Superman or My Little Pony?

So now that we've revealed that we're having a kid, we now go into a waiting mode where we anxiously await the next ultrasound so that we can know the gender of our baby.  Over the next few months, Barbara and I go through names for either gender and I swear we went through a million variations.

The main criteria:
1.  Is it a name that our parents can pronounce?  Immigrant Koreans have a hard time with certain names - mainly anything with a lot of "L's" - For instance, one name that Barbara liked was Liam, but it got nixed because Koreans tend to turn L's into R's and it would've sounded like "Ree-am."

2.  The name could not be associated with someone that has annoyed/wronged Barbara in her life.  What I came to find out is that Barbara didn't necessarily have a lot of enemies, but just a lot of people that she flat out didn't like.

Our top choices ended up being Connor for a boy and we didn't necessarily come up with a top girl name, but we'd probably choose some variation of Eva, Ava, or if Barbara twisted my arm enough, Olive or Olivia.  I don't think there was any specific significance to any of the names other then we liked it and it met the criteria above.

So as we go into the ultra sound, we're now safely past the 1st trimester and Barbara is starting to a show a little bit.  You can see this little baby bump and it was amazing to see that growth.  We were warned beforehand that the technician, Kevin, was a little bit of a kook and he turned out to be exactly as described.  He was this lively Japanese fellow who made a lot of corny jokes, but he meant well and we actually enjoyed his humor.  As he's progressing through the various parts, we can now see the body of our baby (not just a little tadpole/egg) and you can see the head.  We both tear up a bit because it's so amazing to see what we had created and how it's grown in a few short months.  Kevin then says "I know what you're having....do you wanna know?  20 bucks!" jokingly.  After a while we progresses through and shows a picture that he describes as the bottom of the kid.  In so many words, he says there's his butt and what do you think that is...which essentially was the penis and that we were having a boy!

We would've been excited no matter the outcome, but we both knew our families would be rather proud/happy that we were having a boy.  In traditional Asian cultures, men are seen as the ones that can carry the blood line, provide for the family, etc.  In my family that is definitely more important, where as Barbara's family was a little more split.  Some were more traditional and wanted a boy, but she had some that were hoping for a girl.  They have a little more of a soft spot for them over there.

So we had a reveal party for our friends and it was graciously hosted by your Auntie Kim and Uncle Zach.  Barbara ended up stuffing a piñata with mints that were wrapped in blue and pink and then added some random candy in between.  The idea was to have the girls count how many blues (boy) and pink (girl) and whatever had the most would end up being the reveal of gender.  The game turned out so differently....Nhu-y ended up breaking open the piñata and the candy flew.  The girls immediately looked at the candy and were perplexed.  We had to explain that there was some math involved, but it was also funny because Nhu-y was confused on what the random candy meant.  She brought us some smarties/double bubbles and asked "what does this mean?"  After it was all said and done, they figured out it was a boy and they were all excited for us.  We ended up watching the DVD of the ultrasound afterwards and just talking about the possibilities of what it'll be like to have our little boy to join the group of friends.

So this is a little awkward...

Connor, if you're reading this, you'll probably notice that I'm writing a lot about your history, but by this time you've already been born!  The main explanation really is that I didn't get completely inspired to do this until way after the fact and it's taken me some time to catch up and I'll explain in later blogs but long story short is that you didn't give me much time to sleep so when I had free time, that's all I did.

Anyway, as the story continues....so we've now fully confirmed that Connor exists and now the long wait of the first trimester.  As I mentioned previously, we were cautious in telling anyone that we were pregnant - it took us so long to get here, we just didn't want to jinx it until we knew the chances were slim that there would be complications with the pregnancy (i.e. after the 1st trimester).

Honestly, the first trimester was pretty uneventful other than the fact that we were going to have a kid.  But more along the lines of symptoms...Barbara didn't really have any cravings, didn't have any morning sickness, and just went about her business.  There wasn't a whole lot going event wise between our friends, so we really didn't have to do anything to hide the fact that we were pregnant.

The first people we told were Connor's Auntie Michelle and his Uncle Brendan.  These were our best friends and wanted to share the good news.

So I'll start with Brendan because the ironic part was right before I went to China, I shared a story with him about our struggles to get pregnant and just how hard a time we were having emotionally at that point in time.  This was a story that no one really knew as we kept it pretty private - both from a pride and also an embarrassment stand point.  Little did I know as I was having that conversation with him, Connor was already starting to make a home in Barbara's stomach.  When I told him that we were pregnant, he was obviously overjoyed and happy for us!

With Michelle, Bob had a little ploy to get her over by asking her to "pick up" some stuff from the house.  When she came in, they obviously got to talking and Bob showed her the 1st ultra sound picture of Connor and provided no explanation.  Michelle then said "What's this?" and kind of had that "No way!" look on her face before tearing up which then proceeded to both Barbara and I shedding the water works as well.  Michelle was another of the select few that understood our struggles and knew how hard of a time we were having.

After those two, we then proceeded to tell our immediate families.  Bob's mom cried and her dad cracked a smile (which isn't always easy to do) while my dad got super excited for 30 secs then proceeded to continue building a shelf for my sister.  I called my mom while she was in Korea and she had a similar reaction of "that's great...but let me get back to business..."  One thing to know is that Connor's grandpa (my dad) is a little bit of a blabber mouth.  I had told him that he couldn't tell anyone we were pregnant until after our 1st trimester and he said he understood.  The next week he goes to Korea and returns with a bunch of baby gifts from various relatives.  I got mad at my dad and all he could say is "Why be mad?  This is great news and we should share it!"  Argh!

Anyway, our big reveal was after a celebration for Barbara's birthday.  We ended up getting a big group of people out to watch Star Trek: Into Darkness and after the movie I ask every one to get together for a group picture.  Once they line up, I shout out "Ready?  On three!  1, 2, Barbara's pregnant!"  And the reaction is kind of funny because there are a lot of weird looks of "Wait did he say that?  No..."  Once a I repeated, there were a lot of hugs, some tears, and just a lot of love.

Next post will be about how we found out your gender and how it got revealed...