Number Five

Wow, it's good to be blogging again. It's been so long since my regular posting sessions, I thought I might have forgotten how it's done. I started this blog as a way to keep a record of our family's everyday adventures, as well as an outlet for me to share whatever else seems newsworthy in the Hill home.

Well, have I ever got something newsworthy. And it just doesn't seem right to let the days and weeks keep going by without even a mention of said news on the blog.

So here it is.

In September of 2008 our family is going to change forever with the addition of baby Hill number five.

Yes, you read that right. A new little precious baby will be joining our family in just less than 6 months!

(Stop to breathe here)

Okay? Let's keep going.

We told the kids first, which was so fun, and they were surprisingly good at keeping our little "family secret" for quite a while. We took a vote at Family Home Evening, and it was a tie: three of us think it's a girl and three think it's a boy. (I'll let you guess who thought what.) Yes, Nathan can vote at 14 months; he's pretty advanced for his age.

It's been a roller coaster the past several weeks, let me tell ya. The seemingly constant nausea, along with the extreme tiredness, in combination with the inability to look at food without resisting the overwhelming urge to gag made it a little difficult to tend to the needs of four children and a husband who actually require feeding three times daily (at least), not to mention clean clothes and help with things like homework and baths and, well, a caregiver that is able to leave the couch more often than the bare minimum number of trips to the washroom daily. Unfortunately, I was unable to convince anyone else in the family that it was completely desirable to eat nothing but soda crackers for days on end.

(Now that I am safely into the second trimester, I am thankfully free of the morning sickness - or as I like to call it, the morning/afternoon/evening/late-night sickness - and I have also started to function somewhat more productively on less than 11 hours of sleep per day.)

The roller coaster took an emotional turn when I had my first visit to the doctor. At this visit, I was told that I was one of two things: either completely off on my dates or carrying twins. A very looooooong four days later, an ultrasound quickly ruled out both of those situations, which left me with the only remaining (yet arguably least desirable) alternative scenario... 11 weeks pregnant with one baby growing in a uterus the size of a watermelon. I tried to look at the bright side and think of how great it would be not to have to stress about telling everyone that we were expecting, since they would already know by the simple fact that I was already, ahem, showing.

Right now we are 14 weeks along and things seem to be running a lot smoother at home. I think this is mostly due to the fact that we have all significantly lowered our expectations of what Mom can accomplish in one 24 hour period. If the kids are dressed, the family is fed somewhat regularly (yes, mac 'n cheese from a box counts), the beds are made and the laundry and homework are done - we are having a highly successful day. Maybe next month we can add in some extra vacuuming, dusting, and filing sessions in the office, but I'm not making any promises.

After all, I have finally, yet reluctantly, come to the understanding that I am at the mercy of the development of a tiny human being, who is (rightfully) more interested in growing healthy organs and limbs than he/she is in the cleanliness of my kitchen floor.