IT’S A…

The 20th week appointment is a big deal in the world of pregnancy. It’s when you have the opportunity to find out what sex baby you are having. And in some ways the gender of the baby totally shapes the dynamic of your family.

When I was pregnant with Drew, I counted down the seconds until our ultrasound. Seeing the baby on the screen was the first time I really felt/understood what was going on inside me. Caring a baby in your body is such a foreign, surreal feeling that before you become especially large or start to really feel the movement, it’s hard to really understand that there is an actual baby in there. When I was laying on the table and the tech asked if we saw what “it” was, I didn’t have a clue. And then she announced that it was a boy.

We had names already picked out. I was excited and grateful that it was a boy. I felt that my over-protective husband would be better off having a boy first. I liked the prospect of our family having an older brother lead the pack (little did I know what that really meant). I spent the remainder of the pregnancy getting totally pumped to have Andrew Russell.

Then I became pregnant for my second time. This time I felt a huge sense of nerves around the gender of this baby. I spent a lot of days thinking of people that had boys first and then girls. I really wanted the opportunity to have a girl. I was so excited at the prospects of tutus, baby dolls and bows. When they told me it was a girl, I was in a state of shock.

Rather than be thrilled that I got what I had wanted, I felt uneasy that by saying I was happy I was having a girl meant that I wasn’t happy with the boy I had. Also, we could not figure out a name. I just couldn’t wrap my head around that I was actually having a girl. It didn’t make things any easier that tons of people I crossed paths with kept telling me I was having a boy based on how I was carrying (basketball in front style). When Gabriela Blair (name pulled from a hat two days before her birth) was born, I instantly asked the nurses if she was in fact a girl.

Judgement day arrived! And as a planner, it took everything I had in my being to request not to know the gender of this baby. Emotionally all I wanted to know was if this baby in my belly was a boy or a girl. Intellectually I know, though, that if I settled for the cheap thrill of finding out now, I’d potentially be selling myself short of “IT’S A…” Since I already have a boy and girl, I owe it to Adam and to me to experience what it’s like to be surprised.

I’m very grateful that the ultrasound told us that everything with the baby looks great. I can’t help but feel like it was very anticlimactic because we still have to wait another 19 weeks (give or take) to find out how our family will exactly take shape with this new addition. So for now, IT’S A…BABY 🙂