so with our daughter jia we decided to be surprised and wait until the birth to find out the gender. it was a ton of fun, and i totally recommend it! after a hard 36 hour labor it was a pretty cool moment to look down and learn i had a baby girl.
probably some of my other favorite things about waiting to find out were hearing everyone's guesses and wives tales, and getting a lot of practical baby gifts rather than being over loaded with blue or pink. however i'd say the cons were the annoyance of constantly being asked what i was having, and being terrified every time i visited the doctor's office that someone would give it away! lol.
so this time we went into the pregnancy totally prepared to not find out the gender again. however one day my husband had a change of heart and suggested that maybe we could find out this time since there's a good chance this will be our last child, just to experience it both ways.
at first i wasn't sold on the idea, but then when jia started saying she wanted a "girl baby" and i realized she wouldn't be there in the delivery room to share the moment of truth with us i changed my mind. this is a big life event for all of us as a family now, so we decided to share as much of it as we could with jia in a fun way.
my family was meeting up with us for my birthday the same week as our 20 week ultrasound, so it seemed like a good time to do an intimate little gender reveal party.
during the ultrasound anatomy scan we asked the tech to seal the gender up in an envelope for us rather than tell us right there. strangely we were watching the whole ultrasound and didn't even notice when she took a peek at the genitals. i usually have no idea what i'm looking at unless someone tells me apparently!
later that day we handed the envelope off to our good friends with instructions. we decided to do the whole balloons in a box style of reveal since jia loves both balloons and opening gifts...it seemed like a win/win!
on the day of the reveal jia started to change her tune and say she wanted a boy baby. after some conversation we realized she didn't really know the difference between a boy and a girl...try explaining that one to a toddler! lol.
let me preface the big news by saying that another reason i was ok with finding out this time was that i knew i would be completely equally happy with either outcome. with our first pregnancy i had a slight secret preference for a girl, just because i knew that was what shomik really wanted! so since we already had our girl that took some pressure off. but i loved the idea of this one being a girl so that jia would have a sister, which is something i never had and i hear it can be such a special relationship. also, from a practical standpoint, since the babies will be almost exactly 3 years apart, and of jia's girl stuff would totally work for another girl. but my husband and i are also both from families of 2 kids of the opposite gender, so a family with a boy and girl is something we're familiar with, and a boy would be fun and new!
but i knew that God would give us whatever we needed, so we were excited for the box to reveal....
another GIRL!!!
and jia was super excited about pink balloons! lol.
so it looks like shomik will continue to be the king of the house, and he is absolutely thrilled. he told me afterwards that he was secretly hoping for another girl. i think my husband may be a bit sexist...against his own gender! lol. though i know that the father/daughter relationship is such a special one so i don't blame him for reveling in that, and i know for a fact that little girls are a blast!
i must say that so far i have no regrets about finding out. it's really fun in it's own way and i'm glad for both experiences! :)
so we're feeling very thankful and blessed, and most of all we're thankful for what looks like a healthy baby! thanks for all your love and prayers!
