I think it is more important to discuss life and the creation inside of me, than gender of the life, but… Since the day I met Dan Elliot, he has boasted about only “making men”. The proclamation of making males only continued. Every friend that had a baby heard Dan’s boasts. Flash forward 8 years, we are married and expecting our first child. On a lovely Sunday afternoon, Dan’s absurd talk about spawning men drove my Uncle Jeff & a slew of family members to the Drano aisle. Working at Children’s Memorial I had a little guilt about focusing on the gender of our bundle when in reality a healthy baby is all that should matter, but I too was ready to do a harmless test to silence this nonsense.
Brown= Boy. Green = Girl.
Glass cup, crystal Drano. Plastic cup, fresh urine. I poured the fresh sample into the crystals & set it outside for a 15 minute reaction.
From the very beginning, it had a green hue.
My family was (for lack of better words) shit talking Dan like nobody’s business. After the 15 minutes, there he was. ALONE, out in the yard & staring angrily into the GREEN glass jar. This was simply an “old wivestale” per Dan after much research finding the one site which didn’t support this test. After his endless chatter, we again decided to disregard even the Drano results.
Three weeks later, we have our 20 week ultrasound. Dan confident as ever, enters the room. Ultrasound tech asks the question. “Do you want to find out the sex?”. Dan, unphased & half-listening, half- smartphoning answers “Yes”. She begins to wave the wand on my stomach, with a thorough review of systems & stops at the crotch shot. Both of us felt we saw testicles, but we were WRONG. All we hear is, “Okay… it’s a girl!!!”
Dan thought I had put her up to it. He wouldn’t believe her. He had her check 3 separate times & is STILL holding on to hope that “she ” is really a “he”??? The anticipation of this day was intense. It felt like the night before a big exam. I couldn’t sleep. But, it’s still a crazy thought to have absolutely
no idea what this baby is inside of me. It’s been flipping my life upside down with nausea, vomiting, exhaustion, weight gain, constant urination so it’s OBViously in there and growing away like a weed. It will be a part of our lives forever, but yet at this moment we still had no identity for it.
I mean, we kept referring to it as “it”. The most anxiety driven thought is that it’s sex is already determined, yet we have no idea what it is. It will be a permanent fixture in our lives and singlehandedly the most important part of our lives together. After the sting of him being wrong wore off, he has been able to enjoy the fact that we have a little girl in the making.
We’ve only seen her for a total of 60 minutes via ultrasound, but she has already changed our lives and overall point of view for life. It’s crazy how something so small brings about an unimaginable sense of love and protectiveness.
Erica and Sam
Latest posts by Erica and Sam (see all)
- Lesson Learned - May 20, 2011
- Teaching Uganda’s Children - May 20, 2011
- Hugs, Mozungos, and Mbale - April 23, 2011