Celebratory Episode of Epic Fail.

Last week Wednesday (June 23), I found out the sex of our baby! Jake didn't want to know, so I promised I wouldn't tell him, or at least try as hard as I could to keep him from knowing.

Earlier this week, I was the wonderful instigator of an early-morning episode of "Epic Fail."

Jake (my husband), and I were lying in bed on Wednesday morning, cuddling, taking in some early morning light, and mostly, on my part, avoiding being fully awake and trying my best to squeeze a few extra moments of sleep out of my morning. I've never really been a morning person, and much less of one lately, it seems.

For a few weeks now, Jake has been fortunate enough to be able to feel the baby lightly kicking from inside if he rests his hands on my stomach. Many places or people would say it's too early (22 weeks this week), but I know that it's true, because I have placed my hand there and felt it as well. So, he's not crazy for wanting to try to feel any chance he can get, in my opinion. (Sidenote: we noticed tonight you can see movement in there too sometimes, which is really awkward and totally awesome.)

Back to Wednesday morning, I was lying on my side, as I usually do nowadays, and his hand was draped over me and resting on my mid-section.

He said, after a short while, "I can't feel it kicking."

I responded, slowly, groggily, not paying a lot of attention to my words, "That's because [gender specific pronoun] isn't kicking right now." (Bet you thought I was going to tell here too, huh? Sorry, no such luck, still a secret!)

Immediately, or almost so, I started sobbing uncontrollably and buried my head into my pillow so he couldn't see my face. I cried and cried and apologized, and Jake just smiled and laughed a little.

I felt HORRID. Like a failure. Like I let him down and ruined the best surprise ever. He kept asking, "is it true? is it?" I finally mustered "would I be this upset if it wasn't?!" (Meaning, of course what I said was right and I'm ridiculously sorry for saying it...)

He said, "I think you're more upset about telling me than I am knowing!"

I eventually calmed down and apologized without sobbing, and he forgave me. Sure, he was bummed that I let it slip of course, but he said he wasn't mad at me for it. I'm pretty lucky to have him as my husband, I must admit.

So, the surprise, for him, was off, and now he too knows the sex of our baby.

While I'm still really disappointed in myself for letting it slip, knowing how badly he wanted to be surprised on the day of the birth, I am kind of happy about it now, too.

I was having a really hard time keeping myself from using the proper pronoun around him, for one. It was really hard to think of our baby as an "it" once I knew if it was a boy or a girl.

But more than anything, I'm really excited that I can now let Jake know the details of my dreams and visions. From the moment I found out, I could see our child as a toddler, chasing our dear beagle, Wendell, around the house. I could see our child playing with us at a park, going to family gatherings, cuddling with us on the couch. I was having SO much fun thinking and envisioning and dreaming about the future with our child, but I was really sad that I couldn't share these details with my husband, the one I wanted to most of all.

And now I can. For that, I'm grateful, though still sorry. It's quite the paradox.

Truthfully, I think now, Jake is kind of excited too. He can start piecing together his own visions and dreams of our future.

I can't wait to see what really comes true.


And Jake, if you're reading this, I'm still sorry. But thank you for being so understanding, compassionate, and wonderful to me. You're my hero.