A new mom’s priceless reaction to having a baby boy when she expected a girl is going viral

Many soon-to-be parents come up with creative ways to announce their pregnancy and reveal the gender of their babies long before they’ve given birth.

New parents Dara and Eric Crouch waited right up until their baby’s arrival to find out the gender. When mom, Dara, learned she had given birth to a boy, her reaction was more than surprised.

The labor and delivery nurse’s immediate reaction to her son’s birth was captured by family photographer Neely Ker-Fox. Since surfacing on POPSUGAR earlier in June, the photos — which we first saw in a Redbook story on Yahoo— have gone viral.

Ker-Fox Photography

Dara decided to leave her son’s gender a surprise since her favorite births — as a labor nurse herself — have been ones where the parents don’t know whether the baby will be a boy or girl, according to POPSUGAR.

Plus, she said there hasn’t been a boy born on her side of the family in 50 years. Dara already has a daughter, and was certain that she would be having another one.

“My husband thought from the beginning that it was a boy. I was not so convinced. I had this weird connection to my daughter’s clothes, and since their birthdays would only be three weeks apart, I knew I could reuse them,” she told POPSUGAR. “It never really set in that this baby could be a boy until just a few minutes before he was born. I started freaking out because I had never been around a little boy and didn’t know much about raising one. When my midwife, Melissa, held him up, I was in complete shock! It was a boy, and I lost it! I was so excited, and so in love! I couldn’t imagine it being any other way!”