Sunday, July 17, 2011

The Great Gender Reveal

Today was the big day! Alex and I went to Lexington with our parents and his grandmother this afternoon to find out if there are hair bows or Tonka trucks in our future. The Baby Belly Spa was so cute! It was kind of hilarious to browse through the "hooter hiders" and belly cast kits with my mom. I told her that belly casts make good chip and dip servers ;) Personally, I wouldn't want a model of my belly or my "girls" hanging on the wall in my house, but, to each her own.

They took us all into the "viewing room", complete with a sofa, chairs and flat-screen tv and I almost forgot why we were there because it's just so cool to see your baby on the screen! It's all, "Awwww! Look at the face! There's an arm! What is that we're looking at?" We heard the heartbeat, 134 bpm, which had slowed down a lot from our first ultrasound. Then the ultrasound tech told us that the baby's legs were crossed. Oh no! But I'd been praying against that! Thankfully, the diet Dr. Pepper I drank and the apple I ate on the way up did the trick and Little Bit moved around like crazy and got into a better position for us to take a peek. And.....drum roll, please.....we're having a little girl!!! We're going to have a little Natalie around Christmas!!! I'm so excited!!!

Alex is going to be great with a daughter. Now I want to buy him the Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters book that we heard about on Dave Ramsey's radio show. I can't wait to see Alex in action as a daddy! He's a natural with kids and I love that about him. This week couldn't have started out any better!

Friday, July 15, 2011

Oh Baby Boy? Or Girl?

So many changes are ahead as I try to prepare myself for motherhood. I'm so excited to start this new adventure! I'm 16 weeks and 4 days into this journey now and it's already really exciting. Our parents are going with us to Lexington this weekend to find out our baby's gender!!! So many people have asked if I have any "mother's intuition" about what I'm having, but I honestly don't know one way or the other. I've been trying to guard my heart against favoring one gender over the other so that I'm not disappointed if I'm wrong. How awful would it be to tell your child when they ask what your reaction was to finding out what they were that you were sad or disappointed? I want to be able to tell them that I was thrilled and excited! My brother-in-law was so upset to find out that he wasn't having a son that he wouldn't speak to anyone for two days.

It's going to be great to get out of the house, away from our smelly wet floors and have some quality time with the grandparents-to-be (we're waiting to hear from the insurance company about what the assessment is before repairs can begin. In the meantime, the kitchen and dining room smell moldy and gross). Some friends of ours are expecting their baby girl at any moment, so hopefully we'll get to celebrate with them this weekend, too!

Here's how the belly looked after work today (I'm the most un-photogenic person on earth! Ugh!):

Monday, July 4, 2011

New Beginnings

Today was the icing on the cake to a terrific holiday weekend; I got to meet Alex's three oldest nephews for the first time. Alex reconnected with the boys on Saturday after a ten-year separation that was due to extenuating family circumstances. In the past, Alex has tried to downplay his disappointment about not having a relationship with the boys, but once the arrangements were made for them to visit their grandparents for two weeks, he got really excited. He spent the weekend going to the water park and then to the movies with them while I had other previous engagements.

I was nervous on the ride over to my in-laws' house today because what if the boys didn't like me? What if it was really awkward trying to relate to three teenagers? We ate lunch and then had a corn-hole tournament wherein my father-in-law and youngest nephew proceeded to beat everyone else in the family.

The boys were all very sweet and things went really well. God is so good to work things out, at least for now, where the family can hopefully continue to build a relationship with the boys even after they go back home. Their being able to visit was a long-awaited answer to prayer for many family members and we pray that this is just one of many to come.