It's a Surprise

When we were initially trying to get pregnant my husband and I both said we wanted a girl. At that time it seemed like all of our friends were having girls and besides, they
have such cute clothes! But finally my friend Gina had the most beautiful baby boy, Gavin, and I started to realize what a blessing a boy would be too. I even had this vision when I was pregnant the first time of a little toe-headed boy following Cory around with his little tools helping daddy fix things around the house. My heart melted thinking of this.

After losing a pregnancy I was just excited to finally be pregnant again! It truly made no difference to me whether we had a boy or a girl. While preparing for several baby showers I threw for my friends I came across the idea of a surprise shower where the baby's sex was revealed to the couple. My husband and I thought this was a fabulous idea. We didn't necessarily want the sex revealed on the baby's birthday, but didn't want to find out at the time of the ultrasound.

Spot in Time Photography

Many people said we were crazy. And I will admit that registering for clothes was difficult. The nursery theme was easy to come up with. I found Dick and Jane fabric several years back and decided that would be the theme. It works well for boy and girl. But, finding bold colors for nursery stuff is not easy. Lucky for me my mother-in-law sews. I did register for lots of brown, green, yellow and blue things. I figured we could dress a girl in blue, but a boy in pink? Not so much.

My mother was very unhappy with our decision to wait. Because of this I decided that we would let a few people know the baby's sex, my mom, my dad, and Cory's parents if they wanted to know. The fewer people that knew the less likely someone would slip and tell us on accident.

So on the day of the ultrasound my father and my grandma came with us as well. The technician showed us our little baby, it's face, it's little feet that had been kicking me in the rib cage, the little hands. We were in LOVE! When it came time to reveal the sex she asked us to close our eyes. She captured the image and typed a g for girl on it, printed it and placed it in a sealed envelope. When we had finished she made sure my dad knew we were having a girl. It would be my dad's job to e-mail my mom and Cory's parents with the revelation. The envelope was to go to the four ladies throwing my shower.

There was about three months between the ultrasound and the shower. In that time many people shared their thoughts on what we were going to have. Most people said it was a boy. "You're all baby." "You're carrying him high so it must be a boy." My acupuncturist guessed girl because my linea (the line that forms on a pregnant woman's lower abdomen) was not centered with my belly button and because, she said, I had craved spicy early on (a brief craving of Slim Jims). I even had a client I had just met ask me when my BOY was due. "Oh, I'm having a boy?" She was positive it was a boy. I became so convinced that I started thinking of the baby in my womb as a boy. And my husband figured that since he wanted a girl so badly that it was bound to be a boy. At work they had a contest where they asked everyone to guess the baby's sex and birth date. All but two guessed boy. I even made my husband finally decide on a boy's name. The girl's name came easily for us and had been decided on much earlier. But my husband and I could not agree on a boy's name. After spending a lifetime with one of the most common names I was adamant our child would not have the same name as 20 of it's playmates. My husband thought this was absurd, but I would not back down. The baby's name would not he in the top 50.

I left the reveal up to my friends throwing the shower. They were initially going to let all the guests know the baby's sex, but thought that someone would end up accidentally revealing it to us prematurely. I was kind of disappointed by this because I wanted to get some boy or girl clothes, but realized I had plenty of friends to stock my drawers with hand-me-downs. Besides, you end up getting more of the essentials that way. In between the ultrasound and the shower I had been thoroughly confused. There were times where people seemed to slip, but it was never the same sex. So that didn't help!

The shower was sock monkey themed. They couldn't find Dick and Jane stuff, but wanted it to be retro. We ate and played games and had a great time. Just before the gifts were opened my husband showed up. He and I would open the gifts together. We got many useful things from our guests. Then my friend Shaunna handed me her gift that was wrapped half in pink and half in blue. This would be the big reveal. I pulled open the lid and saw a pink outfit and an aqua one. I was still confused, especially because I was convinced I was having a boy. Then I saw the pink bubble gum cigar box stating "It's a girl!" My husband had already realized it and let out a shout of joy. Tears welled up in my eyes, partially sad because I felt like I was losing a boy I was convinced I was carrying, but also joyous because I now knew I was carrying little Evangeline inside of me.

As you can tell, Cory is very excited.  I think I'm just about to figure it out.  

A couple of weeks later my work threw me a lovely shower at a tea room. At this shower I received all the cutesy pink things so I still got my girly stuff. My friend, Shauna gave me more girl clothes than I could ever use and my mother packed an entire suitcase of girl clothes to be split between Evangeline and her cousin, Ruby, who joined the family on October 26, 2010. We are truly tickled pink!