Today was our 10-week ultrasound. We flew to Atlanta on Saturday and drove to Chattanooga, TN yesterday so that we could meet the OB-GYN, spend a little more time with B., and see our baby live on the fetal monitor. We went to dinner on Sunday evening with B. and her family and then met her the next morning at the doctor's office.

Okay, I’m totally burying the lede: It’s a girl!!

That’s right. Alberto has some exchanges to make because we are not having a boy, we are having a girl. While we were watching the fetus moving around on the ultrasound, we kept using the pronoun “he” to describe what we were seeing. The OB broke into our conversation and said, “What’s all this ‘he’ business?” (The OB is kind of a character. Picture Octavia Spencer’s character from The Help. Then picture her delivering your baby.) “That is not a boy. That is a GIRL. See this right here, that’s a VAGINA.” (She said it vah-JINE-uh.)

I immediately started laughing. I’ve always heard that God laughs in the face of your best laid plans. I have never once pictured Alberto and me with a baby girl. But that’s okay because I am nothing but excited about this development. I was inexplicably excited, actually. I think the shock made it more real somehow. It shook me out of my vision of how this process would unfold and that made it more vivid.

I’m a little perturbed that the OB didn’t admit her error. She seemed to not understand why we assumed it was a boy. Honey, we got that information from you! We didn’t just come up with it in our sleep. I can’t see anything on those grey, ultrasound photographs; I was not about to speculate about parts and organs.

All the way back to the airport in Atlanta Alberto kept saying, “A girl…” quietly, under his breath. We definitely need to reorient. And to get started on those returns.

It has come time to register for our baby shower. At least, the East Coast baby shower (yes, there will be two). Alberto and I both thought that this would be one of the most exciting parts of this experience. We looked forward to getting our hands on that gun. I’ve seen so many people (well, women) in movies and on TV joyously registering for wedding or baby gifts. I've always felt jealous, hoping that someday I, too, could shoot things and they would magically be delivered to my house.

It did not live up to expectations…

Alberto and I have very different philosophies when it comes to the purpose of registering. Since we didn’t register for wedding gifts, we didn’t find that out when we were married almost six years ago. He wants to fire that gun with abandon, like a villain in a movie about the Wild West. I want to curate a list of products that fit our life and style. He wants to register for multiples of everything – two cribs, four changing mats, three of those adorable towel things that you drape over your baby’s head after a bath. Then if we get multiples of items that we don’t need, we can return the excess. I thought the whole point of registering is that you don’t have to return a bunch of crap.

Anyway, this lead to a discussion. We left Target the first time with nothing on our list (the gun wasn’t working properly anyway, which may have added to our frustration). A second trip, last night, was more productive. I resigned myself to the fact that we may have to return some things and he was a little more selective in what he chose.

I also found out that Amazon.com has a registry, which allows me to do a lot more research on products before I add them to my list. That is much more my style. But I’ll admit it’s not quite as much fun as shooting your prey at Pottery Barn Baby.

Baby's first toy (Alberto and I have bought lots of clothes at this point, but no toys yet). A gift from Alberto's parents. It's hand made. We're excited that next Christmas there will be a 6-month old in the house, covered in wrapping paper and showered in gifts.