It's a...............BOY!

So let's all pretend and use our imaginations for a moment.. it's May 9th... (yes... it is May 9th -- see date above - it will help you picture yourself there)... humor me!

So the night before our much-awaited specialist appointment... we decided - it takes 3 hours to get to Rockville so rather than cut it close like we did last time, let's just leave at 6:00 for our 10:00 appointment... that way we'll have time to eat breakfast somewhere near the doctor's office and we won't feel rushed.
Well - we ended up leaving our house at 5:45 instead - we were just TOO anxious!  We got breakfast at Panera (near our house - also not in the plan) and then headed on our way.  Apparently getting on the road so early promptly excused us from all of the rush-hour traffic.  Our planned 3 hour trip ended up taking us about an hour and 15 minutes.  We arrived in Rockville at 7:20.... roughly 3 hours early.

What to do? What to do? Nothing is open anywhere at 7:20 in the morning.  We hung out in the parking lot until 8:00 and then decided to find SOMETHING to do.  Luckily, there was a nearby Target - so we wandered around there for a while.  I walked up and down the baby aisles looking at boy stuff and looking at girl stuff.  I was much more drawn to the girl stuff - since I was 100% sure that I was going to find out in a few hours that we're having a girl.

Two hours later (I'm not sure how the time eventually did go by...) we walked up to the specialist's office.  This time they took us straight back into the sonogram room.  I felt like I was in a movie and we should have some emotional soundtrack playing to go along with the building suspense.

The technician brought in another girl with her this time and said she was a "student - there to observe".  The student had a much better attitude than the technician - who was less than impressed with Keith's witty banter.

She measured everything - the head, the heart, the spine... which was all great!  And I hate to put this in writing but we were not worried about all of that - we wanted to know WHAT IT WAS!!!!

It seemed to take FOREVER and then finally she said "So mom... do you want to know what we're having here?" I said "Absolutely... I can't wait!" - she said well it is still kind of early but I can tell you that I am 110% sure you're having a boy!
Keith stood up and cheered. Tears were rolling down my cheeks and I didn't say a word... I must have had a shocked look on my face because the student tech said "Mom... are you okay?" I said, "Yea... I just feel like I lost a bet. I was SO sure it was a girl."

After that, the tech left the room and let the student "play" - which was good for us - because she was just as excited as us to look around and print pictures!

We left there with about 18 pictures!!!... which I know we wouldn't have had if it were up to the tech.

When we got in the car and headed home I called my mom - "DONT TELL ME!" she screamed as soon as she heard my voice. I wasn't GOING to tell her over the phone!!! I just wanted to let her know that the appointment went well and that we were on our way home!

Our car ride was pretty quiet... we didn't turn on the radio - just sat there thinking of names.  You see... we were DEAD-SET on girl names before our appointment but never had any boy names picked out.  So... the whole way home we called out names that came to us and dismissed them all just as quickly.

That afternoon we met my mom and dad for lunch to show them the pictures and then took them right over to the quilt shop to share with the rest of the family :)

Everyone was SOOO excited to say the least and everything started to feel a little less surreal!