In case you didn’t figure it out from the link in my previous post, here’s my little (currently “about the size of a peanut”) surprise: Yep, I’m pregnant. Pretty soon we’ll be thinking in odd numbers again: Five kids. Seven family members. Three carseats in the Caravan. Etc.

It’ll be my first-ever spring baby (my kids currently have September, October, November and December birthdays), the first time I’ll be pregnant on Christmas or New Year’s, and so far (crossing my fingers–I’m 11 weeks) the first time I’ve made it all the way through the first trimester without throwing up.

It feels funny to announce this since as late as May we were still waffling on whether or not we wanted more kids at all. Though my life is full with four, I enjoyed adding the fourth to our family so much that it really opened me to the possibility of more. I love the noise, the chaos and the bustling feeling of a house full of kids. And when it came down to it, my two most sticky reasons for not having another were: 1) I didn’t feel like being pregnant/giving birth again and 2) As it stood, my last child would be 18 when I was 46. That felt so young and I really clung to that number in my mind as some kind of trophy. But while I think those are generally both very valid reasons to stop, for me, they just weren’t compelling enough (after all, pregnancy is over in a blink — heck, I’m almost 1/3 of the way through already and I’m still adjusting to the idea! — and labor/birth, if you’re me, is just a few hours, and relatively easy hours at that. And 49 isn’t that much older than 46, anyway.)

Once we made up our minds to give it another go, we figured the faster the better, since neither of us are getting any younger, and I like having kids relatively close together (didn’t want to have to have a sixth just to give #5 his/her own buddy) And wouldn’t you know it…I’m just as crazy-fertile as I was four years ago.

I’m just barely showing (to me, anyway–others swear that you could never tell unless you already knew) and am bracing myself for the onslaught of “What? FIVE? Are you NUTS?” But I had plenty of practice with #4, so I’ll be in a much better place to just laugh and let it slide off my back…and as much as I was dreading the preggo part, I’m quite enjoying being pregnant this time around. As with anything else, it seems experience makes pregnancy–and dealing with silly comments–that much easier. Now let’s just hope the same can be said for the fifth birth, too.