Swimmers

"Do you want to know the sex of the baby?"

"Yes!" Yes we do.

Finally, the moment had arrived, the sonographer asked us the question we had waited to hear so we could have an answer. We had waited all day, all week, all month, the entire pregnancy to know if our first child would be a boy or a girl. After all our ideas, brain storming, and planning for a few months, we would finally know which direction we could go, blue or pink. Our parents would now know if they would have a grandson or a granddaughter. We all had our preferences for the gender - of course passed the hopes for just a happy and healthy baby.

In the beginning of the pregnancy, I had a plan, a hope, to have a boy first to be the older brother to his younger sister. Two kids, three tops (if the first two happen to be boys, we would try one more time for a girl). I'm not sure how the amount of boys vs girls in my family affects me and my "swimmers" (since I dictate the sex of the baby) but there are a lot of boys in my family. So many so that there is a small fear that maybe my swimmers wont cooperate and give Sonia and I a daughter. This small fear began to sway me towards wanting a girl now to extinguish this fright. Sonia has always wanted to name her daughter Emma (after her late grandmother) and I was hoping my swimmers would make this dream a reality for her, for us. Therefore my preference was becoming more balanced between boy or girl. Then throughout the pregnancy, I would sway back and forth, time to time, to absolutely wanting a boy then to absolutely wanting a girl.

This brings us to the day we find out, last Thursday. Sonia and I had our parents join us at the doctor's office. We were allowed to have two other people in the ultrasound room with us, so we chose our mothers. However, once we got there and went back to the room they allowed our dads to come into the room too. So we got to experience this together!

Rewind a bit…earlier in the day at work I had a conversation with a coworker. She was telling me how her daughter-in-law and son had a baby and really wanted a daughter. Their family was boy heavy too and many of them wanted a girl. They had had two boys already and found out the gender ahead of time. For this last pregnancy, they did not find out until the baby was born. They had a girl! Then the part of the story that really hit me was how the DIL wanted to name the daughter after her grandmother. They were very close and she wanted to honor her grandma. This story was much like Sonia and I's and it was then that I decided that I wanted a girl. My mom (and dad too, I think) and Sonia would be so ecstatic to hear the words, "it's a girl" and their happiness would have made me happy.

Back to the ultrasound room…as I stand there watching the sonogram, holding Sonia's hand, we all anxiously await the answer to the gender mystery. Baby had great looking organs, bones, all was good (the doctor later even used the word "perfect" heh). Then the question came…shortly followed by the answer. My heart began to race and the sonographer tells us baby is a BOY! Somehow amongst the shadows of bright whites, blacks, dark grays, and light grays on the screen, she found the baby's penis and scrotum. I'll take her word for it because I didn’t/don’t see it.

Amongst the happiness and excitement I could sense a slight disappointment in the air. Which I think is normal and probably would have happened if baby was a girl. It's kind of like that feeling of once you decide your choice between two or more things and you get one, your feelings betray you a bit to make you feel like maybe you'd rather have the other option instead. It's like a mind-trick. Know what I mean? Anywho…I could sense that small fear of "oh boy (pun intended), the first child is a boy...will Tony's swimmers produce a girl????" I am confident I have some female swimmers and they will do their job next time around. ;-) Of course, this slight disappointment has subsided and we are all excited to welcome the baby boy into the family! And hey, my original plan started off right…Emma will have a big brother!

--Tony