It's a GIRL!

Matt and I really wanted to be able to reveal the sex as a surprise to our families on Christmas day.  The only problem was that our anatomy scan wasn't scheduled until after Christmas.  When I went in for my 12 week appointment, my OB told me they also offer gender scans starting at 15 weeks.  I was tempted but also nervous since we found out early with Sophia, and we all know how that all turned out! We decided to go for it and felt a little better since it was my actual OBGYN's office and not a boutique ultrasound place.

We had our appointment the morning of December 12 and I was 15 weeks 5 days.  We didn't tell anyone that we were finding out early because we wanted it to REALLY be a surprise on Christmas! I was honestly convinced it was a girl very early on.  This pregnancy is practically identical to Sophia's, other than my morning sickness being a lot worse.  I had a dream that Sophia was a girl the day before our first ultrasound and this time around, I had a girl dream pretty early on which solidified it for me.  I have been trying to prepare Matt for two girls every since.  ;) His tradeoff is that he gets to buy a gun for every girl we end up having.

The baby was pretty active the entire time, and although it took about 15-20 mins, the tech was able to tell pretty positively that it was a GIRL! Sophia kept looking at the screen and saying "bebe" over and over again.  We decided on the name Stella Cate! I am SO excited for Sophia to have a sister and I love the thought of them sharing a monogram.  Plus, we get to use all of Sophia's monogrammed clothes again. ;)

On Christmas day, we waited until all the gifts were passed out and then had all the grandparents sit on the couch together. We gave each one a gift to open.  The grandmas opened theirs first.  I made two ornaments with pink glitter and Stella's monogram on the front and a "It's a girl" ribbon at the top.  Everyone was so surprised!

Next, we had the Grandpas open up their gifts to announce the name. Because we're classy people, we decided to use bottles of Stella Artois beer. ;) I used some pink Washi tape to cover up the Artois and wrote her middle name, Cate instead.  They loved it!

We LOVED finding out early and are so excited to meet Stella Cate come May! And don't worry...the anatomy scan a few weeks later confirmed she's still a girl.  ;)