I was happy. My life was great. I had lost fifty pounds of baby weight. I had changed my last diaper. All three of my children were in school. I was starting to have a social life again. I was having leisurely lunches (meaning not controlled by my children’s attention span) and going to spin classes. I was starting to find balance as a mother and an individual. Then something happened. Had I had too many leisurely lunches and not enough spin classes? I seemed to be gaining weight. A friend suggested that maybe it was my thyroid. Then I got a vicious flu. I found myself with my head in the toilet for several days and I wasn’t getting better. That same friend suggested maybe I was pregnant.
   

All I could do was laugh. She was crazy! I was confident she was wrong. I so kindly reminded her I already had three children. I was tapped out on love. Not to mention, I was sleeping through the night after nine years and my son had finally mastered the art of peeing into the toilet instead of all over the seat and the floor (which happened to be carpet.) We were making forward progress. While the kids were in school, I was finally having “me” time again. Why would I go and get pregnant? I was sure I had some mysterious illness that was causing me to gain weight and throw-up. I did research on the internet trying to figure out what disease caused you to throw-up and gain weight. Funny, how the results kept turning up pregnancy.
   

I called my friend and told her I was most likely dying from some unknown disease. She told me to get a pregnancy test. I then assured her (or reassured myself) that my husband and I had been on a hiatus from any activity that leads to pregnancy. Well, with the exception of a hazy July evening after a night out with my girlfriends, but I was positive that I had my period right after that, because my daughter, then five, had a pool party and I was bloated and didn’t feel like wearing a bathing suit. Then she asked me if I had my period since then, as it was September? My memory went completely blank. She told me to get a pregnancy test. I didn’t.
   

Two weeks passed and I was having lunch with some girlfriends. I told them how I had been feeling sick and I was sure it was some mysterious illness, stress or my thyroid and I went on and on about how a friend and the internet thought I was pregnant, but that was impossible because my husband and I surely had not spent enough time together to conceive. Except, that has hazy evening in July, but that was less than a minute and— but before I could continue my friend looked at me with a deadpan expression and asked, “Did you take sex ed in school?”
   

Before I could answer, memories of seventh grade sex education flooded my mind. I remembered the horror of putting condoms on bananas and sticking maxi pads into a pair of underwear that was passed around the class and then there were the videos. I think the most embarrassing video was about a boy who had his first wet dream. If only my friends knew I had failed the test, because I was so embarrassed by the questions I couldn’t bring myself to answer them correctly. Instead I tried to be funny. I remember one of the questions on the test was, Rubbers are the street name for “fill in the blank” and I put galoshes, instead of condoms, which by the way, would have come in handy on my hazy night in July. So much for my sex education! I could only give my friend a meek, “Yes.” And my girlfriend’s deadpan response was, “A minute is enough.”
   

After lunch, I found myself at the drugstore staring at pregnancy tests, questioning why I was there? I was done having children. I had donated all of our baby furniture to Catholic Charities. I wasn’t pregnant, I was dying, but there I was staring at all the tests. I started thinking about that minute I had with my husband in July. A minute baby? There’s minute rice, minute eggs, but minute babies? It was pathetic! Finally, I grabbed the least expensive test. Something I had failed to do the first three times. Why waste money now? The result would be the same or would it? Had I secretly hoped the bargain brand would work in my favor? What was I worried about? I was confident that I was not pregnant, so what was the problem?
   

On my way to the register I grabbed a magazine to hide the pregnancy test and just as I had tried my best to be discreet, as the cashier scanned my items, she looked up at me, smiled and exclaimed, “Do you think you are pregnant? You already have three children, don’t you?” An elderly woman behind me muttered something about birth control and I just looked at the cashier smiling at me with her overdone, dark blue eye shadow and black eyeliner trying to force a smile, but the whole time wondering if she missed the training class on cashier etiquette? Not that I was a cashier or had cashier training, but I would assume there must be some training clause the states, “never comment on what a person is buying, especially when it comes to products like pregnancy tests and anti-fungal creams.” I couldn’t get out of the store fast enough and to the nearest bathroom.
   

It was only minutes later that I found myself starring at my friends in disbelief. Having to admit that my girlfriend and the internet had been correct. I was pregnant. For the fourth time! Twelve weeks to be exact. I had made it through the first trimester unbeknownst to me. As my girlfriends were congratulating me, I was trying to figure out how I was going to tell my husband.
   

I’ll never forget the moment I told him. For some reason, I thought if I told him I was dying first, it would be easier to handle the news. He came home from work and I used my own deadpan expression. “We have to talk. Alone. In the bedroom.” He followed me and then I told him he better sit down. I could tell he was nervous. Then I blurted out, “I am dying!” And before he could react, I said, “I am just kidding, I am pregnant!” And to my surprise he was overjoyed by the prospect of having four children and that I was not dying. In fact he proudly stated, “We have another chance to get it right!”
   

Now, two and a half years later, we have Jack, our almost two year old. The final piece to our family. The boy who wakes up every morning with a smile on his face. The boy who looks forward to being around his two sisters, brother, father and mother. The boy who is happy to ride in the car for three hours a day dropping off and picking up his siblings from school. He’s the boy who follows me around everywhere I go, whether I am jogging with my girlfriends, having lunch with my Bunko sisters or volunteering at school. He’s there. He is everybody’s baby. Taking in everything. Watching everyone. Reminding me of how precious these early years are. Reminding me how wonderful it is to be a mother.
   

What I know now that I wish I had known before becoming a parent— is that my heart had enough love for four children, because there were moments, back when I had one child, when I questioned, could I love a second, and then a third? I had my three. I thought three times was a charm. Just when I thought I was done, exhausted from nursing, being up three times a night, changing an estimated 20,440 diapers, doing some 8,840 loads of laundry and every other job that comes with motherhood, I found out that I was having a fourth child. I questioned whether I had more love to give? Was there enough love in my heart? I wish I had known the secret then, because the truth, even in my most tired motherhood moment, I look at my fourth, my Jack, and I know in my life, I am four times a mother. I have four times the smiles, four times the hugs and four times the love, because four times is a charm!

Liza Marchant is writer who lives in Dana Point, California with her husband, four children and sulcata tortoise. When she is not busy writing and mothering, she enjoys watching her girls play soccer, running (training for marathons), book clubs ( even if she never seems to finish the books) and the sisterhood of her Bunko group, which is not to be confused with actually playing Bunko. She hopes to finish her first novel this year.