Monday, August 31, 2009

Intuition Fails Me - Week 16

This week was marked by the much-anticipated milestone of fetus development being reached when we could finally find out the sex of the baby. I say 'could' because if we waited for the ultrasound at the doctor's office then we wouldn't know until the 22nd week because of the way my monthly appointments fall. The "official" ultrasound is to measure the development of the baby, the organs and all sorts of other medical things with the side note of "do you want to know the sex" thrown in at the end so it happens at about 20 weeks. I might have mentioned before that I am NOT a patient woman... There is no way I could have waited until 22 weeks!! We got super lucky and got an appointment for Monday evening squeezed in between the end of my work shift and the beginning of the hubby's night shift at the cheapest place we could find in the mall. Since we only needed the information and weren't interested in the video or keepsake package crap, I figured cheaper was better in this case. This entire pregnancy I have KNOWN, not just had a strong feeling, but KNOWN that I knew what we were having so this exercise was merely a formality so we could officially start shopping. Our daughter was so excited to be coming along because for weeks she had been asking how long before we could know (she's obviously inherited my impatient gene!) So, I'm lying there on the table, belly all coated in goo and the announcement comes. My reaction? "Are you sure?" You see, I KNEW this baby was a boy - had been calling it 'he' for weeks - had been knitting a masculine colored blanket - had been focusing on boy names - and how could it be right when he said "IT'S A GIRL!" How could my female intuition have failed me so entirely?

Yes, I was a bit disappointed. Our daughter was over the moon that she is getting a SISTER and couldn't stop jabbering while the hubby and I walked out of the mall behind her discussing our shared disappointment. I'm not having babies at 40 so we know this is our last one and we were both convinced we would get our idyllic dream of having one of each. Except now that had just been blown out of the water. My control-freak tried to convert the disappointment into something more tangible like disbelief siting the fact that I am "only" in my 16th week and the beginning at that so technically it could have been too early to tell and they just didn't want me to be able to come back later since we went for the cheap package. I even went as far as to tell my sister that we were NOT ready to start shopping until the diagnosis had been confirmed by my doctor. That lasted all of about 10 hours until the next day when my co-worker who has background in Radiology and a wife who is a sonographer took a look at the ultrasound photos and declared it a "textbook perfect example" of a baby girl's parts. Disbelief now back to disappointment which only lasted another couple of hours because then I started thinking of all the benefits and joys of having another girl. We already know we make gorgeous girls - one look at our daughter is enough to prove that. I will NEVER have to pretend to like or endure baseball that a son would be playing. The chances of either of our daughters wanting to follow in Daddy's footsteps of dirt bike racing are minimal. And I am already a total pro at raising girls! I also reminded myself that I had secretly been scared shitless thinking I wouldn't know what to do with a boy which now I wouldn't have to worry about. The hubby got over his disappointment much more quickly than I did and is content to have a houseful of women. (Poor guy, even the dog is female!) Part of me must have known there was no reason to withhold anything since we started spreading the "It's a Girl" news on the drive home from the mall. I got a kick out of my daughter wanting to be the one to tell everyone that she's getting a sister!

The rest of the week was a blur of sleep deprivation after attending a concert with my brothers and sisters and second-grade homework overload on top of preparing for the last camping trip of the season. Wednesday I heard from my doctor on the last blood draw testing from the genetic screening and my results were perfectly normal (as we expected them to be after the first round of tests). Luckily, I am still feeling very good with no complications. Sometimes I still have moments of disbelief that the whole thing is even real. I'm starting to feel more little flutters that my mind says logically must be the baby moving but it is so infrequent that it could be gas, too! My baby bump is rounding out nicely and hopefully soon I'll be VERY CLEARLY pregnant and not in that gray area of 'it could be weight gain or it could be a baby' that I'm quite certain every woman must go through regardless of her build before pregnancy. I have still not purchased a single item for the poor baby growing inside but there's still time and we are slowly gearing up and making necessary preparations to re-task the office/playroom into a nursery and obsessing over girl names rather than boy names. The most amazing thing? Welcome to the 5th MONTH of pregnancy! Where has the time gone already? Seriously!

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