Boy Vs Girl

I was dead-set on wanting a girl. I would only look through the girl sections in baby stores and only picked out a name for a girl. I always referred to my unborn babe as "she" and never "it". I was never a fan of pink, so I imagined having this beautiful baby dressed in different shades of purple and lots of bows. I envisioned a beautiful cherry oak crib with purple flowery bedding. She would be a mini-me!

One thing about pregnancy that I enjoyed was that the dreams I had were bizarre, but this one was just crazy. I was around 12 or 13 weeks along when I had a dream that everything was blue and I mean literally everything. I don't really remember if there was substance to the dream or not, all I remember is waking up and thinking "ugh, I'm having a boy..." but I quickly pushed that thought out of my mind and continued visualizing my little baby girl in her purple room and all of her cute purple tutus and polka-dot bows in her hair. There was nothing else I could do until my 19 week ultrasound, but I was content.

Finally the day arrived, July 10th. My appointment was in the afternoon, but I was wide awake at 7am. I was so anxious, I just wanted to find out for sure. I picked my momma up from work and off we went. I hated sitting in those uncomfortable chairs waiting for my name to be called, it was worse than lying awake at 7am. Eventually I heard it, "Michelle Johnson? Follow me." I was on the table impatiently waiting for her to apply the warm gel and get to it! Within seconds I saw my baby's gender. I said outloud "oh my god, it's a boy!" and she quickly said "No, no that was the umbilical cord" which I knew was bullshit. The rest of his ultrasound went well, he was measuring average, had a strong heartbeat, good kidneys, and so on... my son. I kept repeating it in my head every time she said "it".

I immediately called my dad to tell him the news, but he was out grocery shopping so I told my sister. I said it for the first time out loud... "I'm having a boy..." and tears started streaming down my face. Why am I crying? Am I disappointed? Sad? Nope. I was happy. Scared, but happy. A baby is a blessing, but I was scared about raising a boy without the dad. I don't know anything about boys, how am I going to raise him? How will he learn to aim his pee? So silly, but it's the little things that you don't really think about. Of course, I knew it wasn't "official", but I received an email from my midwife the following day at 2:06 pm confirming what I already knew... "IT'S A BOY!"

It took some time for me to reroute my thinking and the best way to do that, in my opinion, was finding a name. My sister came over and we started looking up names (thanks google!). I can't really explain it, but I knew I wanted a 'T' name. We tried a few different websites, but nothing was popping out. I've always had an obsession with Finland, so we looked up 'T' Finish names and found Taavvi. I really liked it, but it just didn't sit right. I knew it would be constantly misspelled and mispronounced, so we moved on. My sister went to a different website and scrolled down to the 'Ty' names. That's when things started rolling for me. There it was, the last name on the page... Tyrus. I said it out loud a few times and it felt right, it rolled off the tongue perfectly, and it stuck. That would be his name, I just knew it! Plus, I wanted to name him after my brother and Tyrus James just sounds so good together! My future basketball player.

After the news set in I realized the most exciting thing was that I could now start shopping... and so it began!