It’s a ….

GIRL !!!!!! We were thrilled to learn that our baby-on-the-way is a little girl yesterday! Since Erik’s siblings and most of his cousins are boys, and because Luke’s gender seemed to set us on that same course, we couldn’t help expecting another baby boy. But we were delighted to learn that Luke will be getting a little sister instead!

While we really can’t say we had a preference one way or the other for the baby’s gender, we find it to be a little more exciting to be expecting a girl. Luke gave us a thorough education in baby boys, but girls are new territory. Additionally, both Erik and I grew up in families with two boys close in age, but neither of us have known the dynamic of a brother and sister close in age. My wonderful brothers are much younger than me and we have the reverse gender order.

We pray that being different genders might help our two to be a little less competitive with one another. Last weekend we went to the beautiful wedding of a dear college friend, Stephen, and his lovely bride, Grace. There were many moving moments during the wedding’s events, but to me the most touching was the sweet friendship that was evident between Stephen and his younger sister Katie, another friend of ours. Our hope and prayer is that our two munchkins will grow up to be just as close and caring to one another as they are!

While we find that having a girl helpfully tempers our tendency to assume that this baby will be ‘another Luke’, we still can’t help affectionately referring to this little babe as Luka. But fear not, it’s just an in-the-womb nickname. Now that we know her gender what we really need to do is crack open the name books that are gathering dust on our shelves and pore over the girls’ section. I find baby naming to be a very daunting task, so I’m thankful to the ultrasound for narrowing our options considerably!

Since we learned I was pregnant, the anatomy ultrasound that would reveal our child’s gender has been the big event we were looking forward to. Now that it has happened, we suddenly feel so much closer to the day this child will make her entrance to our world. All of the sudden, that’s the next big pregnancy event in my mind!