#4 Gender Reveal

 Eli and Micah (especially Micah) have been so curious about this new baby. They have asked a lot of questions and were hoping for a new baby sister. We decided to invite them to the ultrasound that could reveal the baby's gender. I was really hoping Baby would cooperate, but had a bad feeling going into the ultrasound that s/he may not.

As we expected, Micah and Eli were fascinated by the pictures of the baby moving inside my tummy.

 They had lots of questions about what they were seeing on screen.  It took a while for the ultrasound tech to get some good pictures because Baby was tucked in a little ball in one small part of my uterus--even though s/he had plenty of room to move around. (My bad feeling was getting worse and I reminded Eli and Micah that we can't make the baby move, so we may have a surprise baby.)

Finally, Baby uncurled and stretched out.

The tech got the pictures and measurements she needed. All looked healthy and well with Baby, then came the news we had been waiting for....

(Micah is on the left and Eli on the right.)

Even though they weren't thrilled at the time with the idea of having another brother, and it took some correcting gender pronouns for a while, Eli and Micah are now really excited for Joshua to have a buddy. They think it's great that Joshua will have a friend sleeping in his room just like they get to share a room. They also have been really active in our discussions on baby names. While we won't name this baby "Yoda" (sorry Eli) they have had some other great suggestions and readily offer their opinions.