Tuesday, July 26, 2016

BABY C is a SHE!




"Pink or Blue, We love you!" This saying pretty much sums up our emotions going into the night of our big gender reveal party. It didn't matter what the gender was because no matter what we were going to love our child all the days of our lives. This sweet little miracle is already a precious gift from the Lord. What an exciting day this was! We had anxiously awaited this day to finally know if Baby C was a he or a she. It was almost as if finding out the gender of our child would make this baby seem more real. We are still on Cloud 9 if you can't tell.  Words cannot even describe how thrilled we were to find out the gender of our sweet little one! And not only that, we were so humbled by all the family and friends that were excited to celebrate alongside us. So, here are the details about our thoughts along the way, our prayers for this sweet child, God revealing himself in the process, and the gender reveal party.
And now, without further ado...

Adam and I are so excited to announce that we are having a little GIRL!


 

"For this child, I prayed, and the Lord granted me my petition that I made to him."         1 Samuel 1:27
A special thank you to our dear friend and photographer, Stephanie Adkins! She is so talented and took most of the pictures in this blog post. (Check out her amazing work at www.stephadkins.com.)


Why We Both Wore Pink
Why did y'all both wear pink? Do y'all want the baby to be a girl? Did you know what the gender was before the party? If so, doesn't that give it away before the big reveal? Everyone has been asking us these questions so let me start by answering all of them.

We both wore pink because we both thought our baby was a girl. (More details to come about why we thought Baby C was a girl.) So, we both decided to wear pink and either we would both be right or both be wrong. Only one person knew the gender of our child before the big reveal so what we wore didn't give anything away. When people asked us if we wanted a boy or a girl, we answered that we just wanted a healthy baby and that is the honest truth. We didn't care what gender our child was because in our eyes this our precious little miracle.  Whatever gender God decided to bless us with, we would treasure him/her. Whether Baby C was a he or a she, God already has big plans for his/her life. It blows my mind to think that God has planned out our child's lives so intricately that He already knows what their accomplishments and failures will be, who their best friend will be, when they will come to pursue a relationship with Him, what their passions will be, who they will marry, and their children's lives. The list can goes on and on. Needless to say, God has an amazing future for our little one, and we have total confidence that God knows exactly what He is doing.

"For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be." Psalm 139:13-16
We think Baby C is a She: 
In one of my previous blog posts, I told about a dream that I had before we knew if I was pregnant. In this dream, our baby was a little girl. Here is the story of the dream I had about a week or so before we saw that big, fat positive on the pregnancy test:

During the waiting time, I had an amazing dream one night. It was a dream that without a doubt was from the Lord. I knew it was a dream from the Lord because of how vividly I remembered it, and the feelings that were tied in with the dream were so real. I dreamt that I was driving my car and stopped at a stoplight. While stopped, I turned around to see our little girl in her carseat. She was grinning from ear to ear. I told her how much I loved her, and then the light turned green. I vaguely remember what she looked like. I'm pretty sure she had blonde hair like me. She was the most beautiful little girl I had ever seen. As I drove home in my dream, I remember feeling this overwhelming sense of joy and gratitude because the Lord had blessed us immensely. I kept thanking the Lord for this amazing gift. I was so anxious to get home to Adam, so we could just spend hours soaking up our sweet baby girl. It is almost hard to describe the emotions in this dream. It seemed completely real. I almost feel like I am doing this dream an injustice because I truly can't explain every detail. When I woke up, I told Adam about the dream and how real it was. (I never remember my dreams so this was a miracle in and of itself.) We talked about how cool it was but we also didn't want to put all our hope in a dream. It gave me a glimpse of hope that we might be pregnant. But at the same time, I didn't want to be disappointed again. I wanted to type/write this dream down so that one day if it was true, then I could tell our little girl.
After finding out we were pregnant, the Lord continued to show up in mighty ways and my dreams because of way for Him to speak to me. He used this time, of what could have been filled with much fear given our past with miscarriages, to instead, speak unexplainable peace over our lives in the weeks of the unknown. To me, this was such an incredible way of God continuing to show His faithfulness and He used it as a time where I could learn to trust Him no matter what happened.

