we have a name

Baby Weiss has a name (and a gender too)! Peter and I had already decided on names at ten weeks, just as soon as we passed my miscarriage week mark from our other pregnancies. Regardless of baby being a boy or girl, we were (and are!) so incredibly excited. Heck, the baby could be green for all we care! We’re in the seventeeth week of pregnancy, and I’m still feeling great. I feel her move, wiggle, and kick from time to time and it’s such an incredibly feeling.

We ended up finding out the gender early at twelve weeks because we chose to do a non-invasive screening for three chromosomal issues (all came out negative) and the gender was included in the blood test. We tried to keep the gender a secret, but that only lasted a few weeks! The struggle to keep it a surprise until delivery was so tough, and having the fear that this baby might have the same fate as previous pregnancies, I didn’t want to wait for a second to find out; Peter had been wanting to wait until delivery, but changed his mind once I had the gender email in my inbox. We wanted to know her, we wanted to name her.

We ended up doing a gender reveal at, you guessed it, Walt Disney World thanks to a few of our wonderful cast member friends and a few of our amazing Disney friends who helped pull the whole thing off. One of our dearest cast member friends, Marleee, is a balloon handler so we showed her and her manager the email with the gender on it (we never saw it- they opened it on my phone!) and told us to meet back on Main Street in an hour. Everything was orchestrated perfectly: we had one of my very dear friends Julie capture each moment on my camera, and had two of our Disney Instagram friends use our phones to Face Time my parents and to record the whole event. Part of Main Street was blocked off just for us as we closed our eyes with the castle in the background, and it was just perfect. Marlee and her manager brought out a dozen gender-revealing Mickey balloons in front of a photo pass photographer, and we were told to count to three. When I opened my eyes, I dropped to my knees and started crying because it hit me- we are actually pregnant, and we’ve made it so far. It also helps that Disney is the factory for happy tears, so the emotions started flowing immediately. I still haven’t decided if I am going to post the video online or keep it for ourselves because it’s such a (wonderfully) emotional and happy video for us, but maybe I’ll share it later.

Her name doesn’t have any family ties, and she isn’t named after anyone. Well, I say that, but her name was inspired by one of my favorite books as a little girl: Eloise by Kay Thompson. She is spunky, colors on mirrors with lipstick, and everything I wanted to be when I was little (but too scared to because hello, consequences!). I secretly hope she’s exactly like Eloise in the book, and my fingers are crossed that she’ll find a lipstick (just not my Chanel lipstick!) and draw on a mirror 🙂

Walter is incredibly excited to have a baby sister, and has always been right when it came to the gender; he kept saying it was a girl, and stuck to it. And, as it turns out, he was right! He tries to share his snacks with “beebee” (by giving me a piece), and has already picked out a sweet unicorn plush as a gift for her. Walter constantly comes up to my stomach, gives my belly a hug, and talks to “Elweeeeze”. It’s just the sweetest thing, and I never thought my heart would melt so quickly!

Thank you so, so much for all of the calls, messages, emails, and comments about our pregnancy over the past week! It means so much to us to have the support we’ve been given and for all the love we’ve received. We never thought we’d see this day, and Peter and I are still in awe of His blessing. We are so excited to meet our Eloise in July, and now we can say bring on the pink!!