Doctors allegedly told mother-to-be Sarah Sharples that she would be having a baby girl, so excitedly, she spent thousands of dollars on pink dresses, booties and assorted nursery paraphenalia, even stenciling in the name "Lily-Marie" on the nursery walls, but things took a weird turn when Sharples gave birth to a baby boy instead, the Daily Mail reports.
Sharples spent a whopping $4,600 on girly pink essentials for "Lily-Marie," but when she went into early labor at 36 weeks, she and husband Lee were shocked to find that their baby was in fact a boy, whom they've named Joseph.
"I couldn't understand it when the midwife said it was a boy. All our scans had confirmed it was a girl and I had everything prepared in pink," Sharples told the Daily Mail of the shocking delivery. "We had picked her name, Lily-Mae, and had the room decorated with her name stencilled across the pink feature wall. We even had personalized blankets as gifts from family and friends."
Sharples and her husband Lee, who live in Blyth, Northumberland, U.K., wanted to learn the sex of their baby early on so they could prepare gender-themed decorations and clothing.
"It was my first baby and so we had to buy all the essentials," Sharples said. "I wanted everything to be perfect for her so that she would want for nothing. Being prepared was my main concern, and seeing as I knew I was having a girl I didn't see the harm in buying everything in pink."
Family and friends also contributed to growing mass of pink items for "Lily-Marie," so by the time Sharples went into labor early, she knew things would be perfectly ready for her daughter...only it didn't quite work out as she'd expected. After giving birth to what she thought was her daughter, she couldn't believe what she was hearing from the midwife.
"The midwife said to Lee that there was something we needed to see," Sharples explained. "I instantly started panicking thinking what could possibly be wrong. She then said she wanted to congratulate us on the birth of our son. We looked at each other and couldn't believe that Lily-Mae was actually a boy. We decided to name him Joseph as we didn't think he would appreciate the name Lily-Mae."
Sharples and her husband then embarked on the monumental task of trying to exchange all of their girly stuff for baby Joseph, and luckily they were able to return quite a lot.
"There was so much to change and friends and family have been so helpful," Sharples said. "We had bought most of the clothes from ASDA and they were fantastic and let us exchange everything. But we still have a lot of pink things that we can't return and so we're just keeping them and hoping, at some stage, we have a girl. The nursery is now redecorated with a Monsters Inc. theme, so we think Joseph will prefer that to a pink room."
Perhaps Sharples and husband should have taken a leaf from Duchess Kate Middleton's book by preparing a gender neutral nursery based on a color palette that would suit either sex (the Duchess opted for herringbone brown). Nonetheless, Sharples and her husband were thrilled to meet baby Joseph, even if he wasn't the sex they had prepared for.
Click here to see photos of Sarah Sharples, her husband and all of their girly pink things they bought for "Lily-Marie," as well as sonograms of the baby doctors thought was sure to be a girl and a photo of the newborn and his new room.
