The Gender Reveal

The verdict is in! Baby Gaultney No. 2 is a GIRL!

But wait – our anatomy ultrasound isn’t until November 1. So how do I know the sex, you ask? Well why don’t I just tell you!

Our five-year anniversary was on Saturday, October 27. We had big plans for celebrating in San Antonio, the city where we got married. I had won a two-night stay with valet parking at the Westin Riverwalk, and Brad made us a bunch of reservations at really fun and yummy and occasionally shi-shi restaurants. Yay!

I wanted to get Brad a really good gift, but he doesn’t particularly love/need “stuff.” He likes experiences. So after I tried to get him a couple of anniversary “experience” gifts that fell through (a pack of Crossfit training sessions was one, but I won’t tell you the other in case I try to resurrect it later), I thought, “Hey, he’s so eager to know the sex of the baby – what if there’s a way we can find out early?” I contacted El Centro Community College, which has an ultrasound school, and after a few emails, I had an appointment to come see the clinical director for an ultrasound! Since it didn’t work with my timeframe to do one in the classroom for instruction purposes (I wanted to do the appointment before October 27, but they didn’t have an ultrasound class until October 29), I had to pay $35. But all of that money goes toward student enrichment programs, and it is a very reasonable price compared to an ultrasound at a doctor’s office or at a vanity ultrasound place. So on Tuesday, October 23, I secretly went to El Centro for my appointment. Brad watched Ford while I “ran an errand.” The technician could not have been sweeter, and she spent TONS of time with me! She showed me the baby’s face in 3D, the heart, the cord, bloodflow, kidneys, bladder, hands, feet… everything! It was such a beautiful moment. Then when it got to the gender part, I looked away and she wrote the sex in a greeting card I had brought. She also sealed up all of the pictures inside.

In the interest of full disclosure, at the beginning of the ultrasound she was calling the baby “he, him,” etc. I asked if she was hinting at something and she said, “Oh no, I always call babies ‘he.’” Then after the part where she identified the sex, she started saying “she, her” and so forth. So I had an inkling, but I didn’t want to start thinking a certain way.

I had planned to wait until October 27 before telling Brad about the card. I had these visions of us walking along the San Antonio Riverwalk or sitting at a fun restaurant, and I would just pop out the card and say, “Here’s your gift!” But within about 20 minutes of me getting home that afternoon following my visit to El Centro, I couldn’t stand not knowing. I asked Brad if he wanted his anniversary present early. He said, “sure.” So I asked him if he knew what it was, and he said he thought so. So I asked him if it was a big present or a small present. He said “medium.” Then I asked him, “If you could know RIGHT NOW if we’re having a boy or a girl, would you want to know?” That caught him totally off guard! He said yes, so I handed him the card. He peeked inside, we saw the words “Sweet Baby Girl!” and started jumping up and down and cheering. Of course, that totally freaked Ford out, so the celebration calmed down pretty quickly.

It was so fun to find out together like that. And we are so excited to welcome a sweet baby GIRL in March! Bring on the ruffles and bows!

Boy v. Girl - What the Old Wives Say

Image via Getty Images

I did this same exercise before we found out Ford's sex (click here to read that post). Thought it would be fun to update it for this pregnancy! Just for fun, I'm going to do a run-down of how I compare to the old wives tales. Again, anatomy ultrasound is scheduled for Nov. 1!

Old Wives Tales Comparison 

(Adapted from Smonk You and With Two Cats)

The baby's heartbeat was clocked at over 140 = Girl (It has been consistently 140 or above)
According to the Chinese gender chart = Girl
Sleeping on left (boy) or right (girl) side = BOTH (No matter which way I start off sleeping, I end up on my back. No lectures about sleep positions, please.)
Short time to conceive = Girl
I feel no nausea = Boy (I felt nauseous for about two weeks REALLY early, but never threw up, so I don't know. I haven't felt nausea since I was about six weeks)

I'm not craving citrus = UNDETERMINED (I like citrus... but I don't really have any cravings. I have been drinking a lot of Fresca, which is a grapefruit soda... so maybe girl? I don't know.)

