The Girls' Reaction

We told the girls' about their new brother or sister with the help of Santa Claus. Each year we trek to Easton in Columbus for our annual Santa Photo. My oldest brother is 43 and we've been going since he was an infant.

As we've gotten older, and before we had a lot of little kids to "justify" sitting on Santa's lap we have taken to silly antics to make the outing a bit more fun. Even with our kids in tow we use gimmicks like Santa hats, Rudolph noses, funny glasses and this year, wigs. Real wigs. $100+ wigs borrowed from my sister's friend who is a drag queen. At any rate we wigged up - strangers were taking our picture with their phones. It was pretty Epic.

I handed the photographer a card that said "Baby Brown debuting Aug. 2015." As she took the photo she held up the sign. I was hoping to have the moment of surprise forever captured in the Santa photo - but they sign didn't resonate. My family was a bit confused. It took a minute to set in. After the brief bit of commotion when they finally realized what it said Santa handed the girls each a t-shirt. One shirt said "Big Sister" and the other said "Middle Sister." The middle sister shirt sealed the deal. I made sure they both understood what that meant. That I was pregnant and they would have a little brother or sister come summer.

Ironically even before we found out we were pregnant the girls' would talk about having a sibling. Out Of The Blue. They talked about if it would be a boy or girl, when the baby would be in my tummy, etc.

Sophia ONLY wants a baby brother. Emma ONLY wants a baby sister. Never before (okay, who are we kidding??? this was my dream!) have I wanted to have twins so desperately - one of each. But alas I'm carrying a singleton. I have no gut feelings about its gender - except for the few symptoms I mentioned yesterday this pregnancy feels just the same as my previous pregnancies.

My official due date is July 27. In my first ultrasound I measured a few days ahead of that, July 24. But knowing I like to incubate my babies I'm pulling for Aug. 1. I was 41w 6d with Sophie and 40w 4d with Emma.

My nephew, my ONLY nephew, ONLY wants me to have a girl. You see, as he told me repeatedly at Christmas, he's been "living a certain lifestyle for 21 years." He is the only grandson and the only nephew in our immediate family. I have two girls, my brother Bob has two girls, Anthony has two sisters. He likes his rank. (Never mind my mom's two nephews ;) I'm a little afraid my favorite nephew will disown me if it's a boy!