Gender Identity

So...our little boy? The one we have struggled to name (only to emerge from our house successful on Sunday afternoon) and bought clothes for and nicknamed Kanye? He's a girl.

We went for an ultrasound this morning for an echo cardiogram, part of the being pregnant with diabetes protocol. We knew the main reason for this appointment was not to ogle over our baby and count his fingers and toes but still, we were excited to "see" him. The technician asked, like they always do, whether we knew the sex or whether we wanted her to keep it a secret. "Oh yeah, we know" we said, "It's a boy." There was this awkward pause as the young girl looked at us, back at the image in front of us and then said, "Ummm, no, it's a girl." Honestly, I didn't really know what to say. we both said "What!?" a few times and insisted that she point it out and basically convince us of the anatomical evidence in front of us. She was absolutely positive it was girl and assumed that the last ultrasound was a bit too early to tell. "But you did tell us!" I said, "You said with 80 to 90% accuracy that it was a boy. You showed us his penis!" "I was wrong, it's definitely a girl."

I looked at Brian and he had this stunned expression on his face like he had just sat in something either very cold or very sticky. I started to laugh maniacally...clearly a crazy woman on the ultrasound table. Neither one of us could really snap our brains into place long enough for any of it to make immediate sense.

When I first found out that the baby was a boy I was upset (so you like I used that nice mild word to describe a totally insane reaction?) but I managed to get my head around it pretty quickly. It helped when I started buying little boy's clothes and thinking of little boy's names. I started to think of all the good things that come with a boy and I know that Brian started to do the same. Now, we're sort of back to square one. I am excited either way and really, a healthy baby is our first priority. It's funny how the human mind works though - even though it's completely silly, at some level I was sad because I felt like I'd lost my little boy.

So, there we have it. A girl. Maybe despite all of Brian's recent (and admittedly sexist) protests I will have a little Irish dancer after all.

Any suggestions for nicknames? No need to keep with the rapper theme but feel free.