Our Trip to the Jelly Room

On Wednesday, we made our trip to the "Jelly Room," named this by our son after he had to have an ultrasound a year ago.  For him, the Jelly Room was terrifying:  A dark room, large screen, warm and gooey liquid rubbed on by a wand with a cord attached. For several doctors appointments after that, he made us reassure him that he would not have to make a return trip to the Jelly Room. 

So since the beginning of this pregnancy, I knew it would be important for him to come with me to an ultrasound so that he could see someone else in the Jelly Room and not be as afraid. Also, since the beginning of this pregnancy, I'd been insisting that I did not want to find out the gender.  We found out the last time, and I wouldn't have changed that.  But with the second baby, I feel like we don't need to prepare as much, and wanted to wait until the baby's birthday to find out if we were having a boy or a girl.

My husband did not feel the same. 

And even though we disagreed, I think he played a little dirty, and convinced our son that we needed to find out. I was officially outnumber.  Kevin has said from the beginning that he wanted only a boy.  In fact, he told everyone who asked that if he got a sister, he was going to run away.  I felt like I was having a boy again, but figured on the chance that we were going to have a girl, finding out would be good to give our son time to adjust to the idea.

So we went that morning to find out if we were joining Team Pink or Team Blue. Although the perinatal center has a strict NO KIDS rule, I was able to persuade them to let our son join us for the last five minutes.  So our nanny (and I HATE calling her that because she's so much more than a nanny to our family), came with us, and sat with Kevin in the waiting room while my husband and I went in for the anatomy scan.

After 45 minutes, 3 bathroom breaks, and several attempts to to get the stubborn baby in my uterus to cooperate for photos, the ultrasound was done.  When we'd walked in, the tech asked if we wanted to know the gender, and we asked her to wait to tell us until Kevin came to the room so we could find out together.  She was VERY good, and gave no indication that she knew the gender. 

So my husband went to the waiting room to get Kevin, and he came back to the room.  The tech showed him some photos; he saw the spine, legs, hand, and then she put up a blurry photo....with three white lines.  She asked Kevin if he knew what that was, and he answered "a pee pee."  When she said "no" and he realized he was getting a sister, there were two of us crying in the room:  Me because I was just so happy to be having a healthy baby, and him because he was so mad about not getting a brother!  He then told us to "change it or give it back" because he didn't want a girl in his house. We're working on this with him now so he understands that we can't just "change" this!

When Kevin went back to the waiting room to see our nanny, he put his head in her lap and told her how sad he was.  He got some good laughs from the other patients in the waiting room. 

So we are officially joining Team Pink.  Life is going to be very different for us with a little girl, but we couldn't be happier.  Look for future posts that revolve around bows, tu-tu's and ballet slippers.

Our gender announcement: We're about to get a lot of PINK in our LIFE!