Sista!

This afternoon as we headed out for my 18-week ultrasound appointment, Matt took the poll. He and Tobin both said our baby was a girl. Evan said "gopty-gop," which they interpreted as "girl." I said I felt rather certain this one was a boy. Although I hadn't had a strong sense with either Tobin or Evan, I did predict they were boys. I felt a bit more confident this time around, especially since this pregnancy had been similar to my others--if not easier. Isn't the old wives' tale that you're sicker with girls? And in any case, it was just hard for me to imagine anything except a baby boy in my arms and, later, a little boy running around our home.

I was wrong. After taking a good 10 minutes worth of images of our baby's other important parts, the ultrasound tech moved to the most important parts. The baby was coy at first; one foot obscured our view. After a little jiggling by the tech, the parts became clearer and she said, "Do you see that? I know what your baby's going to be." And I thought, well, I know what I don't see: a turtle! (At the risk of being indelicate, a penis looks exactly like a turtle on an ultrasound.) That's when I knew she was a girl. I was genuinely shocked. But oh so happy and excited and maybe kinda nervous . . . and did I mention I was surprised? I teared up a little, but then I just entered this kind of dazed state that I still haven't left. All the while, I've also had a smile on my face. I would have felt this happy if our baby was another boy; I just think it would have been for very different reasons. Even though he thought she was a girl, I think Matt has been similarly dazed. Most of all, we're thankful that she looked perfectly healthy on the ultrasound.

Tobin smiled broadly when we confirmed the baby was a sister. As we were walking out to our car, he declared that when we got home we should make the baby her own Mii on the Wii. Ha! Then he asked, "What are we going to name the baby?" We told him we would talk about it, and Mama and Daddy would decide later. He said, "Well, we should probably give her name while she's waitin' to be born." Matt playfully suggested Lola Granola, which got a good laugh out of Tobin but also a firm "No, Dad!" Then we suggested Baby Sister, and Tobin thought we would call her simply Sister, which in his lovely 4-year-old, Southern accent sounds like "Sista." So that's what we're calling her now. Later this evening as I was waiting for Tobin to put on his pajamas, I lay down for a minute on our bed. He looked at me and said, "Mom, you should get some rest for that girl in your tummy. In fact you should probably sleep until 6:29 in the morning." That's terribly sweet, since the earliest he's permitted to get up is 6:30.

And I don't mean to leave Evan out, but at not quite 19 months, he doesn't seem to understand much of what's going on. He did do pretty well in the ultrasound, making it almost a full ten minutes sitting in Matt's lap and watching the ultrasound screen before he started pointing at the door and saying, "Go?" We also got a kick out out of his exclamations of "ball!" every time Sister's head was in focus. I've been pointing to my growing belly and saying "baby" occasionally, but I kind of think he's more likely to call it a "ball!" (as it will indeed become more spherical) than a baby.

Here's a profile shot of our daughter. More ultrasound images are available at our Flickr site.