I totally forgot to blog this photo from Easter. Duh! How could I forget? She’s watching her brother play like crazy with his new toys.

Can I tell you that I feel so incredibly lucky that I got to have a girl? When I was pregnant with her, I didn’t even let myself focus on the gender because I didn’t want to get attached to the idea of one or the other. I was actually pretty scared of the idea of a girl. All the clothes, accessories, mother daughter drama and of course, THE TEEN YEARS. I loved having a boy and we were fine with the idea of not rockin the boat with a new gender. I just focused on the baby being healthy and happy. When you don’t find out the sex ahead of time it’s really hard to get it in your head that there’s actually a little person in there during pregnancy. So birth is a very surreal experience, as I’m about to explain.

In the minutes before Jocelyn was born my mind was spinning with “Boy? Girl? Boy? Girl?” and I could hear the nurses chatting as they were assisting with the c-section and one said, “I think it’s going to be a boy.” A voice in my head said, “No! I want a girl!” Now, I don’t usually hear voices in my head, but it was like this voice was a part of me that someone had put their hands over their mouth for nine months and she could finally blurt out how she really felt.

I never allowed my brain to even THINK that, but a little voice in my head finally said it and I was terrified with the idea of having suddenly realized my true preference. I will never forget that panicked moment of, “Oh my God Betsy, you could have a boy and you just admitted you really want a girl.” Of course, one second later I heard, “It’s a girl!” and I’ve never been so awash in joy and the feeling of, “Of course it’s my girl. My heart knew all along.”