Keeping Tabs: It's been 2 years...

...for a few of things.

Like:
-we moved back from Italy
-my dream came true and I lived in the same state as my sister
-my husband kept warning me that everyone at our new base was being sent to Korea
-we started our homeschool journey
- and....

since we announced a pregnancy.

What's that? You could barely read it. Here, let me enlarge it in a different way...

Photo Credit: Lindsey James Photography
Shirts made by: Olive & Rose (Brittney Jones)

Baby at 8.5 weeks-heartbeat 162bpm-Estimated due date July 22nd, 2018

Go ahead. I'll give you a few seconds to laugh and say "I told you so" or "I knew it".

This was NOT planned.

Not by us anyways.

As most of you know, my husband is not here with me. He is off fighting for his country...FOR AN ENTIRE YEAR. Yes, you read that right. Three hundred and sixty five miserable days (and actually it will be at least 14 days added on to that). Military blows sometimes. But its our life. It's what we chose. We knew our time was coming considering we've been very blessed not to have a single deployment, except a 6 week TDY, for 9 years! We just didn't expect to be expecting in the mix of this.

You're probably asking yourself the same thing I've been asking myself since November 20th...

How are you gunna do this?!

My answer: by the grace of God. He brought us to it and he'll bring us through it.

See, we were DONE having kids. Finito. Basta. Gave away e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g before our recent move. Clothes, baby equipment, carriers, toys...all things baby. We were both at peace with our children. We were ready to take the next step and start our stride to retirement and me get a little mommy surgery to fill more woman-y (again don't judge). Maxtin done us in. We never wanted to experience another full year of sleepless nights. He finally started sleeping (mostly) through the night. Mommy and daddy were getting their husband and wife groove back (which is I guess what landed us here...). We were getting to spend more time with the kids all together because one of us wasn't always tending to our very needy baby. Life ~~was~~ perfect. God laughed at our thought of perfection. He knew that it could get even perfecter (is that even a word? I don't have a little read line under it, so it must be!)

I had been late a few days but since I weened Maxtin in June, my menstrual cycles had been a little off. Coming a little soon or a day or two late. Lasting longer than 7 days. So I thought nothing of it. Until I did start thinking. What if? The Monday before Thanksgiving (November 20th), exactly 2 weeks after Chance had left, we were out and I thought, I'll just stop at the dollar tree and buy a $1 test. IF I am, a $1 test will tell me just the same thing as a $10 test. Got my test and I confess, I left all 4 kids in the car while I made the quick run inside. Because I mean I can only imagine the look I would have gotten from the cashier when she rang up the test and my hooligans were knocking down her pretty Christmas displays. Just kidding. Well sort of. My kids are well behaved for the most part. But seriously, I do have the push start on my van, so I at least took the keys out and started it from the outside so that it was running but they couldn't control anything and locked and I gave Gracie the speech of "don't open the door for anyone...except the police...and even then, you might not want to open it...". Guys, I was literally in there for 5 minutes and I was 20 feet from them. Stop judging. A mom does what she has too, to survive by herself...sanely. Got home, ran to the bathroom then it hit me. You're suppose to wait until your first pee in the morning to get the most accurate results. Screw accurate. I needed some kind of answer. I didn't come this far to wait 8 more hours. Truth be told, had I waited, it would of probably been til like 4am and I would of compromised with myself that technically it was morning and my first pee (because I'd have definitely made sure not to go after 12am), even though I probably had just fallen asleep at 1am because I was so anxious about getting the most accurate reading... I put the drops on my test, then immediately turned away and prayed. "Please, please, please, please". Maybe I should have been more accurate with what my please was insinuating. "Wait 3 minutes" is what every test says. Again, screw 3 minutes. It was more like 45 seconds. I went back and it was like I started speaking in tongues. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no...you get the point. I was freaking out. Crying. What am I going to do? I was done. This isn't funny God. I have nothing. Not even my husband. I JUST ACCEPTED THE FACT I HAD TO TAKE CARE OF 4 KIDS ALONE FOR A YEAR, AND NOW YOU'RE GIVING ME ANOTHER?!! AND...he wasn't even awake for me to freak out with because his stupid time is 15 hours ahead of mine!! Which makes it worse if you think about it because it was like 9am or 10am the next day his time and HE WAS STILL ASLEEP! I don't get that now nor will I within the next year for sure. No seriously guys, I know he would trade every day of getting to sleep in to be here with his kids. Could you imagine...he's not on some vacation like most think...he's alone. Every holiday, every birthday, every big celebration (like this one) for an entire year...he misses. And I know that sometimes I'd like a few more hours of sleep in the morning, but he's the one making the true sacrifice, not me. Wiping my tears...I tried video chatting my sister. Not once, but twice she didn't answer. So I texted her "I don't care if you're having sex...answer me!! I NEED YOU!!" Of course that's just the humor we share but I was serious. So I called her. You know, that thing where you actually put the phone to your ear and hear someone on the other end? Almost unheard of in this generation. She said she'd be home soon and we'd chat then. Asked what was wrong and if everything was okay. I told her yes, but I really needed to talk to her. She video chats me, and hears the frantic in my voice so I just show her. The test. She's freaking EXCITED! But tries to hide it. We go over what must've "happened".

