Why I kept my pregnancy a secret.

I think in many ways I've been writing this post in my head for several years.
It was years ago that I had a moment, a moment in which I realized there would be 7.
It was a very spiritual moment for me, moments like this I don't usually share, but this one was so memorable that I never want to forget it.
You see, many years before, the day I was going to find out that Avery was a boy, I made a remarkable prediction/statement. I said "six boys will be my limit." I said this to Avery's dad, and I have probably forgotten almost every other detail of that year, but I remember saying that.
Then it was between Declan and Leland that I had my spiritual moment. Someone I knew was having their first girl after several boys. I was sad, I was crying, and I decided to pray for comfort. I felt so blessed with my (then) four sons and I didn't want to be sad. There was just a huge part of me that had envy still when other women announced their girl pregnancies. While I prayed to just be comforted, I got slammed hard by the words "seven children." It was as clear as day, and there was nothing else with it. Just that.
It took me several years to even accept that there would be 7. I always knew I wanted a big family, I desperately wanted to have six. No more, no less. I always felt 6 was going to be my number. As the years went on, I felt like I was lying to myself when I said 6. I felt like I was denying a child.
Going into Thayer's pregnancy I spent a ton of time pondering how many there would be. There were moments that I felt like I could be done, I was overjoyed to be pregnant with him, I was so excited to meet him, and thankfully the gender disappointment and my desperate longing for a girl some years prior was completely gone.
For me, being a mom of so many boys and know that Thayer was another boy, I was content. Mothering boys is the only thing that I know. So every time I heard a negative comment, such as "I'm sorry" when we announced his gender, or when I took them out in public and people who say things about our family of boys, it hurt me to my core. I never wanted anyone to feel sorry for me. I'm not sorry I have six sons. They keep me so busy that I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything. They are my life, they are my little loves, they are the only thing I know. I am so proud of each of them, as individuals. I say almost daily that I have no idea how we got so incredibly blessed with each and every one of them. I sit and stare at pictures of them up on the walls and just thank God for sending them here.
Really think about this, when a parent only knows being the mother (or father) of one gender, a comment like "I'm sorry" or "you poor thing" really stings. It's my entire experience as a mother to raise sons, these boys are all part of me. The comments just hurt. I can't imagine any other scenario in which someone would say "I'm sorry" to a parent for her children unless they are physically sick. It makes no sense to me why anyone would think it's an appropriate thing to say...
Anyway, midway through my pregnancy with Thayer, Jason and I both knew he wasn't the last one. I can't describe how we knew, we just knew. In his first two months of life, we were both walking around feeling like something else was missing. I had one week in particular that it was a constant and strong feeling that I couldn't shake, when I finally talked to him about it, he admitted he was feeling it too. We knew at that point there would be one more child, without a doubt.
I thought back to the "seven children" moment I had in 2012, though it scared me then, now it just made sense.
I knew that when that 7th child came, we would keep it very quiet. I had many reasons, reasons that Jason supported fully. The most difficult times of my previous pregnancies had been in the midst of the gender hype building. I couldn't handle hearing the comments everyone around me felt the need to say. I didn't want to hear anyone's opinions on our unborn baby, I didn't want to hear how I "needed" a girl, or hear about how anyone thought were just popping boys out in hopes that a girl would eventually join us. I didn't want comments and messages on my facebook page asking how much longer until we knew. I wanted to fly it under the radar. I wanted to enjoy my pregnancy and I wanted it to be something my husband and I could enjoy together, quietly.
When I found out in the beginning of May that I was pregnancy I felt pretty blindsided. I honestly didn't quite feel ready, but I knew it was our last precious child and I started to let myself get a little excited. As the weeks went on, my symptoms weren't very strong. Around the time the boys left for the summer I had about the peak of the nausea, which was nothing compared to most of the boys, I hadn't thrown up once, and I felt off. Nothing about my pregnancy felt normal. We hadn't had an ultrasound yet so we knew there was no way we were going to tell the boys before they left for the summer. I had a huge fear that with the way I was feeling, that it wasn't a viable pregnancy.
By about 8 weeks I had zero nausea. It was just gone. Other than being tired and bloated I felt relatively normal. My fears heightened. I felt relieved we said nothing to the boys, because at that point I was convinced there was something wrong.
