Aaaannnd . . . I'm back. With a baby bump.

I know, I know. I can hear your squeals of delight all the way across the blogosphere. Wait, maybe if I listen closely, there will be one or two tiny leetle squeals. Or sighs. Or maybe even a few eye rolls, accompanied by the thought that you just knew that I couldn't shut down ze blog for ever.

Well, okay, you're right. I couldn't.  It's not that I love attention. I mean, I kinda do. It's not that I missed primping and preening in front of the camera. I mean, I kinda did.  It's not that I had time leftover at the end of the day and nothing to fill it, because that certainly didn't happen.  But see, here's what did happen.

And I kinda wanted to tell all of my friends about it. So, I did. In real life and then on Facebook and then on Instagram... But then I felt like I was forgetting someone. And I was. You! And then, this super cool mom of three said she wanted to hear how I found out... So, this is happening.

I know, I know, getting pregnant with your third isn't reallly all that big of a deal. But let me tell you why this was such a shocker.  Two 1/2 years ago (actually on this very day), Nate had "the surgery." You know the one I'm talking about right? We had our little boy. We had our little girl. And we had complete peace that our family was complete. So to avoid birth control and all that jazz, we went straight to the source.

When my husband went in for his consult, he asked the doctor about the stories you hear about people having babies after a vasectomy. The doctor assured him that this was the way to. "A vasectomy is virtually fail proof.  Those stories you hear?  Their wives are cheating on them." That's what the doc said, so we went with it.

Then 2 1/2 happy years later....

I had been feeling nauseated for about a week and a half. It was on and off, but I didn't think much of it. I'm a teacher and there's always some sort of bug going around the classroom. I just assumed I was on the verge of catching something.  You know, I had all the pregnancy symptoms, but I wasn't putting them together. For obvious reasons, I just chalked it up to being "about to start." I wasn't sure exactly when I was supposed to start because I wasn't tracking my period anymore... So, I just kept thinking it was just around the corner.  Then I noticed that my belly started "popping out" a little bit.

Weird. I mean, I was still running and doing crossfit, but at the end of the day, I'd joke with Nate that I looked pregnant. Then with all the weird nausea and other symptoms, two Saturdays ago, I started joking that maybe I was pregnant. All day long, on that Saturday, I went back and forth between starving to death to feeling like I was going to hurl. Then at about 5:00, I ate a pickle. And it completely calmed my stomach.

And I got reallllly nervous.

So, on Sunday, I picked up a pregnancy test. I didn't tell Nate because I didn't want to hear all about how it was a waste of money when it came up negative. So, I ran into the bathroom when I got home from the store and that thing lit up like a beacon.  I didn't have to wait minutes or even seconds. That thing was positive the second my pee hit the stick.

I kicked the kids out of the room, closed the door and showed it to Nate.... who just laughed. Then I laughed. I mean, what else could we do? This was the very LAST thing we were expecting. We've gotten rid of every single baby thing in the house. My Little Miss has finally, officially moved up to panties, even at night. We're out of the baby stage... Or so we thought.

We quickly came to grips that clearly, this was God's plan. Nate went back to the doctor and sure enough, out of 2500 vasectomies that this doctor has performed, Nate is only the second one to have his tubes not just grow back, but also reconnect.  So, obviously, God has bigger plans for our family that we initially thought.

And so I'm back... to document this little journey from a family of 4 to a family of 5. And maybe share an outfit or two.  I can't promise I'll post regularly, but I'll post occasionally. ;)

Here's my 8 week belly. Really, it's crazy how fast my belly is popping out this time around.

Top: Gap

Skirt: Monroe and Main

Shoes: Target

How have the rest of you been in my absence?