Do You Know What I Know?

The ultrasound was yesterday.  I thought once or twice about coming here and posting what happened, but I was too wiped out.  Was the suspense killing you?  Probably not, but it is getting to some people.  Relatives from California to Georgia have been trying to find out what's up.


Here's your exclusive sneak peek at the real story:


I'm on spring break this week, so I brought the kids down to my dad's house in time for Mad to have lunch and get her nap at Grandma's.  Tom was shockingly close to on time.  This was an unexpected occurrence, so I went ahead and showed up half an hour later than he had said.  I did tell him I'd do that because he never leaves work on time.


He and I went to lunch at our favorite Mexican place.  The service is so fast that we were done in 20 minutes.  There was still more than an hour to wait.  We stopped at the bakery to map out our plans in terms of design for the "big reveal" cake.


I talked to Nance, who was on her way.  She arrived a few minutes after us (still about 20 minutes early).  I'd already completed the paperwork.  Tom went to the restroom and, of course, my name was called.  Three minutes later we were still waiting for Tom.  There was only one other man in the waiting room, a big guy with those huge rings inside his earlobes.  His girl was dressed in full 40's style.  He was my only hope.


"Excuse me.  I have a very weird request.  Can you please go into the restroom and tell Tom Somethingorother that he'd better get his ass out here ASAP?  I was called in for the ultrasound several minutes ago."


As is often the case with big, somewhat scary looking men, the dude immediately got sheepish on me.  He looked scared to go in the restroom and call someone out.  Clearly this is his first baby.  Any mom who's shopped with a son beyond the age of using the women's restroom knows what I'm talking about.  But this was Tom, not Corey, and I didn't notice how many other guys might have been in there, so I wasn't going in.  If it had been Corey (back in the day, not now), I could have told you the number of people and given complete descriptions.


So the guy faked it.  He went in and came right back out saying, "I think he's finishing up."  Dude, my husband's one of those guys for whom a trip to the bathroom is a chance for some "me time."  Last time we were here, it took a long time to be seen.  He could be finishing up for the next 15 minutes.  Argh!


In the meantime, we found out that I could only have one person in the room with me.  This made no sense to me since the rooms are spacious.  When Tom and I went in, it made even less sense because there were two chairs.


The woman who took us back gooped me up (hooray for warm gel!) and asked, "If it's able to be seen, do you want to know the baby's gender?"


YES!!!


Before leaving home yesterday I had printed out a paper with

It's a

Boy!         Girl!

I also brought notecards in envelopes so that we couldn't possibly see inside what the tech had circled.

She did some measurements before calling in the doctor, who simply verified the existence of all the necessary parts.  Doc had a hard time finding one arm, but eventually did say, "Upper extremities."  And she reiterated that we'd need to come back for the baby's echocardiogram (appointment was already scheduled based on my age, so we didn't freak out); she just couldn't see enough to know everything she wanted.

We did learn a couple of interesting things.  Unlike my OB's statement about it being "impossible," I am allergic to Benadryl.  No surprise to me.  I remember what happened when I took it.  But she also gave me some alternatives should I ever choose to do shot therapy for my allergies.

She also said that my latest miscarriage was probably because my eggs are old and decrepit (okay, she didn't use those words exactly, but close enough).  Since I'd had genetic testing done after all the miscarriages before Corey, she attributed those to incompatibility with my ex-husband.  Well, DUH!

Oh, and did I happen to mention we're having a daughter?  Fynn Willow.  I'm getting teary-eyed again just thinking about her.

When Nancy and I talked before getting to the perinatology center, she said something about how there wasn't any difference between learning today and finding out on the 11th.  Tom thought she meant it was no big deal to wait, but I knew she was saying, "Can't we just find out now, huh?  Can't we?  Please?"

Before she got there, Tom and I talked some more about it.  He agreed rather quickly and we went for it.  (Nance and I learned later that his mom had given him a lot of grief for not wanting to find out last time... go Mom!)

The tech told us first.  Tom asked how certain she was. 

"As sure as can be.  Labia, labia, clitoris."  She pointed out those three lines over and over.  In fact, we have no fewer than five cooch shots.  That's almost half of the pictures!

The doctor came in and, not knowing that we'd heard the news, did her exam and said, "Looks like you have a very healthy baby and everything's fine, unless you were expecting a winkie, 'cuz if you were expecting a winkie, everything's not fine."

Well clearly I was stunned, but I'm over it now. 

Baby Fynn. 

There's something so different about knowing who is in my womb. 

On the one hand, I'm sure our doctor was right that the moment of birth will be different.  When Mad was born, Tom was the first to see and call out that we'd had a girl.  Hearing the tech and the doctor each quietly tell us we were having a daughter could never compare to that.

On the other hand, I have four and a half months or so to get to know little Fynn.  This is something I've never gotten to do.

Now we just have to wait until Mad's party on the 11th to tell everyone else.  In the meantime, our answer is, "Nancy doesn't know any more than we do.  I handed her the card that says, 'It's a Boy/Girl.'"  Shh!