Andrea and I went for my latest sonogram yesterday morning. It’s one we’ve been anticipating ever since we changed our minds about knowing Peanut’s sex. At first I didn’t want to know. I liked the idea, as I’ve heard a few people say, that there’s not much in life that beats a surprise like that. I thought all the arguments people make for knowing ahead of time were ridiculous. What do you mean, you have to “mentally prepare yourself”? A lot of that was tied to my really strong feelings about the insane gender-specificity that kids are subjected to, especially when it comes to all that pink and blue. But this is a subject for another post. Suffice it to say, we certainly didn’t need to know so we could prepare the baby’s room accordingly (well, actually, there isn’t going to be one of those for a while either, but that’s yet another post).

Obviously, I have been dying of curiosity, and another reason I wanted to wait was for the same reason I gave up chocolate for Lent even though I’m not Catholic. Things are so much better if you force yourself to wait for them! The delicious anticipation building for all these months…

What is it that changed my mind? It was partly because I agreed that the surprise is incredible whenever it comes and also because I felt like it could actually help me develop the bond I’m forming with Peanut. Plus, I was so sick of saying “it” or “him or her”.

So…

it's a BOY!

This really was a huge surprise for us because most people for whatever reason have been thinking Peanut was a girl, including Andrea, who was convinced of it. I started out thinking he was a girl but then that changed. And because of the switch I started questioning my instincts and stopped guessing altogether. However, I’ve been dreaming of Peanut as a boy. A boy with golden hair, like my brother had when he was young, and ridiculously smart and advanced, already talking shortly after coming out of the womb.

There he is in there. We didn’t really get any good sonogram photos this time. So disappointing. I wanted to show off his cute face! This one shows the (apparently very obvious) member that caused the doctor to make the fateful pronouncement. It’s a view of him from below, with his legs bent, his knees to the left and his bum on the right. No doubt about it, she said. We were totally speechless, our mouths hanging open.

I’ll admit the feminist in me is a bit rocked by the news. I was hoping for a girl, for several reasons. Like, for example, reading about the systematic elimination of girl babies that continues in China today (increasingly by middle-class people through abortion after finding out the sex in a sonogram just like mine) made me want a girl to counteract all the misogyny in the world, to inject the world with the girl goodness it desperately needs more of!

Poor little Peanut. He’s poking me right now. It’s just going to take a little time for me to adjust is all. Obviously I’m still thrilled. And that’s the irony in all this. Here I was thinking the mental preparation argument was so dumb and now I realize I’m glad I have it! I can prepare myself to welcome this wee boy who’s so very different from me biologically. I’ve been starting to gather that a lot of parenting works that way. You start off with some assumption, you’re so convinced about it, and then you wind up thinking about it in a completely different way. It makes me really want to be as humble and open as possible to this whole process.

Here’s a belly photo taken when we got back from the sonogram. I am at 19 weeks now!

Oh, and as for the blue onslaught that I’m dreading, it’s already begun. Our neighbour, bless her heart, has already given me a bag of boy clothes that she never used (she had a girl last October) and they are ALL BLUE. Goddess help me.