A Little Girl!

Yes, we're having a girl!! It's funny because I said all along that I didn't know whether it was a boy or girl, but when we were in having the ultrasound and the doctor announced, "Girl!", I was thinking, "are you sure?" I must have had it in my subconscious that it was a boy. But, I am super excited for a girl! We now outnumber the boys in the family on the Jones side and we're making up for a lack of girls on the Bryner side. I told Bryan all along that I would do better with a girl first since I know how to handle girls: playing dress up, house, princesses, singing, dancing, and doing makeup. I will have some learning to do when we have our first boy :).

This ultrasound couldn't have come on a more perfect day. I have an advanced Critical Theory class for English that met right before we went in to find out. This class has been such a difficult one for me to stomach because we study crazy philosophies and my teacher makes it abundantly clear that she hates religion and the LDS church in particular. Our discussion this day was about Gender and whether it is something given (that we're born with/biological) or something constructed (by social and cultural forces). This teacher completely attacked the basis that our identity/gender is something that is born within us. She said that when a baby is born it does not know whether to be male or female instinctively, but that just through our social/cultural construction we become who we are and find out how to act feminine or masculine.

The discussion really hit me today as completely false. The whole time the class argued about gender I couldn't help but remember "The Family: a Proclamation to the World" and the truths we learn in it. It states specifically:

"All human beings—male and female—are created in the image of God. Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and, as such, each has a divine nature and destiny. Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose."

These lines resonated in my mind so strongly throughout the class and I thought about it all the way to the appointment.

After seeing our little girl, I thought, "How could anyone question whether this child has a distinct identity and personality?" I just don't understand how our world is so confused on such foundational principles, to the point that they believe that gender is completely constructed. It was such a testimony to me that there IS a plan and we DO have individual identities that were formed before we even came to earth.

On a lighter note, we learned a little about our little girl in the ultrasound: She does NOT like to be photographed. The ultrasound included some 3-D images and every time the doctor flipped to 3D to take a photo the kid had her back turned to us. We have two great pictures of the back of her head and body. Bryan said that this was definitely a Bryner trait to not want to be in pictures!

We're excited for our little girl and all of the fun preparations we get to make in the next 5 months! We have three little girls coming this year: my sister Rhiannon is having a girl in December (or Nov, most likely), Lisa is having a girl in Feb (my step-sister in-law), and our girl will be here officially March 29th. It's an exciting time in our family!

PS. I took some pictures to show (mostly family) my progress as a pregnant woman. I am now at 18 weeks (or to put it in regular terms, about 4 and 1/2 months) and feeling great! I also added some pictures of Bryan at 18 weeks to show his progress :)

Front View
side view (more belly this time!)

and another :)
Bryan at 18 months. Still smiling! (a good sign!)

A little sympathy weight :)