nicolaus and i are not ones to wait patiently until the birth to know the sex of our baby. we are far too curious and far too impatient! as soon as we realized i was pregnant we were both dying to know if it was going to be a boy or girl. we both definitely had inklings it was a boy...for whatever reason i can only imagine us having a boy at this point. and it sounds silly, but having a boy first seems ever-so-slightly less terrifying to me. like a chunky little boy seems more physically/emotionally durable than a sweet, little girl. ha, which i know isn't always the case but i personally just feel less intimidated knowing it will be boy! plus, nicolaus and i only have nieces on both sides so it will be exciting to add a little boy to the mix! pluuuus nicolaus is the last boy who can carry on his family name, so i feel a whole lot less pressure about that.

and honestly, we would have been thrilled either way! and now i'm even a little sad when i see cute girls things that i can't buy yet...and i get nervous thinking 'what if we never have a girl and can't pass on some of the things i loved as a little one'! ha, but that's just me being a little crazy and waaay overthinking things.

aaanyways, here's the long version of how we found out about our baby boy:

when i was 12 weeks preggo, my doctor thought that i was possibly measuring a little big for 12 weeks (and i was one hundred percent certain about my dates, thanks to my apps) and that he had either heard two heartbeats or the baby had shifted and he had heard the same heartbeat in two spots. so just to be sure and rule out the possibility of twins, we scheduled an ultrasound for that evening. needless to say, i went through the entire day in a total daze.

none of my coworkers even knew i was pregnant at this point, so i'm sure if anyone noticed my deer-in-headlights expression, they must've just thought i was a little crazy. but really, i was just a bit stunned and overwhelmed at the possibility of twins. luckily, nicolaus was all sorts of reassuring and positive about all the benefits of having twins which helped ease my nerves ever so slightly. but mostly i just spent the day freaking out, trying to wrap my head around the idea of going from zero babies to two babies. seriously, i am convinced that whoever manages to birth/raise twins has super powers.

after the day managed to creep by, we finally made it to our ultrasound to discover that i'm only growing one, wriggly baby. i think nick had gotten his hopes up for twins and actually felt a bit disappointed that it wasn't twins, but i felt quite relieved. and like i had never felt less scared of having only one baby. ha, and we also learned some unexpected information at this ultrasound...that baby was most likely a boy! our ultrasound technician kept saying things along the line of 'you know, it's too early to say for sure, but if i were a betting woman, i would bet you are having a boy'. even nick and i could clearly see a little something right between baby's legs...so at this point we were pretty certain it was a boy! not to mention, it was SO cool to see baby on the screen. it was so, so nice to be reassured that all the sickness/discomfort was worthwhile.

four weeks later, when i was at 16 weeks we got our official gender check ultrasound. and they confirmed our hunch that baby is indeed a boy!! it was so nice to start referring to baby as "he" instead of "it". the whole thought that we're going to meet our own little babe in a few months became a lot more real and a lot more exciting!

and when we went in for our 20 week ultrasound last week, they confirmed again that it's definitely a boy. a boy that seems to have inherited his dad's wriggles and has been rolling around/stretching during every ultrasound so far. at one point we could see him open his mouth and i said, "nick, did he just yawn?? i think he's bored." haha but i don't think he could be any more anxious to make his grand appearance than nicolaus and i are!

disclaimer: i had grand plans of reenacting the above gender reveal confetti balloon, ordering a massive black balloon from etsy before our 16 week ultrasound, thinking after we found out i could go buy some blue/green confetti locally...but i had no luck. so i thought we could postpone our balloon popping party, and wait for the blue confetti i ordered from the adorable shop knot & bow (and i'm convinced it's the only shop in the world where you can buy a pretty assortment of light blue/green paper confetti). 

but once we got the confetti, finals hit for nicolaus, i had a busy stretch in work/doctor appointments, and we had family in town visiting. so by the time we had a free second, nicolaus' car, where i had (stupidly) left the balloon had managed to swallow it. i honestly have no clue where that dumb balloon is. haha sooo, at this point i counted my losses (and figured most of our family/friends already knew we were having a boy) and just regrammed/blogged the above beautiful images from knot & bow.