I am gaining weight = Girl (this seems like a weird question, because at 20 weeks, of course I'm gaining weight. But even though I feel bigger than I did with Ford, I'm gaining slower... so I don't know.)
I'm not breaking out = Boy
I'm feeling clumsy = BOTH (I have always felt clumsy, so no change)
No weight gain in my face (I hope) = Boy
I'm craving salty and sour stuff = Boy (I'm not craving anything, but I actually want cookies and cake and other sweets WAY LESS than before I was pregnant)
I'm not moody = UNDETERMINED (I don't know. I don't think I'm stereotypically hormonal, but being a parent has made me a lot more emotional. Sometimes I cry at news stories when kids die or get separated from their families. And yesterday I was pretty short with Brad. :( So maybe yes??? But 95% of the time I'm a cool customer.)
I'm carrying high (girl) or low (boy) =  Girl (SO high!)
My hair has become thicker and shiny = Boy
Hair on my legs is not growing faster than before = Girl
Feet are not colder than before I was pregnant = Girl
Brad has not been gaining weight = Girl (he's been losing weight! And looks awesome! He works out really hard.)
Craving fruit or meats and cheeses = BOTH (again, no cravings, but I'll eat any of these.)


Grand total:
Girl = 8
Boy = 5
Either = 5

It looks like the old wives tales have us paying for a wedding in a couple of decades. Of course, there's parental intuition too. Brad says he can feel it in his bones that it's a girl. I honestly have ZERO feeling. I guess because this pregnancy has felt different than my last, I wouldn't be surprised if it were a girl, but I could also see us having a house full of boys. We will be OVER THE MOON excited either way. Truly.

Last time I was so excited to find out the gender so that I could register and start planning a nursery! I am still undecided if I'm going to register this time, and it looks like our babies may share a nursery... so there's not a lot to do! But we will be ecstatic to know for sure, pick names, and just imagine our life with baby no. 2!!! And we'll probably make a Facebook announcement when we know the gender, so that's really something to look forward to!

Pink or Blue?

Brad and I are taking our time with telling friends we are expecting again. I just love that period of having a “secret” that only we know, so I like to enjoy each little announcement as a milestone, and I don’t feel rushed to spread the word. We started telling friends around 14 or 15 weeks, but even then we didn’t make a big Facebook announcement or anything (we’ll probably do that after we know the baby’s sex). As we ran into people at church or had dinner dates with friends, we would just kind of say, “Oh by the way, guess what! We’re on the baby train again!” 

And often when we tell someone, we get a question or comment along these lines: “Are you hoping for a girl?” or “Do you have a ‘girl’ feeling this time?” or “OH, I hope it’s a girl!” or “How fun would it be to have a boy and a girl?!”

                                                                                                                                                            

With Ford, I don’t remember getting asked what I “hoped” for in terms of gender more than a handful of times. This time, it’s often the first thing people ask or comment on. I can honestly say I will be equally happy with a boy or a girl. I have had a hunch I would be a “boy mom,” but then this pregnancy has been different from my first in a lot of ways (some nausea and fatigue early on, and now the occasional headache), that I’m starting to wonder if a girl may be in our future after all. Brad, meanwhile, is TOTALLY hoping for a girl, and he is pretty convinced it’s a girl, too. It makes me a little nervous—like, the expectations are REALLY high, I just don’t want him to be disappointed if we have another boy. He insists he won’t be, but I don’t know.

We set our anatomy ultrasound for November 1, so it won’t be long now until we know for sure!

A few notes

I can’t let a whole month go by without a post! So just a few quick notes:

• I have had three doctor’s appointments so far. All seems to be well! I will never get tired of hearing sweet baby’s heartbeat!
• We had a first trimester combined screening a couple of weeks ago. As part of that, we had an ultrasound to measure the baby’s nuchal fold (measurement can signal or rule out certain chromosomal abnormalities). We did the same test with Ford, and it took at least half an hour to get the measurement. With this baby, after about 30 seconds they were like, “Okay, got the measurement!” I convinced the tech to let us have fun watching our baby for a few minutes more.
• I’m feeling a little different this pregnancy. Most days, I still forget that I’m pregnant, but there were about two weeks RIGHT at the beginning (4 – 6 weeks GA) where I just felt vaguely car sick all the time. No barfing, knock on wood, but I have been a little more tired (I think chasing around a 13-month-old might have something to do with that), and I have started getting migraines again. I hadn’t had a migraine since before I was pregnant with Ford!
• Ford has no idea what’s coming. Brad tells him there’s a baby in mama’s belly, and he just kind of smiles and keeps doing whatever he was doing. Sometimes he’ll point at me and say “baby,” but I don’t think he’s putting two and two together. Not that I expect him to!
• Brad and I went on a cruise with his company this month. I started feeling kicks on the cruise, at just 13 weeks! Ford started moving early, too (16 weeks), and I was on a TETCO trip when I started feeling movement that time, too!
• Since we’ve gotten back from the trip, Ford seems to have developed some separation anxiety. He doesn’t want to let me out of his sight, and he’s a lot whinier and anxious than he was before we left. Makes me feel some serious mom guilt! I’m hoping we get our go-with-the-flow, happy toddler back soon!
• I have another doctor’s appointment next week. I always look forward to those!

