Like my hubby always told me...

My hubby was always the one who wanted a lot of kids. He was the oldest of four, babysat from the age of 9 on, and helped raise a friend's child from birth to the age of 5, I, on the other hand, was an only child who learned how to read at the age of four, and never really had time for any kid stuff. My life pretty much consisted of books, books, and well, more books. And D&D (before any of this Advanced nonsense, thankyouverymuch). Oh, and vampires. Did I mention the Ren Faire stuff? In other words, I didn't have what you might call the firmest grasp on reality for several years. Anyway, when we were talking about it, I was concerned because I had zero experience with children. Seriously, my one attempt at babysitting consisting of watching the CareBears Movie over and over with 2 very hyper children, praying for it to be over soon.

So, I say to hubby (who was Fiancee at that point, really), "Do you have any tips on taking care of kids?" His answer, "If they are girls, tell them you love them every day. If they are boys, they already know you love them, you just have to try to keep them alive until they are 18. Then they are on their own!" This seemed like sound and reasonable advice to a non-child bearing person, and I was relieved.

Then, we had our first boy. After 16 hours of labor, our beautiful boy was born. He was perfect. I had no idea how much love you could feel for a baby. He was funny, and beautiful and smart, and OURS. We then waited the appropriate amount of time (2 years) and tried for our girl, which would make a perfect set, and we could stop (well, I wanted to anyway). We go in for the sonogram, the tech says, "Yep, looks like you have a little girl there, I'd say 70-80% sure". We went home, had the pink baby shower, the cake saying "God Bless Baby Emily", the cute pink clothes, everything. Can you hear the impending sound of irony approaching? After 3 trips to the hospital with false labor, finally going in and saying, "I'm not leaving until you give me my baby!", watching everyone but my hubby and birth coach leave because I was freaking them out with my super human strength, as demonstrated by me BENDING THE RAILS ON MY HOSPITAL BED because I was pushing so hard, out came baby...um....boy?? Not just a boy, but a 10lb 11oz boy!! Who got stuck (oh, did I mention TMI at the beginning? Ooops, sorry), and we thought might have his collarbone broken, but he didn't, BUT he wasn't breathing and had to be given oxygen, and it was pretty dramatic there for a few minutes and he's ok now, but a BOY? We didn't even have a boy NAME picked out!! Two days later, we decide to call him William after my dad, and Robert after hubby, and it's another two days before we realized we just named him Billy Bob, and we lived in Arkansas, so we should have known better! And he is the most boy-like of them all, he would live outdoors if we let him, constantly bruised and banged up, and loves every minute of it!

Well, after that excruciating labor, you might be surprised to know that these words came out of my mouth, "I guess we could try for a girl one more time!" WHAT?? I only wanted 2 kids!! But, as it may be obvious by now, I have a hard time saying "No" to hubby, and so, less than two years later, here I was pregnant with baby #3. We figured out the reason Billy was so big was because I had gestational diabetes late in the pregnancy, so we were very careful with diet and such with baby #3. I still ended up having to check my blood sugars several times a day, and take insulin shots 3x a day, and I did NOT enjoy that. I told hubby, "Ok, we are not going to be caught off guard this time, I'm naming the baby Joey whether it's a boy or a girl!" Fortunately for Joey, he turned out to be, yes, a boy. And the labor was easy, and I was happy, and I was done. DONE. D.O.N.E. I spent the next 3 years joking to everyone, "You know why we have 3 boys? Because we don't want 4!" Ok, it made sense when I said it.

Fastforward to hubby actually making the decision to Do The Deed. You know the one. The snip-snip one. The night before the consultation, we got into a really stupid fight about the vacuum cleaner of all things, and were annoyed with each other going to bed. We talked, made up, were quiet for awhile, and then, out of nowhere I said, "I think I want to try one more time for a girl." My hubby sat up, looked at me and said, "Who are you and what have you done with my wife?" I convinced him I was serious, and he never went to the appt. Three months later, I was pregnant with baby #4.

By now, I was what they like to call, Advanced Maternal Age (36), so they did a level 2 ultrasound to make sure everything was OK. This left no doubt as to the sex of the baby. We found out we were FINALLY going to have.....a BOY!! Yep, 4 and 0, sorry ladies. But, you know what? We were really happy about it. Let's face it, we had had a lot of experience raising boys by that point, and probably would have had a hard time with a girl. He was born, and was the cutest one of all (shhh, don't let his brothers hear that!), with 3 dimples, and the best smile ever!

It turns out I have a lot more fun with boy children anyway, so it all worked out! I promise to post things they say and do, and I'll try not to be too disgustingly cute, but sometimes you can't help it, right? So, that's the beginning. At this point, my boys are 12 (soon to be 13), 9, 6 and 3. I am proud to say, they are all still alive.