The year of firsts.

That was a pretty big year for us.

We both made leaps in our careers, bought our house, and I fell pregnant with our eldest.

My husband got a new job as a department head at an agri-tech company, where they design and build those big tractors and stuff, while I made senior sub-editor at my current company. We lost both of my grandparents unfortunately, but combined with my inheritance, we had enough to take out a mortgage and bought the house we still currently live in. It was more of a fixer-upper than it is now, but we could not be happier when we brought our first load of stuff to the driveway. We already had the kitchen, the master and guest bedrooms, bathrooms, and living room redone, so we could spare a bit of time figuring out our own spaces, and used the rest for basically storage until we knew what to use it for.

Now, I say fell pregnant like it was an accident, but the truth is, is that we've already known that we wanted kids pretty early, but it wouldn't have been financially and spatially responsible. But once we got settled in a couple of months later, we sat down one night and had the most detailed and serious discussion we've ever had. We talked and argued for hours, attacking and defending each other's points, coming at it from every single possible angle we could think of, until finally, as the sun was coming up, we had both come to a consensus. At dinner, I told him that I'd arranged an appointment with my gynie to have my IUD taken out ASAP.

While I was there, I also made sure to get some advice about my cycle as to when I was most fertile, and if there would be anything we would need to worry about. Thankfully, she gave me the all clear and said if there was nothing wrong after my next period, I was pretty much good to go whenever.

You know when you're not supposed to do something, it makes you want to do it even more? That was us with sex. We wanted to have this baby basically immediately, so to boost our chances, we both agreed to hold off on any hanky-panky to give my body time to normalize after being on birth control, and to let his boys cook up some good and healthy swimmers. (Someone told me this was an old wives tale, or a fallacy, but we weren't taking chances.) And to address the elephant in the room (ie. ME), I did start working on improving my health when we moved. I may still be a fat fuck, but I carried all 4 of our kids to term with no complications!

My husband took that however-long dry spell pretty well, saying that it was basically defaulting back to before he met me, but it was literal Hell for me. No birth control meant that I got hornier than usual. My tits weren't being played with or sucked on, so they started to get backed up with milk, making them firmer and more sensitive than ever. The physical intimacy between us was down to slight smooches and the quick hug. Rancher's self control has to be some kind of miracle, because whenever he'd hug me from behind and get his hands around my stomach, I could feel it in his fingers how much he wanted to just reach up for a squeeze. I'd beg him to do it, even just a little bit, but he knew that if he did, we'd end up with our clothes off, and that we'd probably fuck something up. So he'd growl, angrily, and then take in a deep loud breath, right next to my ear, before letting go of me and stomping away to go do something to burn himself out.

Unfortunately, that usually ended up with him coming back sweaty and smelling of man. Then I'd have to retreat to my space until he showered so I could keep my hands to myself.