In the weeks  to come I had several ultrasounds. The first one, my midwife couldn't find anything. She had me go to the bathroom and the dr came in to try. He could barely get the baby to the edge of the screen with straining and pushing really hard with the ultrasound wand. He made a comment that my uterus was tilted, and he was able to get a measurement and saw a heartbeat, but I could barely see the baby. This did not help my fears. Within a few weeks I was having some very intense cramping, which was not normal for me. I got in with the dr after an entire weekend of it. This time baby was easier to see, we saw movement and a heartbeat. He attributed the cramping to baby growing. I started to breath a little bit at this point.
As we approached the 12 week ultrasound I was feeling much more hopeful, but still wanted the pregnancy kept quiet for all our original reasons. When I went at 12 weeks for the NT scan, I got the surprise of my life.
Immediately the sonographer said baby was measuring over a week ahead, which made more sense with dates that I thought from the beginning. At 12 weeks with Thayer she had predicted he was a boy. I asked what her guess was this time. She said it wasn't a guess, but that since I was past 13 weeks she knew the baby's gender already. Having six boys already, my mind immediately went to "geez, he must be an early bloomer..." When she said "this baby is a girl" the words didn't quite process right away. I had spent most of the my first trimester not even thinking about gender. There had been several nights that while I was falling asleep that I was thinking "daughter" in my half awake, half asleep dreamlike state, but I didn't think it meant anything.
She showed me on the screen from each and every angle that there was nothing boy about this baby. The nub was already gone. There was three swollen puffy lines that weren't clear yet, but she pointed the arrow to them and said that it was her swollen labia.
I laughed so hard. Here I had given up the idea. I had been grateful for the amazing healthy loving sons at home, I had assumed this last baby would join the band of brothers. How wrong was I...
She told me she was 100% sure this gender was correct and to prove it she would give us a free gender ultrasound in two weeks.
I left her office, and I didn't want to tell Jason any of this on the phone. He had been at work, and I couldn't even text and tell him anything or I would spill it. I went to target, where he had pointed out a little pink supergirl hat a few weeks before. I bought him the hat and a shirt to match. I put them in a neutral gift bag and drove to his work. He was very surprised to see me, I rarely stop by when he's at work. I walked in and handed him the bag. He looked inside and asked if I was just guessing. I shook my head, showed him the baby's ultrasound pictures, and quite honestly I think he was as shocked as I was. He didn't really say much! When I left his work, very shortly after he was texting asking if I was pulling his leg. When I promised I wasn't, he said he wanted to celebrate and go out for dinner.
At this point, we had several LONG weeks ahead waiting for the boys to come back. There was no way we could tell them news like this on the phone. We needed them home. We started planning the airport ambush, we also started to plan the gender reveal for when they got back home.
Two weeks passed, at 15 weeks I went back for the next ultrasound, halfway expecting boy parts to have grown. After seeing nothing but girl again, I left that appointment and went to my van and cried. That was the moment it became real for me. That was the moment that the excitement started to over power the shock!
It was also at this moment that I began to fear the gender announcement in some ways. I feared that people would think that we kept having babies just to have a girl. The truth of the matter is that we would have loved a seventh boy. We would have adored a #7 just as much as his brothers before him. I had finally convinced Jason to let me use a boy name I had been fighting for since before Declan. I had also saved my other grandpa's name for a 7th boy. I wanted my last child to either have the middle name Louis or Louise, to represent three of my four grandparents. I didn't want to use Louis until we knew there would be no Louise, which is why I had saved it for last. We had a solid boy name of Finley Louis, a solid girl name of Freya Louise, and we genuinely knew we would be overjoyed to welcome either a boy or a girl.
I feared that in the wake of the girl excitement, people would think I was relieved to be done having boys. I'm actually the exact opposite. As I pull too small clothes from Thayer's dresser I now get emotional and cry. We know now that he is our last boy, and that is very bittersweet for me.
I actually fear the girl. Yes, that's right, I fear the girl. There are new things to think about, all we know is boys. We have no idea what to expect. In many ways I feel like a first time mom. I love her and I am excited to meet her, but I'm also terrified!
After announcing our baby girl, I only heard what I was thinking from one person, out of dozens. There was one single person who said they knew I would have loved another boy just as much.
Our boys are all individuals that bring something different to our family as a whole. We are all pieces that make a complete family. I can't imagine life without even one of them. I feel blessed beyond measure to have so many sons, I wouldn't have this any other way. I feel complete with this last child, and that was a feeling I had before I knew her gender.
So, you see, this is my long explanation for why I kept this pregnancy a secret. I hope that more people will put thought into the comments that they make to parents of one gender of children. I know the comments are never intended to hurt, but they do. Every child is an immense blessing and I feel like the luckiest woman on earth to have been blessed with these six boys and now their little sister.