Best Moment of My Life

I wrote this post last Monday, but had to wait to post it until I saw my sister today and could share the news in person (since she sometimes reads this blog).

Today we had the anatomy scan. For most the pregnancy, D and I had been agreed we would not find out the gender.

Well, agreed might not be the right word.

All my life, I always have wanted to know the gender of the baby - my baby, a sibling's baby, a friend's baby - whoever. I am impatient and absolutely hate when people say stuff like, "it's the last great surprise". First of all, surprises are way overrated. And secondly, it is still a surprise when you find out at twenty weeks. D has always wanted to find out at delivery. He feels that the guy gets to do so little, that it is the man's big job to leave the waiting room and announce to everyone the big reveal. Enter infertility: in my desperation to get pregnant, I realized I would be happy no matter the gender, no matter when we found out, I would just be so grateful that I was pregnant. So I agreed with D that we could wait it out.

Of course, that was only true until I actually was pregnant. Then my desire to know came back with a red hot burning passion. However, D made me hold to my compromise. So, despite (lots and lots of) whining on my part, we were staunchly team green.

And then Christmas came. In my stocking, was a card from Lilly, our cat (yes, our animals give us cards). Anyhow, the message inside read, "Mommy, Daddy really wants you to know the gender. Ask him, he'll agree." And so I did, and he did, and then we were all of a sudden agreeing to find out!

Fast forward to today. I had NO instinct going into this. In the beginning, I thought maybe it was a girl because the heartbeat was always fast. Also because, as much as I hate to admit it, my weight gain has been of an "all over" sort, and I know that is usually associated with girls. But overall, no gut feeling. I would waver based on any given day. I thought I wanted a boy more, for several reasons, but I also felt (contrarily) that I might be disappointed if it was a girl (that's me - Miss Glass Half Empty- the normal way to look at that would be to say I was going to be happy either way. But I can be prone to depression, and I was afraid I would ruin my happiness no matter what the outcome).

We showed up for the appointment and, as I laid down on the table, I knew with absolute certainty I would be happy either way. Thrilled. My heart was beating a million miles a minute, and the tech nearly killed me by scanning other stuff first (you know, inconsequential stuff like the heart and the brain). Finally, she says, "Oh there's the jewel".

I was flummoxed. I have heard of "the jewels" of course, but what she said was definitely singular. Is a girl part singular? So of course I asked, and both D and the tech laughed at me (fair enough - because if you saw the shot we were looking at, I should not have questioned it no matter what word she used).

It's a boy. We are having a boy.

I have never, ever in my life actually cried tears of joy. But out they flowed. I was (am) ridiculously, deliriously happy.

On the way home, I told D that today was the happiest day of my life. He did not understand. He thought for sure the day we found out we were pregnant would be. But it couldn't be. That day had so much fear and doubt and hope tied into it, that I did not let myself feel that unbridled happiness. And the same for every subsequent ultrasound. While there was of course relief and happiness, the fear was also there. Today, I managed to just be happy for the first time in this pregnancy.

And it is all thanks to my little boy.

Absent

 

So it’s been a long time since I’ve written. And, like all things that you neglect for a while, the longer I was away the harder it was to come back. However, even though I have been absent from the blog – it has not been absent from me. I think about it all the time. Well, not the blog exactly, but this community. How much I get from being a part of it, and how it supported me through a bleak time I did not know how I was going to make it through. And even when I have not been writing, I have been stalking reading everyone’s blogs faithfully.

I am struggling with being articulate, so please forgive me if any of this comes out wrong. I’ve debated writing this post a thousand times (possibly literally) in my head, but I can never formulate the right sentiment. You see, I’ve lost my voice. I don’t know how to write in this space anymore.  Partially because I know there are so many people still struggling and I don’t want to add to their pain by comparing my baby to a fruit, or posting pictures of nursery inspiration. I’ve been there – I know – it sucks (plus it is kind of boring). 

However, beyond my worry of offending, another reason I have not been able to write is that cataloging my joys does not seem to fit here.  This is a place I wailed, gnashed my teeth and worried myself into an ulcer or two. Relief? Celebration? Those never really made an appearance here, and I am not sure how to make it fit in. Besides, while I do feel all of those things, I have not exactly been an unbridled pregnant person – I have not taken the bump photos, bought a single item or, well, planned for this baby. Don’t get me wrong, I am ridiculously happy – I sometimes thank God out loud for being so lucky that this has happened – but I don’t wallow in it. And I think to be a good blogger, you need to be a wallower, fully immersed in whatever it is that you are feeling and spilling over with the need to share. And I have not been there. Mine is a quiet joy, one that I have not figured out how to make public, even with my real life friends and family.

So I have no real resolution. I know I will still post updates because I hate when bloggers drop off the face of the earth (erm - like I just did for over a month). Plus, I have some good big deal stuff coming up (gender reveal woohoo) and some old-fashioned worries looming ahead (t-shaped uterus = risk for second trimester miscarriages -oh, my old friend worried-obsession, that's where you've been).  In the meantime, between posts, please know I am still rooting for you, analyzing your charts and commenting whenever my @#!* new apple phone lets me (a subject for another post - but it was much easier to comment when I was a Droid girl versus an Apple one. Call me old fashioned, but I need a keyboard).