Family and friends that don't want to know TMI, don't read the below paragraph. I'm warning you now. VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED!

The week before he left we had sex twice (I tried typing intercourse but that sounds even dirtier than sex). I know, I know...twice? He's leaving and you only gave it up twice? Okay listen here judgy Judy, one- that was just the week prior to him leaving and two- we just moved into quite a big mess that we were scrambling to do last minute fix ups before he left and neither of us had much stamina...okay maybe I'm only speaking for myself. We don't do birth control and we don't do condoms. Have never liked either plus we have two birth control babies. We use whats called the "pull-out method". We keep track of my cycle (I even have an app) and usually we can gage when the ovulation period is and we just pull-out. And usually if I know we're in the clear I'll tell him he doesn't have to worry about it or if we're not in the clear I don't say anything expecting him to know (and usually he's good about keeping track too). We've realized these last two months that its a backwards concept and should be the other way around. The first of the two times I told him we were in the clear...the second of the two times I didn't say anything...except the not saying anything agreement we had, wasn't what he was thinking about. So it was as if I told him we were in the clear. Later I said to him, you heifer! You didn't pull out. I didn't say anything so I thought that was your cue. He responded with, well I wasn't thinking clearly and besides I checked the dates and we should be in the clear. I rechecked and agreed that yeah we should...

And two weeks later...

I blamed him. He just couldn't leave me alone. Not even a week before you left for a year then you'd come back and have a vasectomy because we WERE done...and you just had to prove that your swimmers were still champions. It was no ones fault. But at the time I needed someone to blame.

Me and Myra calmly start talking but I'm still kind of throwing my pity party. I'm not going to breast feed. I'm getting every drug I can. But then the five words come out....

Maybe it'll be a GIRL!

Freaking A! My fears very slightly start turning to excitement. I ended the video chat with her because my husband had messaged me he was up. I sent him this...

along with...boy this would be good with a lemonade! See, you guys are like what?... But him, he knew. Lemonade and snickers are my two tall tales that I'm pregnant. Not really. But it's something I really craved with one of my pregnancies and it just stuck. He was in complete shock. Apologizing, poor fella. And while I thought he'd totally get me freaking out and he'd freak out just as much as me instead of getting excited like my mental----ly loving sister, he said the exact 5 words...

Maybe it'll be a GIRL!

My towel is in guys. I'm excited now. Already picking out names and planning our future as a family of 7. Maybe it will be our second girl. But our odds are it'll be our 5th boy. And while all of us, kids and family, are pulling for the pink hamburger...we'll be just as joyful and blessed for a blue hotdog. 10-14 days we'll know and hope you'll join us in celebrating!

So now world, you know our secret blessing. It's been SO hard not letting it slip and I'm SO proud of the kids because they've known just a few days shy since we've known. When we first got here, we were asked by many who had never really seen our full family together if we were going to have anymore. And I could say with absolute surety, no we were not. But then I found out right before Thanksgiving and again I got "the question". I had to learn how to re-phrase my words in hopes they wouldn't catch on by saying "we weren't planning on it" and quickly changing the subject to Maxtin. I didn't want to announce it until we had our first ultrasound and even then I thought it would be a pretty sweet Christmas gift to give to family and friends. With the help of a few friends, Olive & Rose Brittney Jones and Lindsey James Photography, here you have the Ryan's very first (and probably only) Christmas card pregnancy announcement: