Last Tuesday I had another monthly doctor's appointment, but this one was also for the "big" ultrasound. Doc was joining me but he was running late and so of course, they called me back early. Go figure, that never happens! I walked on back with the Ultrasound Tech as she assured me that they would send him back as soon as he arrived. Inside the room, I told the Tech that we didn't want her to tell us the gender, and instead, I gave her this card to fill out.
I knew Doc was going to try to peek at the screen and try to figure it out on his own, so it worked out perfectly that he was late. After several minutes of the baby's legs being glued shut, the Tech finally found what she was looking for. She printed the picture, checked the box, and sealed both the card and the picture up in an envelope. Doc arrived right as she slipped the card into my purse...perfect!
Don't worry, he still got plenty of time to see the rest of the baby on the screen. The baby was positioned so low that the Tech couldn't get a good measurement on the head. I spent about 20-30 minutes laying at an incline, tilted towards my head, before she finally got the measurement. We had a quick checkup with the Doctor who said everything looked great and sent us on our way. (By the way, at my doctor's office, if the mama doesn't know the baby's sex, then the doctor and nurse don't get to know either. I was so nervous one of them would let it slip but they both assured me that had no idea!)
From the doctor's office we drove straight to a local bakery and handed over our sealed envelope. They would open the card and, depending on which box was checked, bake us either a pink or blue cake and then cover it with icing so we couldn't see it until we cut into it. Our revealment party wasn't scheduled until Wednesday night so we had about 24 hours to wait. Several people commented to me that they didn't know how I could wait so long, but once I handed over the envelope I really had no choice. There was nothing for me to peek at even if I wanted to!
The plan was to just invite our family over for a small cookout and cut the cake. But then I invited a few friends here and there and before you know it, it was more of a party. I decided to make it a brunch because I had a few recipes that I'd really been wanting to try out. The decorations were kept really simple, just a few pink and blue balloons...
...and some flowers for the table. I figured I'd have to do white since you can't normally find blue flowers, but good ol' Kroger had these pink and blue hydrangeas. Score!
The centerpiece was easy - it was the cake we picked up from the bakery.
Doc and I stuck with the theme and both wore pink and blue.
Thanks to some poor planning on my part, we had a good bit of time to kill before dinner was ready. Some of our friends that were there...
...took it as an opportunity to practice their surprised faces.
Others entertained themselves with noisemakers.
Like I said earlier, we had both friends and family there. Even though I'm sure it's somewhat awkward for all of them, I love it when all a good portion of the people we love are in our home.
Speaking of mixing friends and family, this is probably one of my favorites from the evening: friend Matt holding nephew Ramer. We could probably have another "Caption This" contest.
So the food was finally ready and we ate. Let's fast forward to the point of the party. Oh but first, here's one more picture.
My grandmother passed away shortly after Doc proposed to me. When the time came for us to clean out her house, I found the cake cutter pictured above. I snuck it in my pile of stuff to take home with the intentions of using it to serve cake at our wedding. Our wedding day finally rolled around and I completely forgot to take the cake cutter with me to the venue. I was so sad afterwards when I realized I'd forgotten it. But we were getting ready to cut another important cake so I remembered to grab it. Yay!
Oh, and one more thing. We all placed $5 bets on what the gender would be. Doc opened the envelope of guesses and read the results: 3 votes for boy and 9 votes for girl. I was the only person in the family to go with boy...even Wyatt, who I just knew I could count on for a boy vote, wrote down girl!
With Doc's parents queued up on Skype and everyone gathered around, Doc and I took our positions by the cake. He let me do the honors of cutting it.
Can you believe that after the first cut, there was not a single crumb that came out on the cake cutter? Seriously, we couldn't see anything! So, I went in for another cut...
Still nothing! So I wedged my cake cutter underneath the sliced piece and lifted it out.
Pink cake! We're having a baby girl!!
I'll admit, my first thought was probably, "Dangit! I just lost my money!" But $5 is a small price to pay for a sweet baby girl. I have been pretty dead set from day one that we were having a boy, though, so I've had to get my head wrapped around it being a girl. So much for mother's intuition. I kept staring at the cake like maybe they'd gotten it wrong when we remembered the sealed envelope with the revealing ultrasound picture. You guys? We're definitely having a girl.
The party wasn't quite over yet. Since we were all gathered, we brought out some birthday cupcakes for my brother Ben.
I seriously have no idea what was going on in the picture below, I just thought it was funny. Maybe we were all really proud of Ben for blowing out all 3 candles??
My sweet friend Allison had brought a gender neutral gift with her - a cute Farmer's Market onesie. A perfect gift that will always remind of Allison since she's the new director of the market (read an article about it here!).
After all our friends left, Doc and I still had one thing left to do. We snipped off all the blue balloons and headed outside.
Sayonara, blue! We won't be needing you in our nursery!
Special shoutout to all of our friends and family that were able to join us - thank you so much for coming to celebrate with us! We are so lucky to have so many people that care about our little girl (!) already. Also, special thanks to my mom for helping me cook and to Allison for taking pictures!