Baby #2 Update

Where do I begin?  This is long, but I want to document everything for our baby book/blog/journal.

On September 2, we had our 12 week sono with a specialist, Dr. Albert.  I think we got to see Dr. Albert because of my history with miscarriages and (I hate to say it) my age.  Everything looked great - baby was healthy and right on schedule and the doctor said he was 90% sure (his words, not mine) that this baby was a girl.  Dr. Albert has a good track record of making correct predictions and he was right when he told us Carson was a boy, so we were thrilled to know we were having a girl.

Ok, so now we have to shift our thinking from blue to pink.  I could tell Chris was a little nervous about having a girl, but he eventually warmed up to the idea.  I immediately hit the gift shop right outside the doctor's office and bought some "It's a herSHEy" bars to hand out to my family.  We went out to dinner after our appointment, just the 2 of us, and I think I cried through the whole meal because I was so happy that we were having another baby and that this one would be a girl.  I was going to get experience the best of both worlds.

I quickly hit the Internet and found lots of ideas for pink rooms.  Mom and I even picked out the paint color - although I didn't buy it yet.  The room was cleaned out and ready for Grandpa to paint.  We thought it might be best if we waited until the 16 week sono - just to be sure.  In the meantime, we began our list of favorite girl names:

• Charley Diann (not a "C" name, but it's my mom's name)
• Campbell Diann or Campbell Cate (which was my favorite)
• Camryn Cate
• Charlie Cate
• Cara Cate (which came from my 7 year old niece and sounds like "carrot cake" when she says it)
• Coco (only Aurora and I liked this one)
• Runner ups were - Callie, Caitlyn, Cammie, Casey

My friend, Julie, brought over about 8 boxes of little girl clothes.  We spent the afternoon sorting the clothes and 'oohing' and 'ahhing' over how cute everything was.  I organized the clothes by sizes, placed them neatly in bins, and put them in the baby's new room.

Now, Chris had thought that maybe we shouldn't tell everyone that this baby was a girl since the doctor was only 90% sure.  I couldn't contain myself and I think I told everyone I saw - including the cashier at the grocery store.  My students even made a game out of it and casted their votes for boy or girl.  Once I found out, I shared with them and those who guessed "girl" got a piece of candy.  They were so excited. 

Since I had saved all of Carson's clothes, I started promising things to friends who were having boys.  I had even planned on selling what was left at my mom's garage sale.  For some reason, I thought I should wait until we had the 16 week sono just for my own peace of mind.

Well...fast forward to September 30.  We had our regular doctor appointment with Dr. Wells and a routine sonogram.  During the sono, we were casually talking with our tech - who did all of Carson's sonos and also had a baby boy one month after us.  We feel like she's an old friend.  She's telling us the baby looks good and healthy - measuring 3 days bigger - everything looked great.  Then she asks us why we keep calling this baby a "she".  We told her IT is a girl - Dr. Albert told us.  Her response - "Well your girl has a penis!"  I screamed (and yes, they heard it all the way down the hall).  NO! NO! NO!  I have girl names picked out, pink paint ready to go, and a room full of girl clothes.  Please check again.  And again. And again.  The tech was nice enough to show us the "boy part" from several different angles.  Finally, the baby took his hand out of his mouth and reached down and grabbed it as if to say "stop calling me a girl"!

So, we are now back on the Blue Team.  The shock has worn off and we're just as excited as we were with Carson.  I still have all the boy clothes, the boy toys, the boy stroller and car seats.  I spent the weekend looking at ideas for boy's rooms and I think I've got my favorites picked out.  We've started our new list of names.  Here are the top runners:

• Cameron Charles (which was our runner up for when we had Carson)
• Carter Charles
• Camden Charles (which we just added and I really like it)
• Cache (I added this one and no one else likes it yet)
• Caden (we have a kid at school named Cade and he drives me nuts, so I think this one is off the list)
• Cole
• Charlie (named after Chris and after my dad)

Here is our precious baby boy - he was very active during our sono and looked just like Carson did.  He was even sucking his thumb.  Looks like we'll have 2 thumb suckers in the family.  I'm hoping this baby has some part of him that looks like me - dark hair? brown eyes? anything that lets people know that I'm his mommy.