March 7, 2017 was definitely the most special day of our pregnancy so far. It was the day we found out that our baby is a little girl! Insert all the pink bow emojis. This is her story so far.
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Deciding When to Find Out
I asked Will long before we ever got serious about getting pregnant if he would want to know the gender of our baby before delivery, and we both immediately agreed that we were the kind of couple who would want to know. This kind of reminds me of the first look before the wedding decision all over again. There may be less suspense leading up to one moment, but we get longer to enjoy the excitement together. I really loved that we had this celebratory day right in the middle of this pregnancy, too, and now we can prepare for our little girl!
Although I didn’t say so out loud very often, I had thought all along that this baby was a girl. I felt so sure that I didn’t even really wonder about it much until we got close to the big day, our 20 week ultrasound appointment. At that point, I assumed that since I had been so sure it was a girl, it was probably a boy. Because that’s how that works, right? Well I sure got a lot more curious in the days leading up to the moment of truth. Will had a similar experience where he generally trusted my intuition that it was a girl, but then as early March closed in thought it may be a boy yet.
Our Ultrasound Appointment
We had an 8:30am 20 week ultrasound appointment on the 7th that we’d been counting down to for weeks. We’ve never asked each other, “what do you think it is?” so many times as we did that morning. We were just giddy, so I’m glad our appointment was first thing. I dutifully drank my Tervis tumbler of water, and we got to the hospital early (after being detoured due to some crazy situation in an intersection involving hundreds of orange cones).
There really aren’t words for the feelings we felt when the technician put the probe on my belly and a fully-formed baby immediately popped up on the big screen. The last time we had an ultrasound was at eight weeks when she looked like a little peanut-shaped blob, and we thought that was amazing. This time, we could see her little nose, the bones in her hands, and each of her little toes. The most important news is that everything with the baby looks good so far, and we were just teary-eyed and speechless the entire time. It’s really incredible to know that this beautiful little person is just hanging out with me all day long.
As for the big news, we had decided on a happy medium kind of reveal. We didn’t really want the technician to just tell us in the room, but we definitely didn’t want to wait until we could throw a gender reveal party with family and friends. So we decided to throw a special little private gender reveal party for just the two of us. The technician put the news in an envelope while we looked away, and the countdown to dinner was on!
Gender Reveal Date Night!
If you’re interested in making your gender reveal special but don’t want to throw a full-fledged party, might I recommend a special gender reveal date night? This is what we did, and we wouldn’t change a single thing about it. It was such a perfect and joyful Tuesday night for just the two of us.
Right after our appointment, I took the envelope to the most darling French bakery, Leonora, and after a bit of a comedy of errors with the guy working there at the time, got it sorted out. (He didn’t know why he had to read what was in the envelope and why I couldn’t just tell him what color to make the filling!) A note here if you’re going to do this: Plan ahead, because most bakeries require 48 hour notice for cakes. So they knew everything about our order in advance except for the filling color. I took the envelope back, taped it back up, and tried not to look at it. I will say, however, it was easier not to think about opening it once we weren’t together. I wouldn’t want to find out without Will!
Of course that night of all nights, Will had to work later than usual. I wanted this to be a very special occasion, however, so that just gave me more time to get ready. We had a reservation at Virtue Feed and Grain in Old Town Alexandria, and I picked up the cake (from a very sweet and very excited-for-us bakery manager) and went to get my hair done to distract myself. I was actually amazed that we made it through interactions with the ultrasound technician, our OB, and two people at the bakery without anyone giving it away.
That’s ginger ale in those flutes. 🙂
I tried to make the initial set-up pink and blue, so I used our Spode Blue Italian dishes and these pink and blue Kate Spade napkins. When Will finally got home, all was ready, and I had just sat down to try to do some casual reading on the couch (ha!). We definitely had to cut the cake before dinner, because we had to know what we were celebrating!
The moment Will pulled that server out from making the first cut, we could see the pink filling on it, and I started screaming. We cut a whole slice just to be sure, and it was like finding out we were pregnant all over again. Our beautiful little baby is a GIRL!!! There was lots of squealing and happy tears.
At that point, I had to make this display more girly! I already had the pink straws on our bar cart from my Galentine’s Day brunch, and would you believe the balloons from that were still alive too?? They were only supposed to last a few days! I thought maybe it was a sign and didn’t want to throw them away, so I had been hiding them in the guest closet just in case we needed them for this occasion. And what do you know, we did!
We cut some slices for after dinner, got in the car, and called all our parents on the way to Alexandria. It was definitely the most happy date night we’ve ever had, and we spent dinner talking more seriously about names and what life would be like with a little girl. We can’t wait to meet our daughter in July or August!
I was still so excited the next morning and of course I had to do a little photo shoot with the good daylight. I had a moment when the cake finally dried out (and I decided we could only eat so much cake between the two of us) where I teared up because I just couldn’t throw away my baby girl’s very special first cake! So folks, it looks like I’m going to be one of those sentimental moms. It took about a solid ten minutes for me to put the box of cake in the trash and walk away.
The prospect of raising a little lady is a little daunting, but you know I’m already researching who makes the cutest hair bows. 🙂
