Reunited After 25 Years 54: Gender Reveal

On the way home from the library, Andrea stopped at the dollar store and bought a package of all-pink balloons. When she got home, she blew several of them up and attached them to the mailbox. Then she tied several more to the doorknob on the outside.

Within moments of beginning to prepare the evening meal, she heard tires rolling over gravel and knew that Anton was home. A moment later, she heard the door open and shut.

"I take it you heard from the doctor today." He came to her and hugged and kissed her.

"Mm hm."

"Is everything all right?"

"Everything's fine. Oh, Anton, we're having a..."

He chuckled. "I know. I saw balloons."

"You're not disappointed, are you?"

"Of course not. Now we can decide on a name."

"I think Daisy would be a nice name for her," Andrea suggested. "That was Meg's daughter's name in 'Little Women.'"

Anton nodded. "It is a good name. Also the name of a flower."

Andrea was pleased that he'd agreed so quickly.

"Now for the middle name...let's see..."

"The middle name will be Antonova."

"What?"

"The patronymic. It is the tradition in my country."

"Well, it's not the tradition in my country, and I don't want her to get made fun of in school for having a weird-sounding middle name like..."

Anton sniffed the air. "Something is burning."

"My meatloaf!" Andrea hurriedly took it out of the oven. "I think it's still edible," she decided.

"What you were saying before, Andrea," Anton said as they were eating. "I do not call the traditions of your country weird."

"I'm sorry, Anton." Andrea sighed. "It's that I'd really rather our daughter's middle name not sound so...foreign."

"Listen to us, Andrea." Anton's voice was soft as he reached across the table to take her hands. "The happiest day of our lives, and all we do is argue about the baby's name."

"Yeah." Andrea took both his hands and held them to her cheeks. "It doesn't matter so much what her middle name is. The important thing is that she's healthy."

Anton grinned. "So, let me guess. You want to go shopping on Saturday, right?"

Saturday morning, after breakfast, Andrea sat circling advertisements in the newspaper.

"Are you looking for another job?"asked Anton.

"Oh, no. This is a listing of all the garage sales going on today. I'm circling the ones that say they have baby girl stuff for sale."

"It is wonderful that, in America, there are such things," Anton said. "My nephew Stepan and his wife Lia have a baby boy named Pyotr, called Petya. He is four months old now, and my mother says they cannot find clothing for him anywhere."

"That's about the same age as Ryan," Andrea said thoughtfully. "I'll ask Carol and Donna if they've got some extra stuff that they don't need that we could send to them."

"Could you, really? That would be wonderful. I never showed you a picture of Petya before, did I? Here is one that my mother sent me."

"Aw, he's adorable!" Andrea exclaimed.

"Of course he is. He is a Kolchin."

The first garage sale they went to turned out to be that of none other than the parents of Caitlin Rose, the baby girl Alison had met when she and Alexei had gone to dinner with Denny, Darya, and Fawn the previous summer.

"So you're expecting your own now!" Caitlin's mother, Tammy, exclaimed. "That's wonderful!"

"How old is Caitlin now?"

"Thirteen months."

Alison bought a pink dress with ruffles, a yellow one with lace, and a lavender one with mint green polka dots, several cloth shoes that matched the dresses, a one-piece outfit with Miss Piggy on the front and another with Minnie Mouse, several blanket sleepers, socks, booties, tights with rows of lace across the rear end, and black patent leather shoes.

"Our daughter will be best dressed baby in entire nation," Alexei joked as Alison carried her armload of purchases to the car.

They went to several more garage sales, then to lunch at a hot dog stand. "Explain to me that business about the middle name again," Alison said as they were eating.

"Patronymic. Father's name plus male or female suffix."

"So Dasha's middle name is..."

"Alexeievna."

"And you want that to be our daughter's middle name as well."

"As I said, it is tradition in my country."

"And what's your middle name, Alexei?"

"Dimitrovich."

"And that's because your father's name was..."

"Dimitri."

"And what are your sister's middle names?"

"Dimitrovna."

"I see." Alison frowned. "In America, parents choose both the first and middle names of their children."

"That is another difference between your country and mine."

Alison thought for a minute. "Could it be something that sounds similar, like Alexandra?"

Alexei frowned. "I am not sure about that."