Drumroll Please ...

It's a girl! According to the good doctor, the only thing between this little one's legs is the umbilical cord so Maddie will have a little sister in June!

Cue tears. Yep, once again, I cried when I found out I was having a girl. My daughters are going to hate me for the rest of their lives. When I learned Madison was a girl, I was scared to death and totally broke down because I didn't think I had it in me to be a girly mom. I hated pink and baby dolls and gigantic hair bows and pretty much all things traditionally female. I wanted a boy that I could throw out in the mud and coach in soccer and call my little man. But of course, as you all know, I have fully embraced my feminine side and wouldn't trade my cute girl for the world, hair bows included!

This time around, I really didn't think I had a preference. I guess I got in the habit of using male pronouns when talking about baby #2 and we've had a name picked out for FOREVER so maybe it was just easy to fall into the boy trap without even realizing it. But the instant I heard "girl" this morning, all I could think about was my cute girl at home. I already have a girl. There can't be another one. At least not for a while, until my little girl is a big girl and far removed from the next baby girl. And then I thought of the two of them together, two years apart and competing with each other for the rest of their lives over EVERYTHING from dolls to bows to boys to clothes to weddings to babies. Ugh. I know I'm being a downer - lots of people have sisters that they are very close to, both in age and relationship. I have a good friend with two little girls who often talks about how close they are and how much she loves watching them play together. Maybe my fears will be totally unfounded and they'll completely adore each other. But I myself happen to be a girl and know that while we have many wonderful qualities, we are also highly competitive and territorial. A recipe for disaster, if you ask me.

So I'm working on it. Like I said, I was worried the first time around too and Madison has turned out to be pretty darn near perfect! We bought some cute girl clothes today (not that we needed to as Madison's old wardrobe takes up half the closet for just the newborn stuff) and we got some things that the girls can wear together and match. Cute, right? I hope so. Because that might be the only thing these two have going for them :)

18 weeks and HUGE! Much bigger this time around than last time! Good thing my husband likes to tell me how cute I am :)