The verdict is in.

So... what do you think? Boy or girl?

---

When I got pregnant--and stayed pregnant--I swore this time I'd pick a good doctor. Not a doctor, who, upon hearing you were bleeding, sticks a dildo cam in you and then, making eye contact with the ultrasound screen, says, "Well, it's empty all right." For example. No, I was going to pick a good doctor.

I did research. I knew I wanted to be at a place near my home. There's a big ginormous hospital that's twenty blocks from our home, and I knew I wanted to be there. So I searched and searched for any recomendations of any office that did work there. And I got a name and a rec for an office there, where people said, "Get Dr. X, but if you can't, their whole office is great." So I called the office, just on the off chance they were accepting new patients. And not only where they, but when I asked which doctor I'd be seeing, the receptionist said, "Dr. X!" I said, "Reeeeally?" and the receptionist said, "Yeah, she actually has an opening, so I thought I'd slot you in there. And since you're a teacher--" we'd been talking for quite a while at this point, we were buds, almost... "since you're a teacher, why don't I just schedule you out as far as I can so that we can grab those afternoon slots for you? You can always cancel them later."

So this doctor, Dr. X, with her sporty self, has been my dream doctor. Her office, my dream office. Dreamy dreamy dreamy.

---

I was in for my 3rd monthly appointment, just like a regular prego. I got to see what the non-expensive way to hear the baby was like--like a wee transistor radio! with a microphone! that's CRAZY! and see the inanity of the first few months appointments. You mean... I come in, pee in a cup, get weighed (actually, annoyingly enough: it's usually the other way around), get my blood pressure taken and then as a reward hear the heartbeat... and that's IT? No blood, no prescription, no internal ultrasound or dyes or tests or... I can leave my pants ON? (except, of course, while peeing)

Weird.

Anyway. So Dr. X is going over how the appointments work... "...and then you'll come in and we'll do a first ultrasound." "Actually, it'll be like my fifth." "Well, yeah, there's that, but it'll be the first one here." "That's where we find out if it's a boy or girl?!?!" "Um, usually we use it to look at, you know, is the heart working properly and there's two ARMS and two LEGS, is there a BRAIN AT ALL... nothing very IMPORTANT." "Yeah, yeah, yeah, AND THEN WE FIND OUT THE GENDER!"

Pause.

Completely, deadpan: "So, I take it you'll want to know then."

I heart her, very very much.

---

The ultrasound tech is a hyped up whippet thin woman who is in constant motion. She wields the roll-on-deodorant-like magic thingy with the assured hand of someone who's done this twenty times a day for ten years. Swooping left and right, up and down, curving and winding in to get the best view, she whips through a tour of our baking baby. "See that? Kidneys... and here... that's the stomach, full of fluid. And that grey line... right... there that's the diaphragm..." Andrew and I look at each other and grin. "if you say so!" I say. "I keep making this stuff up and no one's caught me yet," she grins.

We wander through our baby's anatomy. Spine, ghostly ribs, faint but rhythmic heart, like a fist clenching and unclenching faster than I could imagine. And then: the money shot.

"You sure you want to know?"

"Definitely."

So are your bets in? What do you think?

...

We spent the last ten minutes of the appointment just watching our baby, at rest and then in motion. Arching spine one minute, faintly swimming the next, striking an American Idol pose the next. The foot, she said, measures one and a half inches. Are you doing what I did? Have you lifted your hand to put your thumb and finger an inch and a half apart? Are you imagining a tiny little foot, with tiny little toes, stretching between your fingers?

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He's gonna have big feet. :)