Nine days after I arrived in Malaysia, I did the math in my head. Again.

Three pregnancy tests, and they had all been negative. But my math couldn’t be that far off, could it? So I finally stopped waiting and took another test, my heart pounding.

The second pink line appeared in seconds and instantly heart rejoiced while my body screamed why are you doing this to me again???? (My pregnancy with my first was hardly a cake walk, you see.)  In my shock, I did the only thing I could think to do–I texted a dear friend the picture, my hands shaking faster than my two-year-old’s head when I ask if he’s ready for bed. Immediately she texted back her congratulations and asked the obvious next question: Have you told your husband yet?

Oh, my dear sweet husband.

No, I hadn’t talked to him in two weeks, not since he left for two months of training in the California desert. I decided to take that time to travel to Malaysia with my one year old son and surprise my family, who have lived on a beautiful tropical island off the Malaysian coast for the past twelve years. The surprise went better than I had imagined, but the 15 hour time difference between California and Malaysia paired with the lack of cell service in the middle of the Cali desert made communication with my husband nearly impossible.

It was a few days before I told my family via “Big bro coming soon!” onesie on my little man, and then I scheduled an ultrasound first thing to determine a due date, since my own calculations were all over the place.

My mom came with me to the ultrasound appointment; the technician started doing her thing, and then we waited…and waited. I looked at the screen and saw nothing. The fetal doppler was against my belly–nothing.

I was supposed to be eight weeks along. Nothing meant I had miscarried. For the fourth time.

The doctor straightened up and looked at me, expressionless. “There is a sac but I can see no baby. You probably miscarried. If you haven’t started bleeding in two weeks, come back.”

I went home and mourned my fourth miscarriage.

Two weeks later, no signs of miscarriage, so I went back in. This time the ultrasound showed a tiny, tiny little baby, measuring at only six weeks old, about half the size of one of the carpenter bees that have been terrorizing my front porch. It was practically impossible to be six weeks along because I hadn’t seen my husband in four weeks and two days (add two weeks for hCG hormone levels to get high enough they can be detected by a pregnancy test) and I did point this out to my doctor who very unhelpfully raised her eyebrows and shrugged. I didn’t ask too many more questions after that.

However, on the forefront of my mind was also the knowledge that this was my fifth pregnancy and I only had one live child so the odds based on my history were not in my favor. Research mode kicked in immediately and I started searching for anything I could possibly do to to reduce my chances of miscarrying. Yes, most miscarriages are caused when the body detects a problem with the baby and spontaneously aborts, but after three miscarriages and a horrible pregnancy with my son, I was convinced there was more at play.

My research led me to trying something new and carrying my daughter was completely unlike any pregnancy before. Praise Jesus for how easy it is to research nowadays! That, however, is another post all in itself.

Through all of this my husband was still practically unreachable in the middle of the desert, and during the times we could communicate, we were limited to a single text every few days.

“Hey babe, you may or may not have impregnated me before you left! Yep, you did. I am with child. Okay bye talk to you in six days when your cell reception kicks back in.”

So…I didn’t tell him.

First, I knew he would also be worried due to our history with pregnancies, but more than anything, I wanted to be able to see his excitement. I did not want to text him and wait to hear back in a week that he was so happy.

As my husband suffered in the middle of the 120 degree California desert, all his friends and old teachers still in Malaysia found out that he would soon be having another baby. His time came soon enough–when I arrived back in the United States, I was eleven weeks along and I told my husband our children were about to double and he was thrilled. Also slightly terrified because 2x the kids? Eek.

Since I obviously am so keen on surprises, we decided to wait to tell his family for two months until we could tell them in person over Thanksgiving, but due to a family member seeing what I thought was a private post in a private group on Facebook and alerting the rest of the squad, they all found out the day after my husband did. Praise the Lord I had arrived home the day before or my husband would have found out via text anyway, and been much more confused afterwards. Lesson learned: don’t keep secrets, keep surprises, and make sure your family knows the difference when they do find out.

Two weeks after I arrived back in the US, my husband left again, and I decided to wait to announce it to the world until he came back and we could take announcement pictures; then the more I thought about it and how little we have to ourselves as a family due to my blog and social media, the less I wanted the world to know. Thus, my secret pregnancy came to be. Friends and family and anyone who saw my belly knew because boy, that belly was not hiding, but I certainly did my very best to keep it off my Facebook feed.

You’d think it would be hard.

Yeah, it totally wasn’t. I don’t like posting pictures of myself on social media one bit and so I didn’t, then when it was unavoidable, I kept it to head shots or pictures of myself with strategically placed children and/or pillows. I definitely looked, er, rounder, but nobody was about to comment and ask, “are you pregnant or did you just gain lots of weight?” Yep, I just let them all think I had eaten too much Christmas dinner. It was a brilliant plan.

Somehow I was able to keep this up for the entire nine months baby girl was cooking in the oven. On a mid-March Sunday evening, my husband fed me a ridiculously greasy and spicy meal to try to kick start labor that I had to choke down because I’m not kidding when I say ridiculous and my Braxton-Hicks were out of control within the hour. Because I was so ready to meet my little girl, we went to the hospital in the middle of the night even though I knew fully well I wasn’t in legitimate labor–patience is not my strong point–and literally seconds before we were discharged the nurse rushed in to inform me of what could be a major issue with my daughter and she was born the next day.

But that’s a story for next time.

Part two coming soon.