You see, I NEVER remember my dreams. (Not unless it was in the midst of a nightmare.) Needless to say, this was already a work of the Lord. I was remembering dreams vividly (which is definitely a pregnancy symptom). But what made this more than just a pregnancy symptom, was the way the dreams were so real and vivid and emotional. I can't really explain what made them different other than the fact that they offered immense peace to us during the first few months of waiting to get to the "safe zone" in this pregnancy. Gosh, the Lord is just so good to know exactly what fears would creep in during this time and how to combat those with His truth and peace.

After the dream I had before we even found out that I was pregnant, I continued to have more vivid dreams. I probably had about 4 by the time we were having our gender reveal party. There were some nights where I would ask the Lord for a dream about our baby because I was feeling anxious about what might could happen. There was several times that he answered this prayer. Every time I had a dream about our child, Baby C was always a girl. In my dreams, she was of different ages which gave me peace knowing that this pregnancy was full term and that she seemed like a perfectly, healthy little girl. Needless to say, when you have a ton of dreams about your baby being a girl, then I think its safe to say that we were completely convinced.

Before the gender reveal, my Dad also had a dream about holding a little baby girl. Adam had a dream about a little girl that was a little older playing around in the old Chapin High School football stadium. (That's where Adam and I are both from.) Other people in our lives would say that overtime they went to text us about our baby, they always said "she" on accident.  They had a feeling that we were going to be having a girl and would comment about how sweet it would be to see my manly husband holding a little girl (that will soften him up real quick). Anyways, time after time, every one seem to think our baby was going to be a girl. Now let me just say, we would have been just as happy with a little boy running around. I think everyone would have been just completely shocked.

I say all this to say that this is why Adam and I both wore pink for the gender reveal. We were completely convinced she was a girl. If we would have been wrong, then oh well-it would have been really funny. We just both felt like the whole pregnancy that the Lord was preparing our hearts for little girl to be joining our family. During this time as I think back, it was so sweet of the Lord to speak to us through dreams and give us that peace and comfort that His Hand was over this baby and our little miracle. And what a blessing she is already and will continue to be.

The Planning Behind Our Gender Reveal Party: 
Adam and I went to a special ultrasound place in Mt. Pleasant called, "Bond with Baby." At this facility, she specializes in 3D and 4D ultrasounds. I scheduled our visit about a month out because I knew that we wouldn't have much time to go to this place before Adam left for his 2 week drill.

Prior to our appointment, I had planned out food, beverages, and decorations with some help from a few friends. We were going to be hosting this at our house so I wanted it to be fun for everyone else also. For the actual reveal, we decided to do Silly String after debating a few other ideas. We figured this was a great way for everyone to be involved and who doesn't love having fun with silly string?! I went to Party City, Dollar Tree, Target, Grocery Stores, etc. to gather most of the supplies and refreshments for the party. I pretty much wiped a couple of Dollar Tree's out by buying all of their blue and pink silly string. I bought about 35 bottles of pink and 35 bottles of blue silly string. (I just based this number loosely on the number of people that had RSVP(ed) about a week out.)

On Thursday, we had our appointment at 4 pm.  I was 15 weeks and a couple of days and they want you to be about 15 weeks before you come in to find out the gender.  (If you are in the Charleston area and want to find out the gender, Bond with Baby is great!) This was such a neat visit! At first, she showed us our baby on the screen. Baby C was moving around constantly and the ultrasound tech even said that this baby was going to be rough on me. Baby C gave us a wave, did some somersaults, and even pretended to faint. It was so entertaining to watch baby moving all around. Then, she showed us the head, feet, toes, hands, fingers, belly, etc. (She showed us everything minus the "private parts.") After quite a show, she turned off the screen and began taking pictures to reveal if Baby C was a he or a she. (We told her prior to that we wanted it to be a surprise tomorrow for our party.) So she collected her evidence via pictures and placed them in an envelope.

