In Which I Tell One Story, So I Can Tell You Another Tomorrow (or whenever I get around to it next...)

I have an app on my phone that keeps track of my periods.  I don't really care if you think that is more information than you needed.  If you think that is bad, you should stop reading immediately because it's going to get worse.  This blog post is full of information about me you never cared about before (and probably won't after you finished reading if you choose to continue down this path with me).  With this app, all I have to do is type in the day my period started and ended.  Then, over time it can calculate for me when the next one will start and I don't have to keep track on paper.  It's nice. I love it.

My periods are very regular.  Very. Regular.  The app tells me my period is going to start on a certain day, and it does.  Or the day before.  Or it starts the day after that, no big deal.  I can handle that much inconsistency.  Even two days late is tolerable.

On February 5th, as I went to bed, Kurtis and I were talking about something sort of related.  I gasped, picked up my phone, opened up the app and realized with horror that I was three days late!  My heart fell into my stomach and started to dissolve.  I absolutely did not want to be pregnant.  I mean, I'm 34.  Kaleb is nine years old.  I've been done for nine years.  Pregnancy is not something that my body deals with well.  All my babies were small and all of them had to be monitored closely toward the end of my pregnancies, they didn't like labor.  It truly is a miracle they are all here and all healthy.  So many things could have gone wrong way back then and now I'm old!  I figure I am pretty much guaranteed that all the things that didn't go wrong back then, will go wrong ten years later.  I don't think I really got to sleep that night.

But I tired not to panic.  I tried to go about my day like nothing was wrong.  Kurtis said he would try not to get excited and he didn't want me to take a pregnancy test until I waited longer.  I told him that if I hadn't gotten my period  by Saturday when we went grocery shopping, I would be buying a pregnancy test then.  He still didn't want me to get one then either.  He's weird.  I wanted to know then.  I wanted to get out of bed, get dressed, and run to the drug store.  Granted it was probably like one in the morning, but still.

Friday, I went out with my bestest friend Nicole and she wanted me to go buy a pregnancy test and take it while we were out together.  By now, I was entertaining the idea of having another baby.  What if it's a girl?  That would be really cool.  But we'd have to buy a new car and we have no baby stuff, so it would be like having my first baby ever.  There was a lot of waffling.  I was trying to be positive.  I've never been more than five days late before, so it had to be true.  I was telling myself this would be a new adventure.

Saturday, I got my period.  So no baby.  The mixture of relief and sorrow was pretty confusing.  On the one hand, I had to grieve all over again for the little girl I never had and never will have.  On the other, I was relieved.  I really don't want another baby.  I really enjoy the stage of life we are in right now.  It's beautiful to get to sleep.  It's beautiful to watch Zach go off to Scout camp, and to see Riley loving being one of the smartest kids in his class.  I love hearing Kaleb's jokes.  Sure babies are adorable and I really love them.  Babies are my favorite actually.  It's really easy to make them happy.  And I get to see a lot of pictures of my friends' babies on the internet, but my kids do awesome things, too.  Life is full of phases or seasons and I am ready to be in this season.  This is where I belong.  And it's finally my turn to do some things for myself and not only be focused on the wonderful children God has blessed me with.