Surprise!

Yesterday was my due date. I'm still here. I'm pretty much expecting to have to be induced, but hopefully I'll be surprised.

Speaking of surprises...my sister had her baby. I don't remember if I mentioned this, but she was due to have a baby girl April 10th while I was due to have my baby boy yesterday. We figured that was perfect. We'd swap baby clothes and neither of us would have to buy much more than a few bibs and pacifiers. We'd gotten all the baby clothes out of storage, and each of us had filled our baby's dresser drawers with gender appropriate clothes. Or so we thought. On Friday, at 13 days overdue, my sister had to be induced. I have to be honest, her hubby is a bit of a joker so when he called me at 8 pm that night and announced "It's a boy!" I insisted on speaking with my sister before I could actually believe that she had given birth to a 9 pound 14 ounce baby BOY. My first thought was...well, I'm not actually sure because I was so positive she was having a girl that I was in shock. My second thought was "Oh shoot." Prior to finding out what the genders of our babies were, my sister and I had agreed that she got first dib on the boys clothes if we both had boys and vice versa. So, 4 days before my due date, I found myself packing up all the clothes and baby boy stuff and giving it back to my sister. She was nice enough to return the newborn size clothing to me since her bouncing baby boy was already too big for them, but other than that, all I had were a few pieces of miscellaneous clothing I'd picked up because I thought they were cute. To a woman who's 9 months pregnant, it was devastating because let's face it, when you're pregnant everything is worse than it needs to be. I must have complained about it to enough people though, because less than a week later, I now have everything I need plus offers for more.

Unsolicited Advice:
Don't ever assume an ultrasound will be 100 percent correct in predicting the gender of your baby!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving, all!
We had a relaxing, enjoyable day. Although I enjoy hosting Thanksgiving, the size of my house prohibits me from doing so. Instead, we went to my sister, Elizabeth's large house to celebrate. At one point during the day, I realized how relaxing it is to go somewhere else for holidays. I didn't have to clean my house, get up early to put the turkey in, find enough dishes and places at the table for everyone, or deal with the mess when everybody leaves.

I have some news to share. On Tuesday, Hubby and I went for my first ultrasound at 18 weeks gestation. It was really neat to see my baby for the first time. We asked the ultrasound technician if it was a boy or a girl and she asked us what we thought it was. I told her that Princess had assured me it was a boy. As the tech moved the wand to verify, we could very obviously see that Princess was correct! I made sure the tech printed us a picture of the "proof" to embarrass the poor boy with when he gets older.

To be honest though, I was hoping for a girl. I had several reasons for this, the top one being that Hubby thinks that with one of each, we're done having kids. Ummmm, I'm not done yet. I'm not ready for this to be my last pregnancy, my last baby, my youngest child. I also was hoping for a girl because I was kind of looking forward to getting Princess's baby clothes back out and dressing the two alike for special occasions. Having a sister close in age to me, I wanted to give that experience (good and bad) to Princess. I'm really not sure what to do with a boy. Having a boy means buying new clothes, bibs, and accessories. It means a whole new set of toys (and I've already run out of space!) and it means I'm going to be mother to a son. I'm all girl. I'm all about the frills, baby dolls, abundance of pink, and everything else that means girls. A boy is strange territory to me. When my mother found out what I was having, she thought about it a while and then confessed that she really can't see me with a boy. In about 5 months though, that's what's going to happen. But I know that I will learn as I go along just as I did with Princess and the minute they lay my baby boy in my arms, I will fall so madly in love with him that I can't imagine not having him there.

When Hubby and I found out that we're having a boy, we celebrated by buying a blue minivan. We got a fairly decent price on a Honda Odyssey and so came home with ultrasound pictures and a new vehicle. I know that we don't technically need a minivan yet since we'll only have two kids, but my sister and I go a lot of places together. With two carseats in the back of the car, it gets too crowded to buy a lot of groceries (we live 45 minutes from the nearest "big" city so we stock up when we go.) Since she and I are both expecting baby #2 in April, a minivan was a must. Also, because Hubby and I take so many LONG trips (6+ hours one way), a dvd system in the vehicle is a huge plus for us.

Anyways, it's 9 pm and it's been a long day. Signing off.