subconsciously thinking that was what would happen to me, LOL.

And I will admit that I had gotten comfortable with the idea that we could be done!  I told the boys that if we didn't have any more babies, we could get rid of all the baby stuff in the basement storage room, like the swing, exersaucer, bouncy seat, etc.  Those things take up a ton of room! Plus, I have tubs upon tubs of clothes in all sizes for both girls and boys.  I was looking forward to thinning the tubs out too, but now that will have to wait!  The kids are all quite excited, and they are hoping for a girl, as then we would have the cool pyramid pattern of "4 boys, 3 girls, 2 boys, 1 girl".  We shall see.  Other than being tired, I have had no other symptoms whatsoever, and with the 3 girls, it seems like I was a little more nauseous than with the boys.  Since I'm not nauseous at all, that makes me doubtful this is a girl!

So I guess we will fill up the big van after all, and we'll squeeze in one more baby before Nathan heads off to college!  I'm due the end of September, so we'll be dealing with college application stuff AND newborn stuff.  Whee!!  On the plus side, this baby will break our long birthday drought between Nathan's birthday on June 24, and Caleb's birthday on Nov. 5.  We needed a summer or fall baby!