oh, boy!

when i was a little girl, i LOVED playing with my baby dolls.
my very first baby doll i got when i was really little... but i remember him very well.
i named him matthew, and he was an anatomically correct african american life sized baby.
i thought he was real when i saw him in the store and i cried for him.
i loved dressing him up in real baby clothes. he looked like this:

he was my favorite baby.

my next baby doll's name was stephen.  he was one of those magic nursery babies... you didn't know if it was a boy or a girl when you got it, and you had to take the diaper off and put it in water for the big reveal! i remember wanting it to be a boy so bad! he looked just like this:

what a special 80's baby he was.

my next baby's name was zachary... are you sensing a trend here?  he was a porcelain doll and he looked like a real baby. his body was soft and felt like a real baby's too! i remember if i woke up in the middle of the night i would pretend feed him and rock him and put him back to sleep before i fell back asleep.  he looked just like this: (sorry it wouldn't let me save the picture)

i always wanted to be a mommy when i was little.  and ever since i can remember, i always wanted a little boy!

so when billy and i found out we were pregnant, we were absolutely positive that we were going to have a girl.  we both wanted a boy really bad, but we thought certainly we must be having a girl.  a boy would almost be too good to be true!  we were basically convinced we would be living in a world of pink and purple in four short months.

today was our big 20 week ultrasound day!  we got lots of compliments on our "very well behaved" and "very photogenic" baby.  it was crazy how much we could see! the baby was a perfect angel.  its little fists were positioned right under its chin in a perfect pose.  we could see its heart thump thump thumping, all of the bones in its spine, and even fluid in its little bladder!  everytime it would wiggle we couldn't help but giggling! we got lots of pictures of its little face:

hello forehead!

but when it came time to see the anatomy we were looking for, baby had its leg curled right over the sweet spot!  the sonogram tech said "move it!" and shook it around, resulting in baby folding its other leg matter-of-factly over its private parts as well! no access!

so the nice tech recommended i get up and go to the bathroom (i also jumped up and down a little) and before i got back on the table, billy gave my belly a little pep talk... "get moving!"  i laid back down on the table and voila!

IT'S A BOY!

"no way!" we said! "yes way!" the sonogram lady said.  "no mistaking that!  you should be proud!" :)

...and we are! :) we actually high fived.

the first thing we did after our appointment was drive to the john deere store.  not joking.  we had a plan that if it was a girl we were going to send my parents a little pink tractor in the mail, and if it was a boy we were going to send a little green tractor!  billy picked out just the right one, and then we headed to babies r us.  we wanted to find an "i love my grandma" or "i love my grandpa" outfit, but we had no luck.  so we got a sweet congratulations grandparents card, and billy picked out little baby boy murphy's very first outfit!

didn't he do a good job? :)

here's the little tractor we got for grandpa:

i promise i'm not that large, i'm literally wearing three jackets because it was FREEZING!

of course mom and dad couldn't wait to find out about whether they were having a grandson or a granddaughter, so we made plans to meet them for dinner tonight.  here's what happened:

 dad opened the present and saw the little tractor and immediately started crying! mom looks like her face is going to explode into a million rainbows.

 

a grandson!

 

let's call everyone!

we couldn't be happier about our little baby boy.  it's truly a dream come true! 

but as of right now, his name is still fetus.  we're accepting suggestions :)