It's a....

I’ve thought since the beginning that we were going to have a baby boy.

It’s not that I wouldn’t be happy with a girl, but we have six nieces and we want a boy to carry on the family name — plus, I’m not a girly girl most of the time and I think we both just relate to boys better.

So, in my head, I called this baby a boy. I was quite convinced it was a boy, although I knew that my first-time mom’s intuition could be wrong.

It was a couple of days before our 20-week ultrasound that I caught myself saying something about the baby and saying, “she.” I kind of stopped myself and changed that to “it,” but I was a little surprised that “she” had even entered my mind. It hadn’t before, and here I was saying it out loud.

Then a day later, I called it a “she” in my head without thinking about it.

“Hmmm…is it a girl?” I thought.

We went in for an ultrasound, and the baby looked just perfect. There was the head, the four chambers of the heart, the black blob on the screen that was the stomach, the location of the kidneys — that I couldn’t see but the ultrasound tech said was there.

The ultrasound tech continued down the little body and asked, “Do you want to know the gender now?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have an idea?” she asked.

I looked at the screen.

“Well, I thought boy, but I’m not seeing anything,” I responded.

“It’s a girl!”

I looked at Nate with a smile. He was smiling too.

We saw that little girl’s healthy blood flow to her spine, her tiny, perfect ribs, her femur, tibia and ulna. We tried to get a glimpse of her beautiful face, but she hid it behind her arm as she tucked herself more comfortably in.

We left the ultrasound office with photos of our precious girl, and I said to Nate, “Well, that was kind of a surprise.”

“Was it?” He asked. “The odds were 50/50.”

I guess, yes, I was surprised. I had talked myself into our baby being a boy. I just assumed it was going to be a boy.

I started thinking about it though, and since I expected it to be a boy but God gave us a girl, what did He know that I didn’t? He must have big plans for this baby girl that he specifically chose to give us a baby that I wasn’t expecting. He knows exactly what he’s doing, what we need, who this child will be.

I think it might make me even more excited to meet her. God specifically chose to give us her, not just a baby, but her, individually, this child.

I’m so excited to meet her, to hold her, to get to know her. There are now 14 weeks left, and I know I should appreciate this time that I have right now — when I can nap when I want — but I can’t wait to see who this little lady is that God has so generously decided to bless us with.