Ultrasound Tomorrow

I spent an hour talking on the phone last week looking for our various options of trying to get switched over to our new doctor and I'm continually amazed at how each new person tells you new and varied information. I was told originally from our case worker that we couldn't switch doctors until AFTER we were officially accepted under the coverage. Then I was told by my doctors office that we could only switch doctors if we had reasonable cause and they don't give referrals lightly, and switching just because of difference of opinion wasn't a good enough reason for them to refer you to this new doctor we are trying to go with. WHAT?! That's stupid. So I decided this seemed pretty ridiculous, especially since we won't hear back from them until mid-Feb. to see if we are even covered with this company. So I continued to talk to the medical people and the insurance company and I finally talked to two people that finally seemed to understand what they were talking about. The insurance company switched me over to the new doctor and said as long as we go to our appointment after Feb. 1st then we don't have to get a referral from our old doctor and if we are accepted for coverage then the old doctors office should know to bill them for just the one appointment we saw them for.

So now that that headache is over (let's hope) we officially will be starting with our new doctor on Thursday. He set up an ultrasound for us up at the hospital for tomorrow to make sure the baby is growing correctly and measuring on schedule. James and I are really excited. I think seeing the baby in action is the most exciting part of pregnancy. It makes it feel even more real to see a face (even if it does look quite alien on the screen...) to the baby growing inside you.

We counted down the days until our ultrasound with Jack and it was really exciting and I loved being able to know "we are carrying a boy" for the next five months. It was fun looking at baby boy things together and go through boy names and think of all the fun things to do with this little "sport" that would be joining us.

I had a pretty similar reaction to our ultrasound this pregnancy. James, more so than me, kept talking about how we might be able to find out if it was a girl or boy and we worked ourselves up pretty bad. So when the technician said they can tell the gender as early as 16 or 17 weeks James was quick to ask what ours was. We didn't give it a second thought. It only made sense to want to know what the baby's gender was. The technician said she would tell us if she knew, but the baby was in such a bad position that it would be hard to give any form of an accurate guess. She tried a few times and finally said "If you wanted to know my guess I would guess girl." A GIRL!?! Yesss! I had wanted a girl! We already had such a good son that would be a good older brother to her! I imagined all the fun bows and dresses I would put her in, and the beautiful name we would find.

Then the dreaded words. "It's either a girl or an umbilical chord."

What?! What kind of technician can't tell the difference between the baby and the chord in making a gender guess?

I think that's when the accuracy role really went into effect. I was still pretty smug all day and very happy, but the more James talked to me about how irrelevant the guess was the more I started to believe him. I looked up ultrasound information and they say that there are still 'parts' that a technician needs to see for a girl in order to make the guess valid - and I doubt she was even close to seeing those if she couldn't tell if it was a girl or an umbilical chord.

So we were back to square one yet again. No idea what we were having.

I was very annoyed with the idea of having to wait 5 & 1/2 more weeks until we would be able to find out what we were having. As luck would have it switching doctors allowed us to get an ultrasound in two weeks earlier than we would have originally. Score!, I thought. I didn't have to be patient for another few weeks! We could find out in just a few short days now!

But then I get it in my head that it actually could be fun to wait to find out what we're having. It was just a stray thought at first, but it started formulating more and more in my mind until I finally voiced the option to James. This pregnancy I feel like trying different options because even though we want more than 2 children, who knows if that will actually happen. So why not experience new things while you have the chance and enjoy the differences and see what you like best? I always thought people who decided to not know the baby's gender were a bit odd. I loved them still, but why wouldn't you want to know the gender? Why decorate your baby's room in greens and yellows if you could decorate it in purples and pinks and brown and blues? How would you even prepare for a baby you didn't know the gender too? What was the fun in that?

But once I started thinking about it and putting it in perspective of "What if "WE" decided not to find out what we're having?" the more my dead-set reasoning kind of vanished. I don't HAVE to buy green and yellow outfits for the baby to wear. We can buy outfits after the baby is born. We borrow most of our baby clothes anyways and my nice sister Wendy is very good about loaning baby clothes - so if we have a girl we're set, and if we have a boy we are most definitely set. We can pick out boy AND girl names. Even though I wanted a girl, I think having a boy would be fun too - so I don't think at birth I would be disapointed if I hear the phrase "It's a boy" or "It's a girl", so I don't really have to prepare myself. We don't HAVE to get bedding for our baby until later anyways because she/he'll be stuck in our room in a cradle the first month (or out with dad on the rocking chair again haha). So we don't have to do baby bedding until afterwards and I can choose what I want then. I ran across an article that gave you gift ideas for gender-neutral baby showers, and it gave me a lot of ideas of ways we can still prepare ourselves for a gender-neutral baby.

So the more I thought about it the more I thought Why not?

Breeching the subject to James, on the other hand, has not gone over so smoothly. He has been very willing to let me give up finding out the sex of the baby, but has not been so willing on his end to go the next five months with out knowing. The first night he was very adamant that he wouldn't go for it and that he'd be very good at keeping it a secret from me. I told him that wasn't the point of this whole thing just so I'd be surprised. It was so we could share in the excitement together that would culminate until our baby was HERE. The second night he mentioned having the technician writing it down on a piece of paper and not telling us and if I still didn't want to know after 2 weeks then he'd burn/shred the paper, but it would give him an option to find out. The third night he told people we might not find out what we're having and his position quickly changed back to how it was on the first night - He NEEDED to know what our baby is! Haha.

So, needless to say, who knows where we will be at tomorrow. If James is dead-set against waiting until the baby is born we'll both just find out tomorrow. I really think it would drive me crazy if he knew and I didn't.

What this really long post really sums up to is: We'll see tomorrow. :)