Back in November we found out that we would be expecting our 3rd addition to the family! We decided that we would wait the traditional 3 months or 1st trimester before saying anything to anyone. It was especially hard on Paige who was so sick during the Holidays. She was so nervous she would give it away because she was constantly running to the bathroom during the family Christmas parties. Luckily there are a lot of people in our families, so her absence from time to time was not noticed.
The 2nd trimester came and as is normal for Paige, she wasn't showing anything. We then had the grand idea to wait until someone noticed before we would make any announcements. Of course, that puts a little stress on the individual who has to be the first to ask the question nobody wants to ask!
Near the 5th month Paige started to show. Nobody had said anything. We were so close to the 5 month ultrasound when the doctor shows you the sex of the baby. We decided that we would hold out a little longer and find out the sex of the baby, then make an official announcement. The problem - she was now showing and we had family parties to attend! So we decided to hide the pregnancy the best we could by Paige wearing bulky clothing and jackets. It worked pretty well. Only Paige's sister Casey noticed, but she was too scared to say anything.
On Friday, February 18th, we went to the hospital for the ultrasound. Well...It's another GIRL. I guess John doesn't have the recipe for boys in his genes. We are excited to have another girl. It should make things pretty easy since we know how to raise girls and we have all the clothes, etc. for them. We admit a small amount of disappointment that we are not having a boy. We are in no way disappointed to be having this little girl, and will love her as much as the other two. We are just sad that we may not have any boys. This very well could be our last child. I refuse to keep trying just to have a boy. Right now we will be stretching ourselves financially to have 3. Who know what our future holds for us financially, but we also have to consider how much we can emotionally give to our children. We don't want to be stretched too thin.
As an aside. We will mention a funny experience we had when we were dating. We went for a walk on a Sunday afternoon (something we did quite frequently back in the day - mostly to get away from roommates.) We went down a dead end road and stopped to kiss for a minute. It was at that same location that John proposed to Paige, but mostly because of what happened on that Sunday afternoon. Nobody was around, and thus we felt it safe to kiss in this mostly secluded dead end. All of a sudden two old Latinos or Native Americans rode by on bikes - we weren't sure. The old man rode by first, not saying a word. We quickly stopped kissing but continued to hold the embrace. The old lady then rode by with a huge smile revealing half of her teeth missing. She then boldly exclaimed, "I think you'll have three children!" We couldn't help but have a good laugh over that, especially since we were in the infancy of our dating back then. We often have a good laugh over that experience. We jokingly refer to it as prophecy. It was after that day that we became serious in our dating. Maybe she was prophesying of our future with children.
We planned to have our parents over for dinner that weekend to share the great news with them. John's parents were going to Arizona to see Grandma Lyon so they couldn't come over. So John offered to take them to the airport. He asked them to come early so we could show them the ultrasound video. He told them to come early so they could spend a few minutes with the kids, which they eagerly agreed to do. It was funny because we showed the video and they immediately knew what was going on and gave congratulatory hugs and kisses to us both. Michael then said, "I was wondering if you were pregnant. I was going to ask Mary Margaret in private because I noticed you were wearing a maternity shirt." Well, that is really funny because the shirt she was wearing was not a maternity shirt. In his defense, the "in style" shirt actually has band that sits high like a maternity shirt. And when a girl is pregnant, it really accentuates it like a maternity shirt does. We then got to the part where the doctor revealed the baby's sex and they were so happy for us. It was nice for them to go to Arizona and share the wonderful news with Grandma Lyon and the Bowmans.
John and Jacque came over for dinner on Saturday afternoon. We also showed them the ultrasound video. This time we knew exactly at what point the video revealed the baby's sex. John was a little stressed when showing his parents because they were trying to catch a flight and he didn't want to sit through the whole video and make them wait. The comedy of this screening came when Jacque wasn't sure what this video was. Then it dawned on her that this wasn't some weird intro to a movie (we told them we were watching a movie they would like). We then got to the part where the baby's sex was revealed. The screen image was paused by the tech. And we asked, "well, you can see what we're having," and John said, "A boy?" Well, not exactly. You'd think that after 5 girls he would recognize girl pluming, but we will give him a pass because they didn't have ultrasounds back then like we do today.
So now comes the challenge to name this little cutie before she comes to our family sometime around July 7th, 2011. So far we are both fond of the name Lea. This will probably be her name, considering no other name has been on both of our approved lists. And it is a nice, beautiful traditional name, which we both like. Paige also wants her name to end in an "A" like her sisters' names. OK, so we have a strong candidate for a first name, but what about a middle name? We cannot quite break that conundrum. That will be determined at a later date. We like honoring family members as we have with Eliza Paige and Julia Faun (after Grandma Lyon - Mildred Faun Lyon). But other siblings have used grandmother's names, so we will look elsewhere. We really like Grace, but that doesn't give homage to any family members. Then again, we only know so many so honoring an ancestor that we don't know doesn't seem too likely. If she were a boy then the decision would be easy - Harrison. But alas, the Lord has blessed us in another way. And we are grateful for what He has given us. We have no regrets.
Eliza doesn't like the name Lea. She really wants to name her Twinkle. She gets really upset when we refer to her as Lea. Paige had a talk with her about her name being Lea but she was free to call her Twinkle as a nickname, just as Paige calls her Eli-belly. The other day Eliza told John that the baby's name was "Twinkle, but Mom was going to call her Lea." You've got to love the funny things that come out of children's mouths.
