Thursday, December 18, 2008

Boy or girl? Yes!

Next Monday is my full anatomy ultrasound, and hopefully we'll be able to find out the sex of this new kiddo. Although I'm not certain "we" will find out because I'm not sure if Mr. P wants to know.* But I definitely do ... I'm too much of a planner to let it be a surprise.

My sister asked me the other day if I had a feeling one way or the other. If I base it on comparing the two pregnancies, I'd say boy. This pregnancy is exactly like my first one so far, but I'm also smart enough to know that doesn't mean squat. (We were so convinced my friend Chrissy was having a girl the second time that I went out and bought her girl clothes. Nope. An even bigger boy than the first one.) But I find myself mentally referring to the baby as "her" -- and with Kiddle it was always "him."

I guess I don't really have any strong preferences one way or the other. Before Kiddle I only saw myself having girls, but now I find myself waffling.

GIRL PROS: much cuter clothes, the relationship with a girl is just totally different than with a boy, my parents would have a granddaughter instead of only grandsons.

GIRL CONS: the teenage years, it seems scarier to raise a girl in this day and age than it does a boy, and, oh God, will I have to play house and dress-up and dolls?

BOY PROS: I already have all the clothes, I'm used to boys now, Kiddle will have a brother -- and I so appreciate that I have a sister.

BOY CONS: I won't ever have a daughter. Or the cute clothes that go with her.

Of course, the baby has to actually cooperate at the ultrasound. Kiddle was all legs splayed, check me out, look at my boy stuff. So no doubt there. We'll see if this one is as open or plays it a little coy.

* Funny story actually. With Kiddle, Mr. P wasn't sure if he wanted to know so we decided he would leave the room during that portion of the ultrasound. Now, we never really thought we'd make it four more months without him finding out, but that it would be fun to see how long we could go.

As it turns out -- four days.

Mr. P's sister got married that weekend and during dinner one of his relatives asked me if we had decided on a name. "Oh yes," I replied, "it's (insert obvious boy name here)," with so much certainty that I couldn't even cover by adding "if it's a boy and Blah Blah if it's a girl." The table got deathly quiet as everyone realized what I had done. And Mr. P got the biggest smile on his face. More from glee that I had busted myself so quickly, I think, than from happiness that it was a boy. And I promptly burst into tears.

Now, as a pregnant chick, I wasn't particularly hormonal. I didn't cry every day, or over tiny things, like some of my friends have. But if I got started crying, I simply couldn't stop. Mr. P finally had to lead me by the hand, blindly blubbering, out of the reception. And it took a good 20 minutes for me to stop sobbing. In the end though I was glad he found out from me, rather than from one of the 8 trillion people who already knew. I would have missed seeing the look on his face if someone else had slipped up. But, damn that glass of wine at dinner! Four days? That's all it took?

1 comment:

  1. I'm so excited for you, Kelly. I can't decide if I'll go the route of knowing or now knowing if we ever have another one. I understand all the pros and cons very well. And wow, Thomas looks so big in his parka and boots!

    Miss you,
    h

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