We didn’t find out the baby’s gender when we were pregnant
with Quinn. We just let the anticipation
and suspense build until he was born. It drove other people crazy that we
weren’t finding out, but we loved the
not knowing. I mean, really loved it.
Er, at least I did.
“How can you not want to know?!” people would demand and
look at me like I was nuts. And then I
would say, “Um. Like this. Watch. This is me. Not knowing. And still
functioning like a non-crazy person. So stop looking at me like that.”
Okay, I didn’t really say that, but I wanted to. I mean,
seriously, are pink and blue the only paint color options for nurseries? What
year is it?
“I’m a planner,” people would tell me. “I would have to
know.” Yeah, well, I’m a huge planner, too, but whether it’s a boy or a girl,
the baby’s still coming, so how much does the gender really affect the planning?
You still need a shit ton of baby stuff. You just get it in any color that
isn’t pink. Easy. I mean, are gender-neutral baby clothes, blankets and
nurseries really that atrocious? ‘Cause I think Q’s gender-neutral giraffe nursery is darling.
Here’s another reason why not knowing the gender is awesome.
Instead of buying you a bunch of baby clothes that your child will only wear
once or not at all, you get stuff you actually need. From your registry. Instead
of being sucked in by the racks of irresistibly cute baby clothing, your family
and friends stick to the list that you spent weeks agonizing over conveniently
preparing for them. They buy you diapers and wipes and bottles and changing
pads and crib sheets and Diaper Genies and Pack-N-Plays and bouncy seats and
swings and strollers and bath tubs and car seats and gift cards burp
cloths and and and and….
All that stuff gets ridiculously expensive when you have to
buy it all yourself, so it’s nice when other people buy it for you. The baby
clothes are cheap and fun to shop for, so I would rather buy them myself
anyway. So we ended up with a few white, yellow and green baby clothes and
almost everything we registered for. Then the week after Q was born, Hubs went
out and bought a bunch of blue clothes and blankets. Babies spend their first
few weeks in onesies and swaddles anyway.
But… as much as I love anticipation, we’re going to find out
Baby Dragon’s gender. I
didn’t say there was anything wrong with finding out. I just said there’s
nothing wrong with not finding out. Really what I want to know is whether or not we can get rid of the numerous giant bins of boy's clothes in the garage and free up a ton of storage space that we so desperately need or if we keep the boys clothes and save some money. We officially find out the gender at our eighteen-week ultrasound in three more weeks.
But… we think we may already know… (See, this is where I
would normally start building the anticipation… except that I sort of already
gave it away in the title of this post… because I really wanted a blog post
with the word “penis” in the
title… because some things are even more fun than anticipation…. Anyway….)
A couple weeks ago, we went for our nuchal translucency
ultrasound. The technician asked if we were going to find out the gender of the
baby, and we said yes. Hubs half-jokingly asked her if she could tell us that
day, not expecting it to be a possibility. Surprisingly, the technician said
she could try. “It’s not always possible to tell this early,” she said, “but
when I can tell, I’m almost always right.”
She made a few quick swipes of her magic wand across the
cold jelly on my belly, and then she said, “Ah, do you see what I see?”
And there on the monitor was this:
“IT"S A BOY!” Hubs and I shouted. Then I said, “But it’s
too soon to know for sure, right? So that could just be the umbilical cord,
right?”
“There’s a 55% chance that I’m right,” said the technician.
Then she paused for dramatic effect and said with a smile, “But that’s not the
umbilical cord.”
She was very careful not to come right out and say it was a
boy or confirm the existence of a penis, but…
… that is SO a penis.
