And Then We Were Five

The last time I saw those two pink lines on that little "Your Life is About to Change BIGtime" dipstick I cried. Not tears of joy, mind you...tears of complete and utter fear. Glen and I had just started to cruise when it came to our adult responsibilities after a bit of exhausting, uphill climbing. We had a little guy who was about to turn one (yes, only one!) in a couple of weeks and a four and a half year old as well. We were feeling cramped with the two of them in our little starter home and were just beginning to get ready to sell it. This most certainly was not the ideal time to add another little one to the mix.

From where I stand now, I feel badly about these tears. You see, Alex was our first. We weren't 100% sure it was a good idea, but we wanted him and when I saw those parallel lines for the first time, I was completely overjoyed. Sam, our second, we worked very hard to get. He was definitely a planned little person. So when we finally were blessed with his imminent arrival, Glen was literally announcing it to the world.

The third time around, those lines were completely unexpected. My friends have a great laugh at this. We had gotten together that morning for breakfast and were talking about pregnancies, since two women at the table were expecting. I shared that I was something like sixty five days late and they all just stopped mid-bite and looked at me. "Well of course, you're pregnant, Nicole!" "No, no, I don't think so," I had replied but as I looked at my pancakes, feeling nauseous, I wasn't so sure.

Fast forward to me sitting on the edge of our tub a few hours later, staring at this little surprise. Glen, just as scared as I, but always the one to put his feelings aside, burst into a huge smile, grabbed me, and said, "This one will be the girl! You'll see--it will all work out."

I wasn't so sure. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE babies--maybe a little too much. But I was just so overwhelmed with the thought of adding more stress to our life at this point. How would we make it work? What if we can't move out of this house? Can we afford another little person? How can I juggle all three of them with Sam being so little? Oh boy...

As I do, when I am worried, I talked about these fears a lot to a lot of people. The common theme on their sides of these conversations was, "You'll see...it all comes together. It always works out." I didn't believe a word of it.

And now, here we are-two and a half years later and I couldn't be happier. Our little Emma has added so much to our family in just the small time she has been here. Her strength and stubbornness keeps us all on our toes. The smile that is constantly on her face melts our hearts each and every time we see it. Her all consuming love of animals has given us many experiences and stories that we wouldn't have had without her. Her nurturing nature has healed each one of us when we fall down, are sick, or sad. And her ability to entertain an audience of one or many has kept us in stitches since the day she realized this gift.

And it has only been two years, two months, and seventeen days since we were blessed with the result of our happy accident.