Fourth baby gender reveal: boy or girl?

Well the time has come to finally spill the beans on whether our fourth baby is a boy or a girl! It's so funny because for my first three I was pretty certain I “had a feeling” with each of them, but I was SO SURE Millie was a boy and when I was (obviously) dead wrong with her, I really just had no idea what to expect with this one! Keep reading because I have A LOT OF FEELINGS to share about this.

To know or not to know

First of all, I'm a planner. So waiting and being surprised wasn't even an option that Neil or I considered! I always want to know as early as I possibly can find out, and this time since I'm officially considered “geriatric” (HA) when it comes to this pregnancy, which is anyone over 35, I had the option of skipping right to the bloodwork at 10 weeks that would tell me if we had any genetic abnormalities and also the gender of the baby.

Gender reveal!

Watch below to find out what we're having!!!

Our predictions

I really really just figured this was a girl, for no other reason than we'd already had 3 girls! I didn't have a “strong feeling” though, like I had with the other babies. Neil says he was exactly the same, he didn't have a strong feeling either way. We really both just assumed it was probably a girl. As you saw in the video, Anabelle thought it was a girl, and Lyla thought it was a boy. But they BOTH said they were dying to have a baby brother!

When we found out

I mentioned this briefly in our pregnancy announcement, but we found out the baby's gender when we were at Disneyland California Adventure. A few weeks ago, we took the kids for a quick little staycation to Disneyland because we never got a chance to take them anywhere for a summer vacation.

We were sitting down at Flo's Cafe for breakfast and I got a call from my doctor's office, and it was a nurse practitioner who works for my OB. She said all the genetic testing came back normal, and then she asked me if we'd like to know the baby's gender right then, or if she'd like us to send it out in the mail. I said “Oh my gosh please tell me now! I'm dying to know!” And in the slowest sweetest voice she said “okay then … it's a male.”

My feelings

Tears immediately filled my eyes when I found out it was a boy, which has NEVER happened with any of our other babies! I just felt like it all made so much sense that this baby was a boy and why I felt such an urgency about getting this baby here.

Neil and I have been going to the temple weekly this year, after hearing this talk by the leader of our church last fall. (You can find out more about what we do inside our temples here.) It's a really peaceful, holy place to us and where my very best meditation and pondering happens. It's where I feel closest to God. Each time we'd go and I would sit quietly, thinking about what Heavenly Father wanted me to do next in life, I just kept feeling so strongly there was ONE MORE BABY.

This honestly never was about trying for a boy, or even necessarily wanting a certain number of kids! I just kept feeling like there was one more little baby in heaven and every time I thought about that baby in the temple, in my mind I had such a clear picture of a little energetic baby jumping up and down saying “put me in put me in!!!” (Like put me in, coach!) I knew whoever this baby was, they wanted to be here and they wanted to come down NOW. So when I found out it was a boy, it made soooo much sense to me that he was dying to come be part of our family.

I've had really tender feelings too about this baby boy being up in heaven with Neil's brother Dave who passed away in January, mentoring him and teaching him things he's going to need to know about life and what's really most important. Dave was so big on mentoring, and Neil has really missed his influence as an older brother so I just really feel like this baby is coming right when we need him, to be a comfort and peace to our family and to bring us the love from heaven that Dave and all of our other family members who have passed on are sending down.

I'm also feeling SUPER excited and a little like “oh my gosh what in the world will I do with a boy?!” So far I only have experience as a girl mom so it's going to be so fun to learn all the boy mom things. And all those times I thought I was so clever and confident buying everything in PINK for hand-me-downs haha oops.

Do we have a name?

YES we do have a name! It's really special to us and probably not exactly what you would guess, so just like our last two babies, we won't be telling ANYONE until the baby is born what his name is 🙂 It's more fun that way and also with how hard it is for Neil and me to agree on a name, it's even harder when we throw everyone else's opinions into the mix.

May can't come soon enough!

We're so excited to welcome this baby at the beginning of May. I'm 15.5 weeks along and so far the time has passed fastest with this pregnancy but funny enough, other than my strong pineapple cravings, it's felt just like the other pregnancies as far as morning sickness and extreme exhaustion. But I can definitely feel him kicking at the end of each day which is always THE BEST part. It's really fun to have kids who are old enough to be SUPER excited too about a baby coming and we're all very anxious to meet our new baby brother.