Brother or sister?

Well, Monkey, today we’d hoped to find out whether or not your sibling-to-be will be a boy or a girl. At this point, we don’t know if you’ll have a little sister or a little brother. All we do know is that whatever the sex of your younger sibling is, they’re healthy and moving.

In fact, they’re so healthy and moving that they made it difficult to get a good view of them on the ultrasound. The doctor/ultrasound operator couldn’t see “boy” or “girl” because the baby kept moving so much.

Moving around constantly and being difficult? Yep, that sounds like a Sowrey, alright…

Originally, we were supposed to drop you off at school this morning, but your school neglected to tell Mommy that “United Nations Day” requires the presence of a parent. Go figure. So we ended up taking you with us to the ultrasound appointment.

After a quick stop at Bagelmen’s for coffee (Grau seems to have closed, much to my dismay), we headed over to CIMA and found our way to Mommy’s doctor. And then we waited. And waited. And waited. And waited.

You ran around a lot. I chased you a lot. We counted cars. (You still tend to count 1,2,3,6,5,4,7,8,9,10 for some reason.) And we waited. You struggled, even whined a little. Can’t blame you, really.

Finally we saw Mommy’s doctor, who seemed confused that we were there today, and not tomorrow, which was the actual appointment. Which confused all of us. Someone made a mistake. Who? Dunno. Frankly, I doubt it was Mommy — she’s a stickler when it comes to dates.

The doctor did a quick check of Mommy, saying that your younger sibling might be slightly larger than usual for being 16 weeks along. Nothing to worry about, just larger than average. (Let’s remember that you were in the 90% percentile of size when you were born!)

Then the doctor used a special microphone (darned if I know what it’s actually called) to listen to the baby’s heartbeat. It sounded strong and normal (for a growing baby), and you exactly described what it sounded like when you exclaimed:

Mommy! Choo choo!

Thankfully, the doctor is flexible and we managed to sneak in to see the ultrasound doctor, too (a different doctor, interestingly enough). The ultrasound machine was more advanced than the ones that were used to look at you over two and a half years ago, and could even show things in 3D (a mildly imperfect 3D that made the baby look a little like an Egyptian mummy).

You seemed to know that the strange pie-shaped image was a baby, even though it was really a two-dimensional slice of a baby. You saw its arms, and its legs, and its head, and even saw its heart beating (the sound on the larger machine was less choo-choo-ish than the one the previous doctor produced). But soon you got bored, and wanted to run around.

After the measurements were made, the doctor tried to figure out what the sex was. The best she could do was say that it was “probably” a girl, but there was no guarantee.I don’t know if I’m upset about that or not. I’d like to know, but at the same time there’s just something wonderful about a surprise. Boy versus girl? Obvious question, and a not-so-obvious answer.

First off, I always tried to be as open-minded about the sex of my first child — you, Monkey. I didn’t want to be stuck with preconceptions that would cause me to wish you were something you weren’t. I suppose every father wishes — even secretly — for a boy. (I imagine most mothers do the same for girls.) There wasn’t a hint of regret when I first saw you. Not for a nanosecond. You’ve so far exceeded all my hopes and dreams that I couldn’t imagine it any other way.

For your sibling? If we were to have another child like you, I wouldn’t care if it arrived gender neutral, to be honest. Would I like a boy? Of course I would — but I would like another girl just as much. My biggest wish is that you welcome our newest family member, and know that we’re not loving you any less, even if it sometimes seems that way. Until your sibling is as old as you are now, they’ll need some help — and a lot of it for the first year. It’s a long time, kiddo, but you’ll get through it.

Just remember — you’ll be the Big Sister. Forever.