It's a Girl!

Bryce and I were able to find out the gender of our precious little baby at 16 1/2 weeks, two and a half weeks earlier than most OBGYNs will tell you. This was possible because of the study we participated in called NuMom2B (if you're a first time mom in the Provo/Orem UT area, I recommend looking into it!).

If it was up to me, I would have just found out during the sonogram, but I have an awesome sister-in-law (shout out to Kristen!) who was sweet enough to plan a little gender party for us. So, when the doctor came in to do the sonogram and asked if we wanted to know the gender we answered, "Yes, but not right now." Haha. We asked her to put the precious information into a folder that we could deliver to our family and they would then surprise us with the gender. When the time came we were asked to close our eyes-- it was SO HARD!! But I did it.

Driving home, I had the envelope in my purse. It was as if heat radiated from the bag on my lap! The knowledge was so close!! But I was determined to be patient. Unfortunately we had to wait until the next day to find out. The. Next. Day. Ahhh! Somehow, I was able to not touch my purse for an entire day and it was well worth it.

The day before Valentine's Day we visited with my in-laws. I gave them the envelope and went to the other room, in case someone had an audible reaction. After a moment of deadly silence, we heard from the other room, "We can't tell!" What?!?!?! You can't tell? It wasn't as if Bryce and I could look and say, "Oh, here. It says it right here." So we tried to give them directions from the other room. "Do you see it say either boy or girl in the print on the top of the picture?" Those few minutes seemed to last forever!! Finally my mother-in-law found where it said it and a huge sigh escaped from my lips. A few minutes later this is what happened.

And the truth was revealed!! Both Bryce and I thought it would be a boy. We even had a boy's name picked out, but the news that it was a girl was exhilarating! We'd have to find a girl name! Many times people had asked me, what do you want? I always answered that I wanted it to be healthy, mostly because it's true, but also because I didn't really know. Once I found out it was a girl, though, I realized that was exactly what I wanted!

After we found out the exciting news we had cake (which was delicious to my pregnant belly)! The pink on top means it's a girl. They weren't going to be able to wait to make the cake until they found out the gender so they got creative by making a cake that was both blue and pink and just flipped to corresponding side. 

What an exciting day! I'll be able to do pigtails and cute little dresses! Not to mention adorable bows!! After we found out the news, Bryce and I picked out names for days! We had a list of about 20 names that we liked and we just couldn't narrow it down! One day, though, all of the sudden Bryce was looking at our list and pointed out one of the names on it. "What about Olivia?" he asked. I said it a few times out loud, "Olivia. Olivia. Olivia Allred." I fell in love. I piped up, "What about Renee as the middle name?" Olivia Renee Allred. Bryce said he liked it. The next Sunday as we were sitting in church  we were both doodling on a piece of paper writing down the name over and over again. Olivia Renee Allred. We couldn't get it out of our minds. And so we decided! But it's still tentative, we don't want to say that's it for sure until we meet her, to see if it fits her. As I speak to her through my tummy, though, Olivia Renee Allred seems to fit perfectly. I'm pretty sure that's what will go down on her birth certificate. What do you guys think?

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