O'Neill army

The O’Neill’s are building an army. Baby number four is due to arrive this July.
After coming out of the darkness of a really tough year this is a beautiful blessing for us, a true light in the dark. We couldn’t be happier. Well maybe I’d be just a tad happier if I could stomach food other than water and Rice Crispies and didn’t want to hurl when someone makes a cup of coffee within a three-mile radius.
We went for the scan last week and the doctor confirmed that the hardcore morning, noon and night sickness was indeed caused by a baby and not by a bad bout of food poisoning that had lasted for 14 weeks.
We had almost forgotten – after all it was a whole 17 months ago when we actually were down this road last – that there is so much joy to behold in pregnancy, 24-hour sickness, horrifying elasticated waistbanded Mom jeans, getting fat, not being able to properly view your feet when required, looking forward to the agonising birth, the months of sleepless nights and the wandering around zombie-like in baby-puke covered clothes for six months.
There is, of course, the wonderful side of pregnancy and new parenthood – people offering up bus seats, a gorgeously cute and deliciously sweet-scented baby as an end result and getting a licence to eat copious amounts of chocolate cake without feeling guilty.
When we arrived at the scan clinic there was a pile of folders, some skinny (for the first time Mums) some big and fat (for the veterans like me). I was embarrassed by the fact that one of the midwives knew me on sight and shouted ‘are you back already?’ up the corridor, her chuckles echoing through the waiting room.
While the first-time Mums were treated with cotton gloves and patted on the head the midwife told me that I was now a childbirth professional, to fill in the forms and just phone them and let them know when I deliver the baby so that they could update their records. They said that by this stage I should be able to have a baby myself with my eyes closed. Oh, how we all laughed.
As we already have three boys I would be thrilled to have a daughter but another boy would be wonderful too.
I remember talking with a woman in the waiting room after having a scan of our last baby. The husband and I were laughing about the fact that ours was a boy again. The lady, who’s age I would have estimated at around 50, told us that at last she was delighted to be having a girl. I asked her how many boys she had. She said nine.
Nine boys, as in one less than 10.
Nine rowdy little boys wrecking her house, drawing on her walls, feeding pot pourri to the dog, flushing her ornaments down the toilet, peeing in plant pots, demanding biscuits and fighting over the TV remote. No wonder the woman looked 50. She said she had always wanted a daughter and had kept going until she got one.
I will not be that soldier.
If God gives us another little boy I think we’ll stop there and be thankful for our blessings, which are already immense.