Well, I'm sure most of you have heard by now, or will see from the picture above, but we found out the gender of our baby. It was mainly me who wanted to know the gender, I was dead set on finding out and Ben agreed we should. Finding out that the bump inside me was a little man was one of the best things about the pregnancy. Either way, if the gender was male or female, we wouldn't have minded, the baby would still be loved no matter what, but the excitement of finding out what terror was kicking around in my belly like a gymnast was amazing.
We had a little fun on our social media and asked friends and family to vote in a mini survey I created, guessing if it was "heels" for a girl or "wheels" for a boy. Yes, some of you may say this is stereotyping male and female gender, but this was just a little fun way for people to guess. You can see from the images used, I used a 4x4 truck for the "wheels"/boy guess as that is what Ben is known for and I used "heels" as the girl option as I love my heeled shoes and boots. We thought it would be a fun way to get people to guess, rather than using boy/girl or he/she etc.
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Monday 24th July came round very quickly, and I was so excited. All I had to do was work from 8am until 11:15am and then I could leave to go to the hospital and have our scan at 12:10pm. We arrived at the Maternity Assessment Centre at our local hospital and went and sat in the waiting room until they called my name. Listening to the conversations of other people in there who were having their 20 week scan was surreal, as so many people were saying the same things... "Should we find out the gender?", "How do we tell people what the gender of the baby is?" and such conversations were happening all around us. Some people had gone as a couple and then others had family members with them, whether that be their children they had already, or their parents, asking them whether or not they should find out.
My name was finally called and we went into the scan room, and a lovely sonographer conducted the scan. (The gel they use when performing the scan was sooooo cold and so was the room, it was FREEZING!) but the sonographer advised they keep the rooms cool as most mums to be are warm. Now I haven't been cold in a long time, but that room was like a fridge haha!
Anyway, she checked the heart beat, brain, spine, limbs and everything else she needed to do, before asking if we wanted to see what we were having. Just as she was measuring the baby, they swung their "chunky" thigh (the sonographers description) up and she paused the screen so she could take a measurement. 3cm long the femur was. That seemed quite big, especially when she said "chunky" haha!
She moved around scanning the baby and then we looked at the screen as she said you can see what the gender is now in this view. It was a bum shot of the baby, between the legs. I could see clear as day that there was something their and asked Ben if he could see. He said he couldn't, but I think he could kinda. I looked at the lady performing the scan and sort of asked for confirmation, "is that what I think it is?" and she said "yes that looks like a little willy there". Now she couldn't say for certain, as the NHS staff aren't allowed to do so, but it was clear, that I was having a baby boy.
We then finished the scan, sat back in the waiting room while we waited for the images to be printed and then we could go home. The agreement was, we weren't telling ANYONE at all the gender of the baby until the Sunday when we went out for a Sunday lunch with family and friends. This meant Ben got the hyperactive, excited me, in the car journey all the way home, as I knew we would see my mum more or less straight away, so I had to get my excitement out one way or another. I'm sure he really loved me for that car journey home haha.
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Sunday 30th July came and we could finally let family and friends know the gender. Sunday dinner was booked for 1pm at a local pub/restaurant and there were 16 of us. Ben (and I kinda helped) made a BLUE sponge cake on Saturday as we said that is how we wanted to reveal the gender to everyone else. Everyone was banned from our house that day so they couldn't see the colour of the cake haha! We took that along with balloons, seating plan cards and a little sign that said Heels or Wheels to the pub to add a bit of decoration.
Here are a few pictures from the lunch. 6 people said boy and 8 people said girl. I wish I had kept the guesses now as I cant remember who said what..... Everyone was over the moon and me, Ben and baby all got a few gifts from family which are shown below. 2 baby record books, milestone cards and a hand knitted cardigan, booties, mittens and the most adorable pompom hat in blue and white.
I just want to say a really big thank you to the family and friends who shared this special day with us and both Ben and I enjoyed it so much. Time for you all to start fighting over who is babysitting as we know a lot of you want a chance haha !!
Kelley-Jay Martin
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