Glimpse at a Miracle, a Year Ago Today...

On this day last year, we went in for my 17-week ultrasound.  We had been anticipating this day forever.  This was the day we would find out the sex of our baby (hopefully!).  If you had asked us a few years ago, I would have adamantly told you I wanted a girl, while Michael insisted that Eddie men only made boys.  But after trying to conceive for as long as we had and going through hell to get this pregnancy to this point, I can honestly say we could have cared less. Sure, I still loved the idea of having a girl first to help out with subsequent kiddos, while Michael was scared to death of the idea of having a girl without big brother(s) to take care of her, but none of that mattered one lick when it came down to it. 

I honestly thought Annalyn was a boy in the beginning.  Not that I had any real way of knowing, but I did have one incredibly vivid dream about a little blond-haired boy.  This was one of those dreams that feels so real and amazing that you are sad to wake up from it.  The strangest thing about it was the little boy's name.  It wasn't even a name we had considered before, but we both loved it.  We still intend to use it for our first son.  On top of being a good name, it had a lot of meaning to me.  You see, it's a biblical name and after reading about it again, I felt like it was God's way of telling me that this baby would be okay.   I guess only time will tell if that little blond-haired boy was just a messenger, or a sneak peek at a future baby.  Either way, the message was clear and on this day one year ago, we got a glimpse of our little miracle growing strong and healthy inside her mama.

  
She was just as adorable and playful as she is today.  Michael still laughs, but I swore I could tell she looked liked him.  She has your forehead!  I was so surprised and thrilled and excited that I called my mom the second we got to the car.  I made her guess one more time and she said boy.  She, my BFF, and I were the only ones who thought boy - every other person had said girl.  Funny how that works.  Since I hadn't been able to eat much all day, we decided to grab some lunch at a nearby burger place.  Giddy as a schoolgirl, I called my friend Shawna (who once again guessed boy) to tell her the news (I didn't find out til much later, but she had gotten some pretty exciting news that morning also in the form of two pink lines!).  We squealed for awhile til she had to go back to work and I sat down to eat my sandwich.  After about 3 bites, it hit me...  I'm going to be sick.  Excitement + morning sickness + not eating for hours was not a good combination for me.  Oh well, nothing could ruin this day... I was going to have a daughter.