It's a .... (updated with pictures!!)

GIRL!!!

At first I had wanted a girl, but by yesterday, I was somehow convinced it was a boy.  I was hoping it was a boy for Caleb's sake because in the past week he had consistently asked for a boy "so he'll play with me."  And I was thinking that they probably would get along better if they were both boys, especially seeing that they'll be 4.5 years apart.  My brother and I are about that far apart and I can tell you that he had absolutely no interest in playing My Little Ponies with me and I only had a mild interest in playing GI Joes, and even that was only once he started getting some cute friends.  But, when we finally got into the room to find out what the baby is, the technician asked Caleb what he wanted and he said "a sister!"  I was a little surprised and said "a girl?  you're sure?  don't you want it to be a boy?" And he says "no.  I want a girl."  Okay, it's settled.  We're all completely unsure of what we want the baby to be.  We'll all be so excited either way.  

So, the technician is moving the wand around and I'm saying "oh!  the butt!  (hahahaha) that's so funny... uh. oh. that's a girl!"  and the technician confirmed it.  There was no denying it.  We do have a picture, but you don't really need to see it, so just trust me.  It's a girl.  This is really good for us because we have about 5 girl names that we love and 2 boy names that we were not too thrilled about.  It'll be difficult to decide what to name her.  I told Shane it's too bad we aren't going to have triplet girls, so we can use up more of the names we really like.  

We got some great pictures finally!  My absolute favorite is this one where she is sucking her thumb.  Oh my!  Isn't it the cutest!  I want to frame it!

And her feet!  Too cute!

And here is a great front view of her face and ribs.  It might be a bit hard to see, but she has really full lips just like Caleb.  

Now that we know it's a girl, I am really so very happy.  I really had no idea how happy I would be.  Part of it is because girls are so much more fun to sew and knit cute things for.  She'll grow up and get excited about the things I can make for her.  Not like Caleb who only wants the plainest of clothes that aren't worth the time to make by hand.  But, more than that, I'm happy because I think that when a boy grows up, he gets married and his wife becomes more important than his mother.  Boys leave.  But girls.  They always need their mother.  Even if she lives 3,000 miles away.  Girls never leave.