Genitalia: Normal

I don’t know if this is true for all doctor’s offices but at our office the results of your anatomy scan ultrasound are typed up nicely for the physician and under genitalia it either reads normal or abnormal (ours was normal). They do this because eventually these results end up in your online chart, and apparently when they had the label genitalia: female, it was ruining the surprise for couples who wished to remain in the dark about the precise details for their child’s genitalia.  So when our midwife came in to meet with us she was still in the dark, and that was the first time we got to tell someone the great news:

We have a daughter on the way.

I have to admit I thought it was a boy, though I wonder if I convinced myself so surely of this because as happy as I would be to have a son, I feel directionless in how to raise one. Mostly because I have such strong opinions about how I want to raise a little girl. A leader, strong, confident, body positive, generous, opinionated and informed, and a host of other qualities I believe don’t always come easily to girls in our current society. So when the ultrasound technician told us it is a girl, I immediately found my eyes full of tears and turned to Devin to say “A Girl. We’re having a girl.” Suddenly all those movements I’ve been feeling for the past couple weeks are even more meaningful; there isn’t just a baby in there. That’s our daughter moving around. Our daughter whose head measures in the 24 percentile and big round belly measures in the 68 percentile. Our daughter whose name we decided on months ago, before we even knew if we were having a girl. Our little lady, who is already so loved by so many people.

After our appointment I stopped at work and told the ladies the good news and then it was on the road to Chicago. My parents had the day off and we knew we wanted to tell them in a fun way so before we got to their house we stopped at the party store to pick up one of those big helium balloons.

When we walked in my mom was on the phone with my sister so she put her on speaker and I got to tell the two ladies who round out our current family female roster that we are adding one to the team. In fact now there will be 4 boys and 4 girls. My dad was outside mowing the lawn so I called him in to reveal the big pink balloon – both my parents had thought it was a boy too, so it was a big surprise for everyone! Now that we know it’s a she in there, I can’t help but envision trips to the American Girl store, daddy and daughter tea parties, talks of tampons, and prom dresses. There is so much we don’t know about her, and so many things that we won’t know for years. But for now we know one thing. In September we will have a daughter and we can hardly contain our excitement.