Yesterday was the big day.  Baby Sex Day, as Derek likes to call it.  He thinks the shock of the wording is funny.  I think so too.  So, Derek went with me to the doctor yesterday to find out what we were having.  They called us right back for the ultrasound.  We were taken a little off guard that we were doing that 1st thing, but we were still very excited.  The technician scanned the baby’s head, kidneys, bladder, and limbs, and then she moved on to the moment of truth. IT’S A BOY!  Just as she said those three little words a tear ran down my cheek.

We invited close friends and family over for the big reveal last night.  I thought it would be fun to reveal the baby’s gender to everyone by having everyone bite into a “baby” sized cupcake and finding either pink or blue on the inside.  We also picked up some BBQ sandwiches from a local BBQ joint, Central BBQ.  It was so yummy.

Once we got home from the doctor’s office I began adding the blue icing to the cupcakes and then topping them with vanilla to mask the inserted color.

People began arriving around 6:30pm.  We dug into some BBQ and then around 7:20pm the big cupcake reveal happened.  Everyone was extremely excited.  Including little Sophie you see in the picture below, we had a grand total of 17 people partaking in the big reveal.  And they all were able to fit inside of our teeny tiny house!

I think my mom and sister were hoping for a girl…maybe next time.  My mom even brought a present for a little girl.  It was the sweetest little blue and white cotton dress you’ve ever seen.  Sorry mom.  

Since most of you reading this weren’t in attendance….here is a video of how it all went down.

It’s a boy!

Our friends Ryan and Sarah arrived just a few short minutes after the reveal so I pulled them aside, and gave them each a cupcake.  They each bit in and saw the blue.  However, Ryan yells out IT’S A GIRL!  We all began to laugh because we thought he was just kidding…like he always does.  Come to find out he was serious.  He told us later in the evening that he was expecting it to be a girl, and didn’t register the color.  He just saw “a color” and shouted from the roof tops that we were having a girl.  That guy cracks me up.

In all, it was a great day ( and night ).  I’m so thankful that we have friends and family that love us so much that they chose to share this special day with us.  Thanks to all of you who made it.

My mom, sister, co-workers, and many many others have been praying for the bean to be a girl.  Well I found this thing on thebump.com called a Chinese Gender Calendar that is said to have a 90% accuracy rate in determining the sex of your unborn child.  I decided to plug in the numbers is was asking for to see what it would give me.  Let’s just say, Mom, Steph….the calendar says your getting a girl.  I don’t think I’m going to start buying up all the pink in town until confirmed by an ultrasound.

12/21/09

At about 3am this morning I woke feeling really nauseous.  I woke and found myself sitting straight up in bed trying to hold off the vomit.  I was really tired and did not feel like hanging out at the toilet all night so I propped up my pillows the same way I do to ward off an oncoming sinus headache and was able to calm my nausea by laying down in a slight upright position.  Praise the lord.  One of my most hated things in the world is throwing up.  Not wanting to ever experience vomiting I have pretty much phased drinking alcohol out of my life once I met Derek.

I had my 1st prenatal visit today.  You know how they make you pee in a cup?  Well, it seems that I got a bit of stage fright.  Which is so wierd cuz I always have to pee.  Even then.  But I think I was so nervous/excited about the events of the day, and the fact that there was an sweet old lady down the hall that was talking and I could hear everything she was saying and in the cutest voice I just couldn’t focus on the task at hand. She sounded just like the old lady/the rapping granny in the Wedding Singer.

Even though I wasn’t able to provide a tinkle sample my doc proceeded with the exam and ordered an ultrasound.  I know, right!  An ultrasound at 6 weeks 4 days…a chance to see my little bean growing inside of me.  The technician was able to show me and let me hear the heart beat.  Since I wasn’t expecting the opportunity to see the bean, much less be able to heart the bean I was just in awe.  Everything  checked out A-okay.  That was so good to hear.  The bean’s heartbeat was at 120bpm, which is the low end of the scale (120 – 180 bpm), but she said that sometimes you can’t even hear the heart at this point so it’s nothing to worry about.  It will get stronger in the upcoming weeks.  While the technicion was running a report she asked me to have a seat in the hall and gave me my pictures from the ultrasound to  look at.  That’s when it hit me.  Looking at the pictures of my soon to be child made so thankful for the blessing God has given me.  Then my eyes stated to tear up. This visit really solidified the fact that I really am a mom-to-be.

I scanned the ultrasound picture and texted it to Derek.  He sounded a little choked up on the phone when we finally got to talk.  Well it sounded like he was a bit choked up, but there were people around so he couldn’t really talk to loud…considering we haven’t told a soul yet.  Nope…not a soul.  That day is what Christmas morning is for.

So, Christmas day was the big reveal.  Derek and I thought it would be a great idea to record our family’s reaction to the news.  We figured that we would all be so wrapped up in the excitement of it all that no one would remember how it all really went down.  This is the video from my in-laws house.  We’ll the two videos from their house.  Derek started up the camera again when they checked out the ultrasound.  ENJOY~

For my parents house we used my dad’s video camera to film. However, the file he gave me of the day’s events is in a format that I can’t upload to the web. So, once we get that little hiccup fixed I will then post that video.

I know what you thinking, “Jennifer, you’re so silly.  Your iPhone can’t get you pregnant!”  Well, before you think that thought, just let me explain.  See, since I was never one to keep track of my girlie time of the month I usually ended up with a “surprise” each month.  So after I got my iPhone I decided to start using an app called Period Tracker.  Basically, it was a cute and simple app that tracked the dates and any symptoms (i.e. – cramps, body aches, headaches, and moods).  In  addition to helping women simply keep track it also will show it’s predicted dates of ovulation.  So in essence, if you were TRYING to conceive; this app would be a handy and convenient little tool in doing so.

Derek and I had intended on waiting until he was finished with grad school to start a family, but after some serious thought we decided that just this once (let this be a lesson to all you teens out there that think it can’t happen on the 1st try) we would try.  You know…forgo using protection.    : blush :   We decided, knowing that my iPhone app predicted that I was a Fertile Myrtle at the time, that we were ready for a child and that if it happened it happened, but if nothing happened…well at least we tried.  If nothing came of it, so be it.  It was just an iPhone app right?  How accurate can it be?  It’s just a prediction tool.

Something DID happen.  December 3rd there was a positive pregnancy test sitting on the edge of my bath tub looking up at me and giggling, “I told you so!”  I told Derek the following day after taking the second test that giggled and made the same snide comment as the first.  And now we have ended up here….

Derek ate with a vendor, so I was on my own for lunch.  I decided on a tasty treat from Pei Wei (Lemon Pepper Shrimp).  I brought my lunch back to work, and when finished eating I cracked my fortune cookie open.

*side note* Recently we have been shopping for a laptop to add to our computer arsenal at home…

I crack the cookie open and my fortune reads, “A small gift can bring joy to the whole family.”  I hope that small gift is a computer & not one of those little people that grow in my belly and makes you feed them!  I’ll let you know….