Baby Boy Lane

Last Friday was incredibly exciting for our little family! It was baby Lane's anatomy ultrasound at See Baby! It will be another week+ before I get to meet with the midwives at InTown, so I asked if they would let me go early for the anatomy ultrasound. After dealing with the craziness of switching OB offices, trying to transfer paper work, working out issues with billing, and making sure I was in the stack to get reviewed and accepted, I was kind of ecstatic to get the 5th call saying our ultrasound was scheduled! I hadn't seen or heard the heartbeat of our little one since 12 weeks and I was getting a little anxious.

I had been toying with the idea of doing a gender reveal party since before my miscarriage last March. My friend sent me the cutest blog post of one. So I asked Bo Thursday if he would be up for it and he thought it sounded fun. So I sent out a last minute email to our friends in town and it all took off from there! I knew we would do cupcakes, so all of our guests could open their own to find out the news. But I also thought having a "present" to open and doing a Christmas theme would be fun! So I asked my neighbor on Thursday afternoon if he could make 2 dozen cupcakes filled with red icing for a girl or green icing for a boy and he happily obliged! This was kind of a big deal because he has MS and I wouldn't be able to let him know the gender until just an hour or so before the party. I am VERY thankful he was up for it! For the present idea, I pulled out Bo's old "I'm the little brother" shirt and a pink dress. Then I found myself hoping the sonogram tech wouldn't think I was crazy and would help me with my requests.

Friday, I took both the girls to meet Bo in Atlanta at the perinatologist's office. I figured if either girl started going stir crazy, Bo could take them home in the van and I could follow in the car. When the called us back, all the ultrasound techs and nurses were talking about what beautiful blonde curls EC and AB have and how we make beautiful girls. So our sweet ultrasound tech asked us what we were hoping for this time. We both responded with "healthy" and meant it with our whole hearts. Even though we have two sweet, healthy girls, after the miscarriage we had a whole new appreciation for health. I asked the ultrasound tech if she would help us with a couple things for our gender reveal party and to please not let us see anything on the ultrasound. She thought it was too sweet and was excited to play along. Our tech was absolutely the best! She was so patient and helpful with the girls. When she started the utlrasound, she showed the girls the head. Immediately AB started saying, "baby, baby, baby" and continued for the next several minutes. The tech also pointed out the baby's legs and feet, which were well above his head! He did grab his right foot in his right hand after a bit and held it for the rest of the ultrasound. AB thought the ultrasound was really cool. EC was over it after about 10 minutes and wanted to play a game on daddy's phone.

Luckily our little guy was in the perfect position to show his gender :) The ultrasound tech had no hesitation about her findings and what to write down on the paper to give our neighbor (who would be making the cupcakes). She had to label the gender on the ultrasound, but only put in the first letter so we couldn't count keystrokes :) She thought of everything. She packed the blue shirt in the present box before we left. We had an extra bag with diapers in it for the dress (the diapers were in it so I wouldn't be able to tell by feeling what was in the bag.) I wanted to be surprised too! And she wrote down the gender for my neighbor, sealed it in an envelope, taped the envelope, and wrote on it so he would know if I had opened it on the way home ;)

It was such a cool experience! I feel like not knowing the gender gave us extra time to focus on the fact that our little one is healthy. It seriously brought all new meaning to the phrase to be filled with great joy, at least for me! We left the office excited about finding out the gender at the party and just incredibly grateful we have another healthy baby on the way!

The party turned out cool two! We had a house full of friends over for dinner and dessert. And at the end EC opened the present box to "reveal" the gender :) Bo said he was honestly shocked. I kind of had a feeling, but still knew not to trust it completely :) EC said she was disappointed, but on her own accord prayed for her brother that night. AB just wanted to eat cupcake!

Sorry these are blurry, I'm not sure why my iphone has been taking the worst pictures lately. It is much more sensitive since I got the lifeproof case. I may need to try out a different one. Anyway, we are all filled with joy and cannot wait to meet this little guy! Here's to hoping he looks like me and not like Bo ;)