It's a BOY: How we found out

If you haven't noticed, it is really important to me to capture all these special memories of this pregnancy. I feel like it is such a cliche to say it feels like it is flying by but apparently, it actually does. I think it will be really neat to look back on this time and read how clueless I was when I am hopefully pregnant again in the future {Whoa, slow down! Always a planner!}

So, where do I start? I actually don't remember what I have said about my gender prediction on here. It all started with my names list. For years, like 4 or 5 years {I said I am a planner}, I have kept a list of girl and boy names that I like. I am a little obsessive about names. Maybe it is because I am an Ashley and there are a lot of Ashleys out there. I used to want to change the spelling of my name just to be a little bit different.  I mean, my two best friends and MOHs in our wedding both have Ashley in their names. Every once in awhile I would run down my list with Bri and take off ones he adamantly didn't like. Fast forward to actually being pregnant, we sat down to go over my list of roughly 40 girl and boy names. By the end of that conversation we had 12 girl names Brian was okay with and obviously I liked them since I picked them! Oh, and we had no boy names. My hubby nixed every.single.boy.name. I jokingly said to him that this meant we were having a boy since I am such a planner and we officially have no boy names and several girl names. Totally harmless statement. No motherly intuition. As the weeks went by, it seemed like more and more friends on Facebook or bloggers I follow were announcing they are pregnant with boys. I can count 5 off the top of my head. I feel like baby genders come in clusters. Of course, there are outliers but there always seem to be more girls or vice versa. Okay, two completely random coincidences. It was finally time to get the Panorama blood test which tests for chromosomal abnormalities like down syndrome but it also does something incredible. It can tell you the gender of your baby. Way earlier than an ultrasound. We found out during week 14 but if I had actually done the blood test earlier than we would have found out earlier. You can get the blood test done as early as 10 weeks and then you get the results roughly 2 weeks later. Crazy, right? While we were waiting for the results, a blogger I follow Jane from In The Pink & Green posted a Gender Prediction Q & A on Instagram. I had every intentions of teasing everyone with the answers before revealing what we're expecting. That was until I answered BOY to every.single.question.
What's the fun in that?!

Guns or Glitter
Morning Sickness? Yes or No
Headaches? Yes or No
Breaking Out? Yes or No
Cravings? Sweet or Salty
Sleep? Left or Right Side
Mood? Crabby or Happy
Mayan Prediction? Boy or Girl
Chinese Calendar? Boy or Girl
Daddy's Guess? Boy or Girl
Mommy's Guess? Boy or Girl

Surprise, Surprise: We're having a Boy!
See?! Doesn't really make for such a surprising reveal. ;)

I looked up the Mayan and Chinese predictions the night before I got the call from the nurse. We already had a game plan since we were finding out by a blood test and not an ultrasound appointment which Bri always attends. The chance of us being together during the work week when I would get the call was unlikely. After trying to patiently wait the minimum 10 days and leaving 3 messages, I finally saw my doctor's number show up on my caller id...while completing an assessment sitting in a brand new client's living room-dirty, smelly, untidy living room. It's glamorous being a community mental health therapist. Not exactly how I imagined finding out the gender of our baby but it sure makes for a funny story. To me, at least! I never answer my phone during an appointment but there was no way I was waiting any longer. You know how hard it is to get through to a nurse or doctor by phone. I politely excused myself into the dining room and answered the call. I was jumping up and down on the inside. The nurse informed me that the genetic screening came back with no concerns. And then she asked the question, Do you want to know the gender of your baby? Cool, calm and collected in the smelly house I reply, Yes, I would like to know. She replies, It's a boy! Congratulations! To which I calmly reply, Oh that is wonderful. Thank you very much. Okay, good bye. I walked back into the living room and proceeded to spend the next hour and a half completing the assessment while screaming in my head - OMG we're having a boy! Ahhhh! {Side note: We laughed about it later that the nurse was probably thinking this is the calmest, weirdest woman I have ever talked to when informing someone of a gender of their baby.} After the appointment, I knew I wanted to immediately tell my hubby but I wanted to find a creative way to do it. I decided to go to Target and bought a set of 3 onesies that said Little Man on the front and a gift bag before heading straight to his work. In my mind I was going to walk in calmly and say, I bought you a little surprise and he'd have no idea and open it and it would be like in a movie. In fact it went something like I walked in the front door, awkwardly pointed at the empty office like I was playing a game of charades to be super subtle and not draw attention to the gift bag so his coworkers won't know what was going on. When he walked in the office, I closed the glass door {you know, for privacy} and shoved the gift bag in his face. Just call me Grace. 
It's okay though because watching his reaction was perfect. I think he was really hoping for a boy first and I was just convinced from all the signs around me that it was going to be a boy so to have that confirmation was so cool. I will never forget that day. The funny coincidence is that we found out we were pregnant on July 25th with the estimated due date of March 25th and we found out we were having a boy on September 25th. Crazy, right?

More on how we told our family coming soon...

Thanks for following along on our journey to parenthood. I love it when I talk to my friends and family and they tell me they read this blog and love following along which makes me happy to hear that others are enjoying this as much as I enjoy writing it.