Baby Girl Thomas!

I think many of you may already know, either from conversation or Instagram, but I wanted to share the news officially here: we are welcoming a little lady to our family in January!

To back up a little, we knew pretty much from the beginning that we would find out our baby’s sex before birth. I know several folks that have been so happy with their decision not to (my sister and Nancy, for two), and the frugal side of me really liked the idea of loved ones gifting us practical, gender-neutral gifts over tons of pink or blue outfits. However, I didn’t really buy the argument that the surprise of the gender would provide any additional motivation to get me through labor (it seems unlikely anything could top the idea of simply meeting our baby!). I also felt that the waiting and wondering over many months would make me more anxious than excited. Finally, we thought that knowing whether we were expecting a boy or girl would help these two non-baby-lovers wrap their heads around everything that’s going on.

So, when we went in for our twenty week ultrasound, we asked the doctor to hide anything pertinent on the screen, and write the sex on a note sealed in an envelope. I like that he signed the outside — very official, like the Oscars :)

That was a Thursday, and we kept the envelope in our hot little hands until Friday evening, when we opened it at dinner on our first night in Greenville.

From the beginning, I thought we were having a girl. Actually, it was less of a thought and more of an assumption — I have two sisters, 90% girl cousins, and almost all of our close family friends have all girls. We just don’t do boys in my world, as evidenced by my Dad’s response when I asked for final guesses:

Our families were pretty much 50/50 on whether it would be a boy or a girl. The vast majority of online friends thought it would be a girl. As I said, I thought girl from the beginning until the last week or so, when I started to think it might be a boy. John didn’t have a strong feeling until the last week or so, when he also started to think it might be a boy! We even consulted Joanna’s old wives tales round-up, and my answers leaned towards boy.

Still, I wasn’t surprised when we opened the envelope and saw girl! The beautiful thing is that even though for years I’ve always thought I’d prefer to have a girl, and especially a girl as the oldest child, by the time it actually came down to our actual child, I can honestly say I would have been equally as happy either way. All of the things you hear about just wanting the baby to be healthy are 100% true, but more than that, I think my happy ambivalence was due to the fact that I’ve gotten the chance to know some lovely little boys (my nephew and Perry!) over the last few years, and have been reminded that they are equally as wonderful and fun as little girls!

That being said, I think John will be an amazing Dad to a little girl. Also, let’s be clear — I’m pretty excited about the two sets of pink cat pajamas I’ve already bought her. For the most part, though, our registry is pretty neutral, and you might be surprised to see the nursery design I’m working on. (More on that soon!)

Finally, since many folks have been asking, I would say at this point we’re about 95% set on a first name, and 60% set on a middle name. We will be keeping both under wraps until she joins us!

I would love to hear: If you’ve had a baby, did you have a strong feeling about the sex, and were you right? Did you find out beforehand? For everyone, if you want to have children, would you rather have boys, girls, both, or no preference?