Congratulations! It's a...

Hello everyone,

Well, here's the post some of you have been waiting for! (And no, we're not just going to come out and announce it right away, hee hee ;-)

(Left: me at 18 weeks)

The lead up to the ultrasound yesterday was an interesting process. Brent and I started talking about what sort of family we'd like to have a few years ago. It included a veritable gaggle of both girls and boys, biological and adopted (though don't go thinking Brangelina yet). That image still holds true in many respects, especially with regards to sex. But when we got pregnant we realized that both of us were secretly hoping our first child would be a girl. So were both sets of grandparents! But as the day when we hoped to find out grew closer, we started considering what if we are having a boy? Brent was a lot better at relaxing his hopes to accept either sex, hoping most of all for a healthy baby. I found it a bit more difficult (though of course having a healthy baby was the primary concern!). As yesterday grew closer, I thought about my two adorable nephews, Keenan and Hux, how wonderful Brent must have been as a little boy and how much I loved growing up with older brothers. I started imagining what it would be like to have a little baby boy, name him, play with him etc. And I can finally say that when we went into the appointment yesterday I was genuinely excited about having a boy as our first born.

The exam itself was a bit of a let-down. Rather than watching and learning about the baby as we'd done during previous ultrasounds, this appointment had so much for the radiologist to check that he kept the screen turned toward him and just went from measurement to measurement. Even though Brent could see the screen he said he rarely knew what he was looking at. As the time went on, I got worried that maybe the radiologist didn't know that we wanted to know the sex so he might not be looking for it, so I interrupted him to clarify that if possible, we'd love to know. He said ok, but then kept fairly quiet for the rest of the exam, evidently frustrated that our baby's head was stubbornly nestled down in my pelvis (I think it was the baby's way of accommodating what WE wanted to know by sticking its bum up in the air ;-).

Finally, 3/4 of the way through the appointment he turned to me and asked if I had any feelings about what we were having. I didn't want to say girl in case I was wrong. I finally admitted, most often a girl, but sometimes a boy too. Then he said, "If you were having a boy, what would you name him?" I jerked up, "We're having a boy?!" The radiologist smiled and just repeated the question. We flubbed around telling him we had lists but... He waited patiently then finally said, "You're having a girl." I jumped up and grabbed his arm unable to tell if he was still joking. "Really? A girl? Are you serious?!" The poor guy! He finally showed us "proof" on an ultrasound (Right: our cute baby's bottom from below with an arrow pointing to her lack of penis) just so that I would finally believe him.

So while I'm happy to say that we really would have been happy having a boy first, we're ecstatic that we're having a daughter! YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now comes the very difficult task of choosing a name... But as Brent says, at least we only have to choose one (for now)!

Looking forward to your reactions :-)

Jen, Brent, and our cantelopette