One couple got the shock of a lifetime when they learned their new baby’s sex wasn’t what they expected.
Throughout her pregnancy, Kim Guiley of Santa Cruz, California, had been certain the baby, her second child, was a girl, even though she and husband Travis were hoping for a son.
Yes, Kim gave birth to her baby, only to realise it was not what they’d spent months preparing for.
“After a couple of minutes, I opened baby’s legs and discovered that we had a little boy!” she wrote on the Santa Cruz Family Doula Collective website.
“Shocked is an understatement – I was blown away and totally elated.
Birth photographer Susannah Gill captured the moment the Guileys learned the sex of their baby. Looking at the photos, the expressions on their faces can only be described as priceless.
Guiley, 28 said: “I kind of talked myself into it”. “I guess it’s the power of persuasion! And I should know better because I’m a doula, and I work with babies and births, and I know you can never have any expectations about anything.”
“There’s a correlation between sickness and having daughters, so I think that partially helped, too,” she continued. “I was pretty unwell with this pregnancy. ”
“And my 2-year-old daughter thought it was a girl. I had all these silly reasons.”
Guiley, who blogged about her home birth, added that she experienced a miscarriage in 2015, and she suspects that’s also part of the reason she had opted out of learning the baby’s sex.
“After the miscarriage, I was just really attached to having a healthy baby, regardless of sex,” she said.
“My response to my husband’s inquiry was, “No, let’s have fun with it. When they showed us the baby’s head and upper body during the ultrasounds, we were allowed to stare, but as soon as they got to mid-baby, we had to turn our heads away.”
Guiley and her husband were thrilled when they saw the photos.
“I was just in hysterics,” she said. “We were cracking up. That face! I don’t even think I could replicate that face. I was truly, truly shocked.”
“He’s such a joy,” Guiley said. “His sister is so enamored with him. I just really feel like our family is complete.”
