t-11: mistaken identity

People will say a lot of things to you when you're pregnant. There are the comments about your weight. Or you're impending due date "Are you about to pop?" -mmmm, you mean like a zit??? I hope not. Then there are the comments about what you're going to name the baby. (And no it's not Cletus - I promise - it's the same name that my grandfather had and my brother has, also uncles, great uncles, cousins and even my mom's husband). Or what your childbirth intentions are (most people are supportive of our decision to go for a home birth...some not so) or just how disgusting and horrible childbirth is - mostly I have to say from women who've never actually had any children. Thanks for sharing your body fears and anxieties with me!

But the one that really gets me is about the gender. I'd reckon that a majority of people in England choose to find out the gender if the option is open to them. (Some NHS trusts refuse to reveal gender to "avoid disappointment" in case of mistaken diagnosis, but everyone suspects it's to avoid the incidence of gender-based abortion in certain sub-populations). Some people would like to know and their trusts would tell them but the little one won't cooperate, essentially hiding the goodies.

Now, I'm sure all of you have seen a blurry ultrasound picture, perhaps in an email titled "It's a boy!" - and if you haven't you can see ours here. If you get a good one, there's a nice fetal profile or perhaps a foot. But you can't really make out much. And if it's not a very good shot, it's more like "Are you sure that's not your appendix?" And this is, of course, all about the "old style" ultrasound - not the new 3D/4D kind in which you can see baby's feature's with amazing accuracy. But these aren't offered on the NHS (currently) and we were too cheap to shell out the £100 to £300 to go private just to see what the baby would look like.

The little snapshots are terrible, but when you're having the scan done - you can actually make out quite a bit more. Bones have particular clarity. But as to soft tissue - I could never see much. The tech might say "There's the stomach." Oh, ok whatever you say. I'd only ever manage to make out the heart - and that's because it moves in heartbeat like way.

Before our scan started the tech asked us "Do you want to know the sex?". I tried to manage my expectations - because I know they can't always see - but I said yes, if she could tell. At the end of the diagnostic session (they were looking for fetal anomalies) she asked me again and I said again - "Yes, if you can see." And the tech replied, quite positively, "Oh, I've already seen." I knew enough about ultrasounds at that point to figure it had to be a boy. And sure enough, she showed us a picture of his "willy" (NOTE TO TECHS - please, please don't use nursery language for body parts! And besides, that's dangerously close to what we've decided to actually call Cletus). Now, because I wanted a girl I kind of refused to make out the penis and testicles, but it was obvious enough, really. And there was the Vol-in-Law (trying to conceal his glee) and the Tech outlining his parts on the screen - and me just going "Well, if you say so." Only when I got onto the pregnancy discussion forums and people displayed their "classic" shot - that I understood that's exactly what I'd seen.

But just before I left work, several people asked me if I was sure that it was really a boy. And they told me about mistakes that had been made with people they knew. And I say "Well, yes, sometimes with girls, it's hard to tell - and they'll give you a percentage like 85%. It's harder to prove that a penis isn't there and the limited tell-tale signs can be easy to conceal." I'm asked what percentage we were given, and I say we didn't get any - because the tech was very, very sure.

But still...these people have somehow managed to insert some doubt in my mind. And even though I wanted a girl before, I now don't want this baby to be a girl. He's already in my mind as a boy.

But the suggestions that the tech might have somehow been wrong are plaguing me. Maybe I'm fixing on that rather than worrying about real potential problems. Maybe it's a distraction technique.

Even VolMom asked me what the chances were. I said they were slim. But if it were a girl, she'd be wearing a lot of blue (and little old man sweaters).

VolMom, who's a more inveterate shopper than I, said "No, we'd have to start from scratch. But some little boy in London will have an amazing wardrobe."
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11 days til baby Cletus,