The beginning

When Greg and I were together for only 6 months we both knew already that we wanted to have children together. We were watching Run Lola Run and decided that one day we would have a little girl and name her Lola. When we went to the mall and saw adorable little outfits or toys we would say "someday we'll get that for Lola." We would even refer to little girls as "Lola's" ("awww, look at that little Lola, she's so cute"). Everyone we knew knew who Lola was, even though she wasn't real.

When we found out we were going to have a baby last March I knew we were going to have a little girl, and I knew that her name would not be Lola. Greg was devastated, but many other people we knew were relieved ("Lola sounds like a stripper!"). I just couldn't connect the name that we had used for so long to the child that was growing inside of me. We searched for a girl name we both liked, but it just wasn't working out for us. I fell in love with the name Matilda, but only my friend Meggan liked it (and we both liked it because of the Roald Dahl.)

We went for an ultrasound at 20 weeks and decided not to find out what the sex of the baby was. However, when the baby's pelvis was measured, Greg saw something that he knew would break my heart. Close to the end of the appointment he told the nurse that I needed to know what the baby was. When she said "it's a boy" my heart sank. I felt like a terrible mother! What had happened to my motherly instinct? Everyone said to go with my gut feeling and my gut said "GIRL!" There was clearly something wrong with me if I didn't even realize I was having a boy! We left the doctors office and I finally let the tears flow. I called my mom from the car and she was able to get me to calm down and realize that it wasn't so much that my gut was telling me it was girl, it was the fact that we had talked so much for so long about having a little girl, that my mind sort of took over. (Ah, the wisdom of an extremely experienced Mother!)

After only  a few days I was able to come to terms with the fact that was going to have a baby boy. However, I made it very clear that we were not going to do everything in blue! Don't get me wrong, I like blue, but I do not like baby blue and I do not like an overload of blue. So instead we went with the now popular greens and browns. (And no yellow, I hate yellow.)

Talking with my mom about all of the children that have been in my life, we realize that many of the children that were closest to my heart had been boys (ie Gabriel, Jon (an aspergian), Skyler, Cody, Gavin, Ion, Ryan, and Nikolai). That's not to say there haven't been girls close to my heart (ie Mallory, Alexis, Cienna, and yes, even Delaney), just not as many. I was so afraid that I wouldn't know how to raise a boy (since I never was one), but soon realize that Greg was! He was there to help me out when I didn't know how to approach Gabriel now that he's maturing. He was there to help me understand ways to talk to some of the students I worked with. Everything was going to work out just fine with a little boy! Besides, we had chosen a boy name years ago when we saw the movies On The Edge and Intermission. We would name him Killian.