Ahoy, it's a BOY!

13 Weeks

14 Weeks

 16 Weeks

This third pregnancy has been a wonderful journey thus far! I've been confident that I wanted a third child for quite some time (at least since we had Ella), but it took me a while to convince Luke that the time was right over summer. Usually a bottle of wine will do the trick (or, thanks to his lawyer crew, a glass of scotch), but I wanted to give him time to be as genuinely excited as I was to start trying. In a perfect world, I love a three year age gap but, since we had a miscarriage in the past (and I'm not getting any younger), I felt like a two year age gap would give us some flexibility and options. Not to mention, we have the best nanny in existence. She has naturally become a part of our family and she made it very clear that she was up for the challenge. Our first attempt over summer was unsuccessful and, somehow, I ended up with the longest cycle I've ever had lasting over 50 days. Consequently, I became even more obsessive about using my ovulation sticks. I really needed this second time to work so that I could time it right with school. I've been very fortunate in the past to get pregnant right away so this time I was prepping myself to hold off for another year if the timing just wasn't right. The morning of September 27th I woke up experiencing all of the signs of ovulation. I ran to the bathroom eager as ever, but my ovulation stick came back negative. We took the girls to swim practice and went along with our Sunday daily routines. By 3pm, I was convinced that my body was ovulating and took yet another test. Low and behold, I got a smiley face which meant "game-on". This happened to be the night of the blood moon and Luke was really amped to get a shot of this rarity since the last time it happened was in 1982 and it wouldn't happen again until 2033. If I understand it correctly, the blood moon means that a lunar eclipse has to occur while the moon is full and at its closest point in its orbit around Earth (making it a supermoon). This all has to happen simultaneously, so cool! We put the kids to bed and climbed up on the roof. The iphone pictures turned out awful but we still had a blast. We joked that if we got pregnant that night, we would have some kind of super baby. Since we don't really believe in Chinese gender calendars or any other similar gender predictors (although I think that they are super fun :), Luke had joked that it would take something as grand as a blood moon for us to conceive a boy. 

Exactly 7 days later my sister and brother-in-law announced to the family that, to their surprise, they were pregnant with baby number three! We were all thrilled but it also made me want to be pregnant that much more now so that our babies could be close. I started going through pregnancy sticks like it was nobody's business. Amazon prime became my closest friend and I was an overzealous testing machine. On Thursday, October 8th (11 days after the blood moon), I decided to wait to test until after school.  I ran to the bathroom as soon as I got home. Elise was trying to open the door and I could hear Ella in the living room asking for more juice. As I sat there filled to the brim with anticipation, I started to see that second line begin to appear. I could feel my eyes start to well up with tears. It's funny how extraordinarily emotional that moment is even if you've experienced it before. Time just literally stands still. Its moments like this that you'll remember for the rest of your life and that no one can ever take away from you. It took everything I had not to call Luke right away. I had promised Ella that I would take her to Pumpkin City that afternoon so I got changed and immediately starting thinking of fun ways to tell Luke. The obvious option was to buy pumpkins for each family member and see if Luke noticed that we had one extra one on the doorstep. I had never been more willing and impatient to go the pumpkin patch! I grabbed two large pumpkins and let Ella pick out her pumpkin. Next to the cash register they had barrels full of smaller pumpkins so I grabbed one for Elise and then an itty bitty pumpkin for baby number three. I was bursting at the seams and dying to tell someone (I knew I couldn't tell family until I told Luke) so I awkwardly blurted out that I just found out I was pregnant to the poor guy working the register. He actually got a huge smile on his face and I explained my plan with the pumpkins. He called over two more employees and told them as well. It's pretty hilarious how fast you can randomly bond with strangers :). They all walked me to my car, wished my luck, and gave me a big hug. So fun!