Usually, you find out if the baby is a boy or a girl in the room so she only had pink or blue envelopes. She asked me to choose one because whatever color I chose, she was going to use for the envelope and flash drive. We chose pink since we "thought" baby C was a girl. She stepped out of the room and put the stationary card that read "Boy" or "Girl" in the pink envelope along with the pictures with the evidence. She sealed this envelope nice and tight so we wouldn't be able to see inside. She gave us the pink flash drive with the pictures and videos but told us not to plug it in until after the party. She sent us on our way out with lots of fun pictures and memories to share. (She isn't our doctor so she is not allowed to tell you anything about the health of the baby.) We had such a fun time just getting to watch Baby C on the monitor and what a blessing it was for us to see baby moving so much!

I think Baby C might be a girl because she might be a drama queen if so...
Bottoms up-I think it's safe to say our little one is going to be hitting the dance floor often.

Baby C waving at us. "Hey Mommy and Daddy!"

After our appointment, we went about 5 minutes down the road to deliver the envelope to my sweet friend Lauren. Lauren has been one of my close friends ever since we bonded right away in college. She has such a beautiful heart for the Lord and her joy is contagious. I couldn't think of a better person to have asked to know the gender of our baby and prepare everything for us. Her friendship is such a blessing to our family and we can't wait for her to become Aunt LaLa. So...we chatted with Lauren for a little bi, dropped off the very important envelope and both colors of silly string. We left so she could get to work. Lauren's job was to take the lid off whatever color the gender was and wrap a label around the outside just for decoration. I designed a really easy little label that said, "He or She? Wait to spray and see!" (Whatever color wasn't used, was saved so I could later return it to the nearest Dollar Tree after the party.) Here is a picture of all of her hard work:



For the next 24+ hours, Adam and I had to wait to find out what the gender was of Baby C! I was seriously dying to know because the planner in me was ready to start planning details from the nursery to cute clothing. On Friday, I got busy prepping for our big party. I made 48 confetti cupcakes and the rest of the food was easy enough to just mix together in serving dishes. I decorated with help from friends, we iced cupcakes, made last minute errands, and got ready for everyone to arrive at 7. Adam even came home and cut the grass in the summer heat before all the guests arrived. (Good Job on your record grass cutting time babe!) The Refreshments that we served included: Confetti Cupcakes, Goldfish and M & M's,  Skinny Popcorn, Assorted Fruit Tray, and Strawberry Platter. The drinks we served were Baby Boy Punch (Pineapple Juice, Hawaiian Punch-Blue, and Sprite) and  Baby Girl Punch (Tickled Pink Lemonade Mix). 



It's Party Time!
Our guests started to arrive around 7 pm on Friday. In the invitation, we told everyone to wear pink or blue to cast their vote for whether they thought Baby C was a boy or a girl. As we greeted all our guests, we had them also cast their vote on the chalkboard under boy or girl.


The gender reveal was set to happen around 8 pm after all the guests had arrived. We started heading outside for some pictures before the actual reveal. We wanted to take a group picture of everyone who voted blue and everyone who voted pink at the party. It was really cool that night to see so many people that have been praying for us and loving us through this journey to come together to celebrate our baby. We decided to hop in both pictures since we are the parents to be. We have been really fortunate to have so many people walking through life with us through the ups and downs.  This is what godly community looks like. We have truly been blessed by it and we always encourage others to find community in their home church. Thank you to all the people below and all the others who couldn't make it that night. We couldn't thank you enough for your love, support, encouragement, and prayers. Here are the 2 different groups:




And now....It is gender reveal time!! The moment we were all waiting for! Adam and I stood in the middle of our back yard with our guests circled around us. Adam and I were going to spray each other while everyone else sprayed us. So, Lauren passed out all the Silly String to the guests and we got ready. Lauren counted and 1, 2, 3.....







Baby C is a GIRL! Lots and lots of PINK silly string went everywhere. We had a blast finding out via silly string what Baby C was especially with our family and friends! Thank you to everyone who came and made this night so special! Baby Girl is loved so much by so many people already and we are truly blessed. God surely has given us so much that we don't deserve. We pray so many things for our daughter but most of all we pray that she would have a purpose in life that is only God given. Stay tuned for the next post on prayers for our daughter and the meaning behind her name...

"His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness, with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love." 2 Peter 1:3-7

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