Annie and I decided to get additional genetic testing for Baby B, and it included the option to find out the gender of our baby. I’ve known for a week now, while Annie and our families found out last night.

Spoilers
If you don’t want to know the gender of Baby B, I’m sorry, but it is going to come up often from here on out as we refer to our child by the name we’ve selected for them.

Back Story
We didn’t get to call Lily by name while she was alive, and that has always been a bit difficult for us so when the opportunity to find out the gender of our little baby Bee came up, we jumped at it. There was some cost to getting the additional genetic testing done, but we also liked the potential peace of mind it provided.

Hurry Up and Wait
Well, we thought we were going to get the answer to the gender of our baby around two weeks ago, but a mistake with Purolator shipping the medical sample to the lab meant that Annie had to have more blood collected and sent off before we would get the results, and One Fertility was closed around the time the results would have come in, so we had to wait until August 2nd to find out.

I received a phone call from One Fertility letting me know that we didn’t have any higher risks than normal for any of the genetic anomalies the test looked for. This was great to hear, and then the Doctor said that she thought we wanted to know the gender, but didn’t want to leave a message on my voice mail. That’s right! I missed the call, and when I called back twenty minutes later, they were closed.

The next day I called in and got the answer.

The Stage
I had already started working on my idea for letting Annie, and everyone else, know the gender of our baby. We had decided when we sent off the first blood test to the lab that I would be the one to organize the reveal. I am good at keeping secrets, and Annie isn’t. I received many offers from family and friends to know the gender and help me with the planning and execution of the reveal. I turned them all down.

I knew that I wanted to do something special and made sure to try to throw Annie off the scent of what I was planning. I told her that she’d find out before her sister left for the UK in September, or maybe closer to her birthday. I had many people convinced I was going to hold onto the secret until the middle of August.

Thankfully, there was a big family event this weekend with Annie’s mom’s birthday. That meant that everyone was going to get together and it would be a great time to let people know. I didn’t have much time to put my plan together after choosing the day, but I enjoyed doing it.

The Plan
I quickly started contacting authors, YouTubers, and celebrities that Annie and I are fans of to see if they would do a quick video letting Annie know Bea’s gender. I contacted probably around a dozen different people and received six videos for my plan.

I want to thank the following people for their help:

• Ryan Glitch – The SciFi Speed Dating Guy – It is because of him and his company that Annie and I ended up meeting.
• Michael Barryte – Belated Media – Annie and I bonded over the “what if Episode 1, 2 and 3 were good” Star Wars videos and continue to enjoy his content.
• Scott Meyer – Author of Off to be the Wizard (and other books) – Off to be the Wizard was a book that I randomly saw and then Annie and I couldn’t put down. We continue to try to push it on others to buy, have given it as presents and absolutely love the balance of humour and strong story telling in it. If you haven’t read it, you should!
• Robert J Sawyer – Author of the WWW Trilogy (and other books) – Through Tom Leroux, my brother from another mother, I was introduced to Robert’s Wake, Wonder, and Watch trilogy of books. I shared them with Annie and she loved them as well. We bought extra copies to use as part of our paper wedding flowers as a symbol of how much they meant to us and our relationship.
• Destin & Tara Sandlin – Smarter Every Day – Talk about the ideal parent. You’ve likely seen this video from two years ago where Destin shows his kids how lighter and heavier than air objects work with acceleration – A Baffling Balloon Behavior – Smarter Every Day 113. His passion and excitement for teaching his kids, and how he disassembles the world around him makes me excited to be a parent.
• Holly Henry – Singer and 5th Season Voice Contestant – While she wasn’t right for the pop-heavy reality TV competition, Annie and I continue to follow this hauntingly beautiful singer on YouTube. She reminds us of one of Annie’s nieces and we are forever fans of her music.
• Josiah Brooks and family – Draw With Jazza – While Annie and I are not artists, we have family members that definitely are and we got hooked watching Josiah Brooks (Jazza) and his various videos. His passion applies to any industry, and his personal vlogging videos give insight into being a parent in a creative industry. If you are an artist, check out his Arty Games app for your smartphone, as well as his wonderful animated short – The Tale Teller.

Before I received the first video, I realized that the first video watched would be the reveal, and I wanted me to reveal the gender, so I went to work editing the videos I received so that none of them would spoil anything. First I tried to mute everyone at the part where they said the gender, but you could easily read their lips. I also wanted to amp up the humour…

One part that I didn’t have figured out was how to transition from my plan to the actual reveal. By a stroke of luck, Annie’s sister called me and told me what she was doing for her mom’s birthday: a birthday board with tags showing each person’s birthday so we can keep track of the nearly forty person family. It is really nice, and Mary asked if it would help me in performing the announcement, and it worked perfectly as the transition from my video idea, to the real situation.

The Reveal

Video editing is not one of my strongest abilities, but for the most part, I think I did well.

Check out Annie’s post about the whole reveal.