I'm back!

Bloggy Bloggerson, here with big news. I'm pregnant. I'm 41, my boys are about to start Kindergarten one year after the other, and we'll have a new baby in da house this summer. OK, I'm up for it!

I assume most people who I haven't talked to in awhile figure we'd been TTC for however long for this baby. Nope. A few years ago, on our way to the horse races, we had a discussion about letting God plan our family (you know, like the Duggars but without 20 children). Randy said, "Ixnay on the ormay ildrenchay," not in those exact words. That was fine with me, two little toddlers under the age of 3 felt like plenty!

I wasn't quite ready to totally give up the idea of ever having more children, although age and fertility were not on our side, but we pretty much figured we were done. Without going into too much detail, we were careful(ish) about timing and let it be. We were content with two.

Whenever a friend or acquaintance announced a pregnancy or birth we laughed, "Good luck with that, friend!" we thought as we slept through the night. Midnight trips to the bathroom for me made me think, "I'm so glad I get to go right back to bed instead of tending to a baby now." Laugh we did - right up until October 17.

October 12 was our 9th anniversary. We went to have Thai food and play Trivial Pursuit at the coffee shop. The Thai food was very spicy, which typically doesn't bother me, but aside from the burning tongue it made my heart race. This is not a typical reaction for me with spicy food. I thought, "Eh, probably nothing."

On Saturday we went to Sea World and on the way out the door Randy said, "I need to take the Pack N' Play to Goodwill to get it out of our garage." By this point I figured I was about three days late, which isn't typical for me, either. I was beginning to wonder, and figured I'd better know for sure before Mr. Standridge carted off the baby's bed.

The next day I had big plans to buy a Home Pregnancy Test from the grocery store. When I found out I was pregnant with Andrew I tested in the bathroom of the Bank of America, so this time I figured I would wait until I got home for the Big Reveal. And a big reveal it was.

Many women plan sweet, elaborate ways to tell their husband they are expecting. There were no sweet elaborations for me this time - last time either, for that matter. Both of these pregnancies were so surprising to me I was still in shock when I told my Dear Husband, who was equally shocked each time, perhaps this time more that last.

After puttering around in the kitchen in a pregnant haze, and after initially planning to tell him after the boys had gone to bed, I couldn't take it any longer. I asked him to go outside with me for a minute so I could talk to him about something. "Something" - um, yeah.

I cried. I did cross my mind that he would not be happy. But he's such a champ, he just hugged me and told me he loved me. An unplanned pregnancy, at our age? It makes me giggle just thinking about it. Our God is a funny God. We wore around the idea for about a week before we really embraced it. Not that we were upset, but it was a shift in plans for us.

There was one night a few days after I found out that I was crying my little hormonal eyes out in the bedroom when Randy came in and asked what was wrong. "I ruined our family," I said. We had a good thing going and it was now going to change. Mixed emotions ran rampant. Now though, I think, what a sweet little family this baby will be born into.

Our boys are so excited about being big brothers. Erik wants a baby sister named Emily or a baby brother named Elliott. Andrew wants a baby brother named KooPoo. I think maybe we'll stick with a more classic name, though. With Andrew, we didn't find out what kind of baby he was going to be until the minute he was born. This time I think we're going to find out. I'll start a poll. We'd love to have a little girl of course, but I think this time I care less about that than I did with either of our boys. Plus, boys sure love their mamas!

So here we are, 16 weeks pregnant and doing fine. The end of this month we will find out pink or blue. Welcome back to my blog - times they are a'changing.