I told Luke that I wasn't feeling well in hopes he would come home earlier than usual. It worked! He pulled up around 6:30pm-ish and I was waiting outside with Elise barely able to contain myself (I never wait for him outside so I thought that for sure he would know something was up). I proudly pointed to the pumpkins and exclaimed, "We got one for each member of the family!" He bent down to look at his and said, "They look great!", grabbed Elise and started to walk inside. I tugged at his shirt and had to say, "Look again, one for EACH member of our family!" It still took him a couple of seconds and then he looked at me and said, "Wait, wait, no way, are you pregnant...really pregnant?" There might have been a few happy cuss words in there but, for memories sake, we'll keep it PG. Luke never has very emotional reactions, but he actually did a little jump and couldn't stop smiling. It was truly the most excited I'd ever seen him! His excitement made me that much more giddy :)

Fast forward 3 weeks later, I was DYING to see the baby's heartbeat and get an early ultrasound. I had the tiniest bloodspot at 6 weeks and used that to coax my OB to let me come in for an ultrasound. I wasn't too worried since I had had subchorionic hemorrhages with both girls that made me spot early on. Sure enough, baby's heartbeat was strong (in the 140s) and I had another hemorrhage. The baby dated exactly to the night of the blood moon, so we knew this little one was extra special. I was put on pelvic rest again and got to go back for another ultrasound on Thursday, November 19th to see if the hemorrhage was healing, which it was. Baby was measuring 9w 4d and the heartbeat was higher this time (170). I just felt in my gut that it was another little girl and started getting really excited about the thought of buying more matching outfits :). When you have two girls, everyone assumes that you are dying for a boy (Luke definitely was), but we were both truly happy either way. 

Thirteen weeks couldn't come fast enough because that's when Ultrasound Me in Costa Mesa will tell you the gender of your baby for $25. Almost all of my girlfriends have gone to this place but they did tell one of them the incorrect gender so it made me a little nervous. I went there for both Ella and Elise though and they were correct both times. The plan was for me to go there solo after work so Gisela could watch the girls. I was supposed to tell them not to say anything and to place the ultrasound pics in a sealed envelope so that we could open it up as a family on Christmas morning. This was Monday, December 14th so we were going to have to wait 11 days before opening it. I hate surprises and it takes a lot of effort for me to keep secrets so this was going to make things that much more difficult. I told the ultrasound techs to put the gender in the envelope but I joked that they could wink once if it was boy and twice if it was a girl. The lead tech laughed and said, "Oh we know your type, we are not even turning the machine on so you can't see a thing." They only used the screen that was facing the other direction. Immediately, the baby turned in such a way that everything was visible and they said that they were 100 percent sure of the gender (they always say that though). They sealed the envelope and even made sure I couldn't see anything when holding it up to the light. The whole way home I could barely function knowing that the envelope was just sitting right next to me. No one believed me that I could wait until Christmas morning and I started to think that they were right. I was just so proud of myself that I drove all that way without peeking. I called Luke as soon as I got home and told him we were going to have to do this tonight because my stomach was in knots. When he finally got home the kids were asleep and I was almost in tears because I was so anxious. It took some serious persuasion (believe it or not, I'm actually the better negotiator), but I finally convinced Luke that tonight was the night. 

We sat facing each other beside the Christmas tree amidst the twinkling white lights and put on the Hawaiian themed Christmas song "Mele Kalikimaka" since we were supposed to be opening this on Christmas day in Oahu. I really wanted to film us opening it, but Luke is a very private person and wouldn't let me. As Luke started to tear open the envelope I could feel the tears start to flow. I have no idea why I started crying before it was even opened. As soon as Luke got the pictures out, he looked confused and started flipping through them as if he couldn't tell what it was (the first one didn't have the gender actually written on it). Once he glanced at the second picture his eyes lit up like I've never seen before (and we've been together since I was 18). He didn't say a word but I knew then that it was a boy. I pretty much ruined the moment after that since I started crying so hard that he had to console me. I don't know what on earth came over me, I just could not get it together. He thought I was sad it was a boy so he kept trying to convince me that everything was going to be okay and it was just the unknown for us. I was actually really excited, just overcome with emotion. I'm totally just going to blame that one on the pregnancy hormones. Minutes later, I get a text from my sister that says, "You better tell me if you open it". She knows me too well :) I was so happy after that and it was so fun to call and text all of our family members! I was actually very relieved because my sister and I both loved the same girl name, Everly, (and, in all fairness, we heard it at the same time many years ago when I was pregnant with Ella, thanks to Natalie Astor :). I had agreed to change mine to Everlynn since I thought that was a fun spin on it since my middle name was Lynn. Come to find out that another girlfriend and my sister-in-law love that name too so it all worked out. As of right now, our boy name is Levi Crew Carlson (I might throw Stone in there too but Luke says since he's not a prince, he can't have two middle names). Still not sold on the order of names, but we all know how that goes. Might have a completely different name by the time he's born :) We are just so blessed and excited to have a healthy baby and thrilled beyond belief that my sister is having a boy as well!