The Big Reveal

A week ago at my 16 week ultrasound, we were able to find out the sexes of our twins. I am a big fan of the surprise, and when we had Adam, Shannon agreed to patiently wait to find out the gender. When we found out I was pregnant again, I was willing to wait to find out; Shannon, on the other hand, was on the "want to know" side of the fence. We only had a few weeks to talk about it though, because when we found out there were two babies growing in there, the whole "let's be surprised" thing flew out the window.

But that didn't mean I didn't still want it to be an event or something special. A few people I know have done the party and pink-or-blue cake reveal, where they have the ultrasound technician write down the sex on a secret piece of paper and they take it to a bakery, who bakes a cake in pink or blue with gender-neutral icing. You cut into the cake and SURPRISE! You're having a....

Well, I'm not a big fan of cake. And I certainly couldn't eat two cakes, and I was so anxious about the genders that I couldn't have found out in front of a room full of people. So I tweaked it slightly...

I went to the ultrasound and got to get another peak at the two little ones, who are both big for their gestational age (Baby B being even bigger than Baby A), and they both showed off for the ultrasound, waving their little fingers and jumping around actively. In what might be thought of as foreshadowing, they were in a yin and yang position (each is looking at the other's feet -- which also means that they are probably both dishing it out and taking it at the same time). She had to nudge them both a little bit to see what the sexes were (they were both lying with their legs straight out and crossed at the ankles), but she was able to get the money shot on both and she was very good about not hinting at all.

(Please excuse the quality of the sonogram photos - they were taken with my iphone instead of a scanner).

Baby A

Baby B

I had her write down the genders on a little card and stick it in an envelope. She also gave me another envelope of ultrasound pictures that I could look at, and yet another envelope with the "money shot" pictures (sealed very carefully) to look at after we found out later.

I took the envelope with the genders written down to Buy Buy Baby's Customer Service, handed over two girl onesies and two boy onesies, and told them what I wanted them to do, which as: a) Look at the card and don't tell me what it says. b) when I leave, take the appropriate onesies and wrap them in two separate boxes. I went home with two boxes which would reveal the gender of each of our babies, and I had no idea what was inside them.

That night when Shannon got home from work, the plan was to have Adam open the boxes in front of us so we would all find out together. The idea was that Adam would be included and that it was sort of a "gift" to him -- siblings. Who wouldn't want siblings as a gift, right? One of the problems was that Buy Buy Baby doesn't wrap with wrapping paper and the boxes were as good as nailed shut, so Shannon had to do most of the hard work. The second problem is that Adam is young and doesn't understand... and in some instances I think just flat out ignores me deliberately. But it was still fun, and we got some video of the event.

The video below is of the first box that we opened. Adam's reaction to "finding out" makes me laugh every time I watch it... complete and total avoidance, or uninterest, maybe. Or maybe the box was more interesting than the gift.



After wearing the box as a reaction to finding out he'd have a baby sister, I turned off the camera and looked at Shannon. He was looking at the other box with a concerned look on his face.

I asked, "Are you scared?"
He said, "A little, yeah. What if it's another girl??"

So we opened it....




I don't think I have ever seen Shannon more relieved. It's not that he didn't want a little girl - he did - very, very much so. He just also wanted Adam to have a little brother, because he always wanted a brother himself. I was somewhat surprised at the intensity of Shannon's happiness, since in the many weeks before that when I'd asked what he was hoping for, he replied with the politically correct: "I guess any combination would be fine, I don't have a preference." I, on the other hand, had been very open about telling people that A) I pretty much knew it was a boy and a girl, right down to which one was which in my stomach (the little girl is on the left side), and B) that I really wanted a boy and a girl.

So as it turns out, we truly couldn't be happier. And if anyone is interested, Baby A is the girl, and Baby B is the boy. I think that our "precious little girl" will turn out to be the antagonist. She seemed to be deliberately poking at her larger brother in the ultrasound. I guess she's just preparing for life with an ultra-attentive father and two older brothers.