The Element of Surprise

From my amazing friend Jen.
"The Wonderful Things You Will Be" by Emily Winfield Martin

Erika:

So, in the last couple of weeks many of you have been asking me this very question....

it's a... from Erika Perales on Vimeo. I Love Lucy season 2

Whelp! That's all I can say too. Last week we had our 20 week anatomy scan and we totally could have found out what it is... but we held strong. We did not turn around to see the screen. Luis and I both looked at each other, wide-eyed... freaking out... realizing THIS was our chance... that all we had to do was give in and we'd be able to find out! All we had to do was turn our heads.... Oh MAN, we were so close to turning around. At least I was. 

All we needed to know is baby is healthy, everything looked good, it's average size right now, with fairly long arms (like the Mezas) and has a super cute nose. The best part was it looked like baby was praying at one point, with its hands cupped together. I will assume baby was praying for "Papa." 

These are the eyes I was locked into so I wouldn't turn around.

Baby waving!

Baby praying!

Baby!!!

When we told people that we weren't planning on finding out the gender, 99.9% of people said we were out of our minds. Like straight, CRAZY. But at this point, after waiting so long... I honestly don't care one way or the other. We are just so excited to be having a BABY. And I don't feel like I need to know what it is (other than a healthy baby) in order to plan and feel connected. I will say, when we were in Mexico... it was a bit challenging... and I ended up buying both little boy AND little girl stuff. And even when we went to Vietnam a few years ago, I bought a little blue AND a little pink kimono. But even once they're here... our baby boy will not always wear blue, nor will our little girl always wear pink.

Our next post will be about all of the registering and planning madness that we're in right now.... I think I will call it Baby Obsession.

And "Gender Neutral" is apparently really common now. Ducks and Frogs are no longer your only option! (Thank you God.) There are like a million colors out there and most look great for boys and girls. Also, we've already planned out how to make our "travel-themed" GN nursery. Oh... and that's actually a cool story. So, maybe a month or so into the pregnancy, I started thinking about nursery ideas. I'd shown Luis some images of blankets and wall-hangings related to travel, since we've been lots of places and since baby is our new "adventure."  Up until that point, I hadn't mentioned the idea to anyone else. Well, then like 3 weeks later Tina sent me a link to a GN travel-themed nursery! and was like, "...totally thought of you guys... It is perfect for Baby Perales." I was like NO WAY! She totally read my mind! We were thinking of the SAME thing! The link even had some baby blankets and decorations I'd already found. It's super awesome to see how in-tune Tina has been with us.

OH! one more thing... Last week Tina texted me that she ate pizza and the baby started kicking like crazy! Yay! Baby likes Pizza!!! It's definitely a Dominguez!!!

Here's a look at the video from the 20 week scan. ...by the way, if you have a good eye for telling if a baby is a boy or a girl... keep it to yourself please! It had been almost 2 months since we'd seen baby (we had been used to every 2 weeks...) so when you see this, baby is HUGE! Size of a banana here. No longer just a tiny blueberry....

 
Anatomy scan from Erika Perales on Vimeo.
(You can watch a few other Baby Perales videos from our blog here.)

#TBT  Grain of rice status! 6wk heartbeat!
(You can watch a few more Baby Perales videos from our blog here, too.)

"Baby, it was so amazing getting to hear your heartbeat again! It had been way too long since we'd seen you. I can't believe how much you've grown! But the days are going by more quickly now! And soon we'll get to meet you, face to face! Thank you for praying for Papa! It's working!" 
---excerpt from a letter to our baby