collect the whole set

On Thursday morning Matt, his mom and dad, and myself got the happiest surprise of our life when at our ultrasound we learned that our second and last baby would be a:

You know those lucky jerks that get one of each and you think man, those lucky jerks, they got one of each? I get to be one of those jerks! The moment the tech said the word "penis" I could not believe it and started crying right away. Everyone wanted us to get the pair and I dared not dream we'd get the desires of our heart. Some people get no babies. We get two (so far) healthy babies. Blessed beyond.

However, there is something to be said for getting what you want, disappointment, gender expectations, and loss. 

Both of us wanted a boy with Alice. And then we got Alice. And Alice.... well... she crushed it. I brag about her a lot with the caveat that we are NOT WORTHY. So cute! So sweet! So smart! So easy! We could have zero other children and be 100% content that all we had was an Alice. 

 So, pft, what do we know about what we want right? Sometimes the thing you never knew you wanted was just what you needed and you can't imagine life any other way.

This time, I felt like I dared not dream, other people are lucky and get one of each. I will never be those people. So I prepared myself for the wonderful all girl family alternative. I started thinking of them as Sasha and Malia, Venus & Serena, Beyonce & Solange. Why I could only think of black sisters, I dunno. I hyped it up to my family: "We're gonna be an all girl family". I set up Matt for the Fredrich family name stopping at us and to hope one of his cousins have a boy. I started dreaming about this girl. Gave her a name. Alice was so great, why wouldn't we want another girl? Why wouldn't be so freaking lucky to have another girl? 

And after the excited moment of holy crap it's a boy and telling family the news and having everyone feel that same "you lucky bastards" feeling Matt and I sat down and we talked about our new reality.

The one thing that we were both surprised we felt was that feeling of finite-ness. This is it. Last time we'll see an ultrasound and see our baby's heart and spine. No more baby after this. And while I've been teasing my sister that she's crazy because she has both boy and girl and still wants a third now... I get it. I see why people have third babies. Not enough for us to be like yeah let's have a third but after swearing up and down, THIS IS IT we did have a second of aww...no more.

The gender stereotype stuff was what surprised us a little as well. A few asked "Is Matt so excited he's getting a boy?" But Matt said that while it's nice, it doesn't quite feel like he can only do some things with his son. We've not raised Alice very "girl" like. She has girl qualities like she doesn't like to get dirty and she is generally not as high energy but we don't really buy girly toys for her or put her in super girly clothing. Maybe those differences will be highlighted later but we plan on treating the kids the same. In that we'll introduce them to sports, school, art, jiu-jitsu, movies, and then they can chose what they're into. But we'll get to do dad/daughter, mother/son, dad/son, mom/daughter dates and talk to them about being gentleman and lady and such. It'll be interesting to see how they're similar and how they're different based on their genders and their personalities.

And then I had this strange feeling of loss. Is it normal that I'm feeling the loss of this other daughter that I never had? I had all these little thoughts about her and her name and now I'm not gonna get her. She's gone and she never existed. I cried a little about it. I guess I did too good a job preparing myself for another girl. 

I always imagined having a son and now... just can't believe it.