Drum roll please...

It’s a BOY!

So all of my personal predictions were correct.  Being as the egg was “in play” when we did the IUI, the faster, less resilient boy sperm got there first.  So at last I have a male heir for my vast fortune, ha ha ha!

The gender scan was interesting, and as is often the case with all of this pregnancy stuff, not as I expected.  First of all, the tech told me it is not a gender scan, it’s a checking for abnormalities scan.  Which instantly made me nervous as a sentence like that always will.  So instead of the fifteen minute, here’s the genitals, thanks & you’re done moment I expected, it was instead forty five minutes with the tech clicking away on his computer with the screen turned away from me as I stared at the institutional ceiling panels.  Luckily since I brought up the gender thing early on, he did turn the screen so I could see my baby’s tiny and unmistakable little winkle.  That definitely brought an emotional rush to me, and I teared up a little as he went about his business and I thought about my baby’s namesake, my maternal grandfather.

My mother’s father Robert was a complicated man.  Brilliant, Yale class of ’35, but a lifetime alcoholic who was haunted by his rotten childhood (mother died in childbirth - ? – and was raised by a series of spinster aunts).  He was a writer, photographer, and world traveler.  I definitely got my taste for hot 3^rd world countries from him (as did my mother).  He died of cancer when I was about fourteen.  So I didn’t get to have an adult relationship with him, but he did live with us for a brief period when I was little, and the years we spent in Boston he was close to us so we spent a lot of time together.  I’m fortunate to have been little enough to only see him as my grandpa and not see his faults – I loved the smell of pipes on him, and the way he made me peanut butter sandwiches with butter on the bread under the peanut butter, and how he laughed uproariously and exclaimed, “good night!”.  At any rate, I choose to remember him fondly.  He’s my only genetic paternal figure (disregarding my father’s side, who I don’t know) so my baby gets his name.  Done, and done.

So the tech did not seem concerned about anything on the scan – said the pictures had to be sent to radiology for analysis, but he said if he saw anything he would have told me (or had me see someone right away).  It’s amazing what they can do now – check your baby’s heart valves, brain, kidneys, everything, not to mention limbs and measurements to make sure proper development is happening.  So I guess that moment of “does he have all his fingers and toes?” right after birth doesn’t have to happen anymore…unless they were absorbed back into his body, we know they’re there!  Sure does a lot to ease a mother’s concerns.  I guess in the Old Days (like, 20 years ago) women just had to go on faith.  I guess if that’s all you got…

In the morning as I was getting ready to go I’ll admit I was a little nervous.  I had to do some breathing exercises and get psyched up.  For the first time I talked to the baby.  I said, “we’re going to see your winkle today!”  The tech was a funny guy – an Argentine who I didn’t entirely understand, so we had a conversation in which I could tell he was sort of asking about my “status” and then jokingly asked how all this happened, and I turned my hands to the sky and said, “It’s a MIRACLE!”  I’m glad he had a sense of humor.  Two friends came with me but they weren’t allowed into the room until it was over – I have to admit it was fun having company and getting to go to lunch after and talk about it.  As the day went on I could feel the child forming in my brain.  It’s Robert – I have a boy, and his name is Robert.  It’s a real thing, not just an egg, or a zygote, or a fetus.  It’s a little boy named Robert, who was literally created out of thin air where no child otherwise would have existed.  Wild.

And with that went the death of one dream – the dream of a daughter.  So, I guess I won’t be braiding someone’s hair, or having a little girl play with my old Barbies, or reading the Little House books to her with a main character she can identify with.  I felt that dream slip away as the day went on and Robert took shape in my mind.  But you know what?  It’s ok.  It’s kind of like my house being up a bunch of stairs.  Giving up a house I can easily load things into means I get a great view and a lot of privacy.  And so many great things come with a boy.  My sister said, “this will switch up the whole family dynamic,” and I think that’s so true.  So, personally, I’m excited. 

It looks like there will be a little red-headed boy running around the house yelling “by the power of Gray Skull!!!” and smashing everything in sight after all!