Sugar and Spice?

We've always been in the "surprise me" camp when it comes to finding out what gender of child is in my burgeoning belly. The only exception was Joshua, who's only time with us was in the womb, and we wanted to know him as much as we could.

Both of us like the suspense and the excitement of one of the only major good surprises around. We enjoy picking alternate names and imagining our family different ways. It seems to help me during labor to have a puzzle I really want to solve at the end. I truly felt that Bridger was a boy, so his birth wasn't as surprising but I couldn't tap into any maternal mojo with Asher. The same has been true with this pregnancy. After three boys I can't imagine anything else being in there.

But this time we were a little more open to finding out mostly because we're decorating a new room and we are so stumped on names that we wanted to narrow the field a bit. Some of the first ultrasounds weren't conclusive, but at the very last one (28 weeks) we had the doctor write down the gender. On our overnight trip to Denver a few days later we opened the envelope--GIRL!

So we told our families and were excited for a week or so and then began to regret it. Everyone, from those who originally begged us to find out to the check-out girl at Target, suddenly had a story about their cousin's best friend's sister who had their whole nursery decorated in pink, only to give birth to a boy. Mind you, most of these people telling the story had correct ultrasounds for their six children and some of these botched ultrasound stories are from the mid-19th century (or at least ten years ago), but it's getting a little old. Yes, I'm sure those wily boys can sometimes hide their third leg, but I suddenly feel like the first-time mom who is subject to all the emergency highway c-section stories from well-meaning mothers of five.

Needless to say we are thrilled about our HEALTHY baby, girl or boy. And for all of you out there who are excited that I will finally have an ally in the house and want to buy some pink, go right ahead. But according to the rest of the free world, keep the receipt!