It's A....

We had the 20-week ultrasound yesterday.  I was so excited I could barely sleep.  I dreamt most of the night about a big neon sign flashing the baby's gender in my bedroom- the wrong gender, no less.  I realized how truly motivating it would be to take the excitement we felt and use it to power through labor and decided that is something I definitely want to do someday.  Maybe with our last baby.

Everything looked good in the ultrasound, at least from what we could see (the techs never tell you anything!) and we decided to have a special FHE last night to tell Leah and Adam.  They were bouncing off the walls crazy all night long (this is a Monday night trend in our home) so I was a little concerned about how they would act or if they would even hear us over their own shrills and shrieking.  We had a few ultrasound pictures from each of my pregnancies and a few books from the library to cover the basic questions we expected to get.  Earlier in the day we practiced what we were going to say and even Jason couldn't deliver the "very special hug" line without cracking up.  Our kids are in big trouble, indeed.

And it went great!  As soon as we told them Leah declared, "Just what I've always wanted!" and began petting and poking at my stomach.  Even Adam sat quietly for a few minutes to look at pictures and said, "bebe" once or twice.  We talked about how big the baby would get and how long it would take to get to August.  Then before long Leah decided she wanted to act like a newborn baby and Adam went back to jumping off the couch and the craziness resumed.

So what were we talking about all this time?

It's a girl!

We are all thrilled for so many reasons- Leah is so excited to have a brother and a sister now, this baby girl will share my birth order in our families, and Jason is confident that he knows how to handle girls (he does just fine with his boy, too).

I'm thrilled to have the cat out of the bag.  Leah immediately became more cautious about jumping onto my lap and now I can say things like, "It's naptime.  I'm tired and the baby's tired, so let's all go to sleep."   And it works!

Now the work begins, too- I have saved just about every piece of clothing my kids have ever worn, and now I have to sort through it all.  I'm not sure what I'll find- Leah was born the dead of winter, and this baby girl is coming in the height of summer, so it could have all been for nothing.  

And there's the name game.  I think my criteria is still the same- two syllables, soft sounds, nothing crazy-unusual, possibly Biblical.  In the meantime, we'll just be calling her this-

But mostly it's just excitement.  We're having a girl!  A sweet, cuddly little baby girl- yay!