Finding out the gender of our baby was definitely one of the most exciting and anticipated events in this pregnancy thus far! To finally know if the little life growing inside of me was our son or our daughter. From the start of my pregnancy, when I thought of the baby, I thought of a girl. It wasn’t a crazy strong instinct or something I was certain of… but I did notice that when I thought about my baby, I would tend to think of “her”. That all changed at a doctors appointment we had at 12 weeks. On the ultrasound screen, was a tiny little body kicking and thrashing violently. The doctor even said “Wow, your baby is very active!”. I watched this crazy little thing stretch, kick, arch it’s back, and flail nonstop and in my head I said “That’s a wild little boy”. From that point on, whenever I thought of the baby I saw that ultrasound craziness and thought of a boy! Andrew, on the other hand, felt 100% certain that the baby was a girl. For that last month, we were in complete disagreement about this and were so eager to see which of us was right!
We were too impatient to wait until our 20 week anatomy scan for gender determination, so we decided to look into other options. We found a local place that did elective ultrasounds and booked an appointment. It all happened to be a perfect coincidence that the weekend that would be best to host a gender reveal party was also St Patrick’s Day. If you’ve followed me for awhile, you know about my OBSESSION with Ireland (check out our Ireland destination wedding in this post). We have always talked about making St Patrick’s day “our holiday” where we host a party for our friends and family every year. This would be the perfect year to kick that off, starting with our gender reveal!
We went to the ultrasound appointment the Wednesday before our party. Baby was very stubborn and almost sabotaged the whole plan! Thankfully the technicians were very kind and patient with us, because it took almost 30 minutes and lots of walking/moving around to get baby in a position for the shot that they needed. Then began the wait! It was not easy to have that envelope of the results in my house and not being able to look at it. I was highly tempted several times, knowing that the answers were right there! I even had my mom hide it from me, so that I wouldn’t slip and take a peek. I was so excited for our party and did not want to spoil the surprise.
About 30 of our closest friends and family turned up for our backyard BBQ on St. Patrick’s Day. Many of them were guests who had attended our wedding and it felt like a little reunion! For the actual reveal, we wanted something that wouldn’t be over in a second and also that everyone could have a part in. We had a giant board built, that we covered in black balloons filled with paint, which we would pop with darts. But there was a twist. Instead of just having one balloon filled with the telltale color, we had 3 pink/blue balloons. One was filled with the gender color baby was NOT and the other two were filled with the gender color baby WAS. The rest were all filled with gold. Therefore… it would take two balloons of the same color, to discover the answer. We knew that this would take awhile and everyone would get a chance to play! Our friends Lexi and Cole, the baby’s Godparents, had the task of filling the balloons and keeping the secret.
Pretty early on in the game, the first colored balloon was popped. Blue! That is when the suspense began, because the answer could potentially be just one balloon away. If one more blue balloon was popped, baby was a boy! It took awhile for another splash of color to show up on the board and this time it was…pink! Now things were really getting exciting. It was split down the middle and it could go either way. The next colored balloon to pop, would contain the information we were all dying to know. This part took FOREVER. A lot of us were missing on our throws and the rest were just popping more gold balloons. But then it happened. It was the most subtle pop of them all. The tiniest splash of paint, that was hard to see. Those standing further at the back couldn’t even see it and were confused when the few of us at the front started screaming and jumping. It was hard to see, but I saw it. A small, but very meaningful splash of PINK paint.
IT’S A GIRL!!!!
So my initial instinct was right. I am carrying a little girl. My thoughts at the 12 week ultrasound were wrong. It wasn’t a crazy little boy, it was our little wild woman!
The fact that it was a girl made it very easy for us to pick her name. We had talked names from the start of the pregnancy. We had a few boy options, but ultimately couldn’t agree/decide on one. But for a girl we had one first name selected very early on that we were both 100% in love with. Upon finding out the gender, it took us a matter of 10 seconds to look at each other and confirm that we were both still on board with our name that we had picked out. Something elegant, unique, and meaningful. The middle name took us a few more weeks to decide on, but once we decided, it just felt perfect!
Our sweet little daughter will be named….
Ireland Jade Roche. (Booth is my maiden name! My married name is Roche). It’s the perfect name for our little lady!
I’ve heard so many people have trouble with deciding on their baby’s name. Choosing one, then changing their minds because it doesn’t feel right. It’s definitely a huge decision, so I thought for sure that we would experience the same doubt at some point. However as each day goes by, we become even more positive that this is definitely her name. It is so exciting and makes it so real to know who is in there. It’s a little girl and she has a name! We are so happy and cannot wait to meet her. September will be here before we know it!
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