Thoughts after the dust settles

Before I start, I should say that Brad and I prayed for this baby. We have felt our lives grow in richness and depth and beauty since Ford entered the picture. Brad started scheming about us raising up “a baseball team” within days of Ford’s birth. True story, he decided when Ford was three days old that he would love approximately eight children (me, I think half of that number sounds a little more reasonable). In any case, we took the pregnancy news as very good news, and we humbly thank God for blessing us by allowing us to grow our family in this way.

That said, this is COMPLETELY different the second time around. For one thing, while I was pregnant with Ford, I could. not. stop. thinking about my pregnancy. It seems like almost every brain cell was devoted to planning a nursery, making a registry, researching the best baby gear, pondering what kind of mother I wanted to be, reading up on breastfeeding, taking pictures of my belly… and the list goes on. This time around, I’m doing really good if I remember to take my prenatal vitamin at the end of the day. And that’s my daily reminder that, “Oh yeah, I’m pregnant!” Yes, my belly is growing – and at a more rapid pace than it did with Ford – but I have so much to keep me wholly occupied during the day (FORD, my work, our church, playdates/friends, having our house on the market – more on that later), and I’m not stressing or obsessing about what to buy and how babies “work.”

Ford put us through the ringer as a newbie. He was totally healthy, praise God (although wicked baby acne, cradle cap and a blocked tear duct became minor inconveniences), but he started up with colic after only three days out of the womb. Some days, if he wasn’t sleeping, he was crying. And it didn’t stop until he was about 4.5 months old. He nursed every 1 – 2 hours, around the clock. He was a champion eater, which was an answer to prayer, but oh boy if I didn’t just feel like a milk factory some days. Then right around Christmas 2011, he became the happiest baby anyone has ever met! He never met a stranger, had smiles and giggles for days, would sing and talk to himself in just the cutest ways… I think we both just had to learn together those first few months. Which bonded us. But it also made me realize that I can handle a whole lot more than I thought I could.

This is a really roundabout way to say that I’m not too worried about the tiny baby phase the second time around. My big prayer requests for the birth and those first months remain the same as they did last time: 1) no C-section and 2) an easy, healthy feeding relationship. But overall, Brad and I both get to the end of the week and we turn to each other and say, “Wow, where did that week go?” The days, weeks, months are flying, whereas the first time around, they were dragging.

I still want to be mindful, though, about enjoying this pregnancy as much as I enjoyed the first one. The Baby G Blog should be a good way to keep me on top of things, so thanks for following along!

Here we go again!

So here we go! Ford is officially 12.5 months old, and we’re already on our way toward celebrating another birthday in about seven months. We actually learned the happy news really early this time. I woke up one Sunday morning in July and just had a feeling, and it turns out my maternal instincts were right! There was no cute/sweet announcement for Brad. As with Ford, I just kind of blurted it out as soon as I knew. After a confirmation of pregnancy ultrasound the first week of August, we learned our little baby would be joining us sometime in March. (A word about the due date: My “dates” are really off, so the only way they can predict the due date is based on the size of the baby. It was the same way with Ford. We’ve gotten several dates, from mid-March to March 26. I’m going with March 23, my brother Brett’s birthday, because why not?)

We had a lot of fun telling our families (well, our parents and then some) in person, as we did last time. The beans were spilled during a family reunion in Houston (Gaultneys), a birthday dinner in San Antonio (Boyers), and a family vacation in Colorado (Thorne). Ford sported a “big brother” shirt, and we just waited to see how long it would take everyone to notice. The prize goes to “MeeMee” (Nancy), who noticed in about 0.05 seconds. With the other two families, Brad and I had to giggle and point out Ford’s shirt after about 10 minutes of waiting. I can’t say we were very original, but we had fun!