baby #4

Anyone who thinks we are nuts to have more kids must know Pratt.  Be that as it may, she is on the way, and we couldn't be happier!  I definitely didn't rush to the doctor (I know the drill at this point, and I am not especially worried about getting a pap smear).  However, I admit there is a lot of peace of mind hearing that little heart beat.  Then you know 100% that all of the feeling like crap was not in your head.  I have also kept the other kids a secret for a while.  This time I decided to just tell people so that I didn't have to pretend I felt okay, or make up excuses.  I thought I had made it public much earlier than it actually was.  I took a pregnancy test a full week earlier than I should have to get a positive result.  This made me wonder if the dates were a little off.  I had convinced myself that they were only a little off, and that confirming dates would just be a good idea. 

It was one of the best surprises of my life to find out that I was a full month earlier than I had thought!  I took Aimee with me to the ultra-sound because I thought she would get a kick out of seeing the baby on the screen.  As it turned out she mostly just entertained the staff.  And since I was actually 15 weeks at the ultra-sound they asked if I would like to know the gender if they could get a view.  I knew Chad would be sad to miss this, but I am not good at waiting for surprises.  The tech was very careful to not make any announcements to little ears until I gave her the green light.  Aimee had made it very clear to everyone in ear shot that we wanted "a girl baby."  Once we had studied the images and the tech said she was 90% certain, due to the modesty of the baby she added the "It's a girl" photo to the print list! 

 While my Williams family is in denial, and refuses to believe it could be true until my 20 week ultrasound confirms thing, I must say that I had my own suspicions.  For anyone who may not know, Chad and I are the first Williams' in two generations to have more than one girl.  One girl and all the rest boys is what I affectionately call:  The Williams Way.  Some of my sister-in-laws call it: The Williams Curse.  This possibility of a girl I suspected was not because I had 'motherly intuition' or adhere to any old wives tales about figuring out gender.  My Aimee pregnancy I was sick only for the first trimester.  The boys I was sooo miserable the entire time!  I had quit being sick on a daily basis. 

In order to still try to make the news special to Chad, Aimee and I went to the grocery store and rounded up enough pink treats to get the point across.  Chad and Aimee were both rooting for a girl.  Porter wanted a boy.  Pratt and I didn't have a preference.  We had to ban praying for a gender only a few days after sharing the news with the kiddos.  It quickly became a topic of contention (and competition) for Aimee and Porter.  Much to my relief, Porter took the news much better than Aimee did when she found out Pratt was a boy! 

While rather disproportionate, I bet you can figure out who the characters in Aimee's drawing are!