The assumption seems to be....

....that we're hoping 'this time it's a boy'. I think this is universal, too, and if our first child had been a boy people would probably assume this time we're hoping for a girl.

The truth? Before we had Luca, I always imagined myself with a son. When I got pregnant, my husband and I were both convinced it would be a boy...all signs pointed to it being so. We had our ultrasound at 20 weeks exactly. I didn't want to find out the baby's sex. My husband did. So we compromised. Since the u/s was in December, we had the tech put the picture with the results in an envelope for us to open on Christmas. We never made it to Christmas, though. Darrick caved and convinced me to let him open it on Christmas Eve morning.

When we saw the picture, and the faint writing that said, "It's a Girl!" we were in shock. SO surprised were we, that we didn't really believe it was true. In fact, the next time I went to see my midwife, I took the picture with and asked her to help me decode it. "I don't see anything," I said, "so I'm not sure how you can KNOW it's a girl."

"Exactly. You don't see anything, which is HOW we know it's a girl." Oh....right. But she drew me a diagram to take home to Darrick anyhow, a picture of what the u/s was (or was not) showing us. And it was true, in the end, that despite all our absolute certainty that we'd have a boy, we brought a sweet baby girl into this world. And it was not what we expected, but SO SO much more.

So now here we are, pregnant again, and this time I have NO feeling about boy or girl. Lots of my friends have guessed this one's a boy, and their reasons for the guess are varied. Everything from "I just think you'll have a boy." to pointing to how different my symptoms are this time around. And of course, most people who hear we're expecting #2 assume we're HOPING for a boy. I suppose it makes sense...so many families dream of one boy and one girl...one of each to even things out. But do WE hope for that?

I can't speak for my husband, but personally, I can't imagine not having my little Luca girl. You dream and imagine your life one way (for us, it was having a boy that first time...not that we PREFERRED it, but we just ASSUMED it would be so), and then it takes a turn, and that turn is the HAPPIEST turn you could imagine. And, all the sudden, you cannot even begin to dream of how life would have been if it had gone the other way. So this time, probably even more so than last time, I am wise with the knowledge that life hands you exactly what you need, and I am not one tiny bit concerned about whether I will, "get my boy". Because whoever we get, he or she will be awesome!