hi, I’m your baby.
Yesterday we got our first shots of baby Flo-Bix. It was pretty amazing to see that something was actually going on inside me and that I am indeed not just getting fat. It looks like we have a little yogi. I was able to identify “downward facing dog” (above) and “child’s pose.” We also got a great thumbs up letting us know that all was well inside.
Baby is now 11 oz and looks to be a week further along than we expected. We seem to be closer to 20 weeks than 18! The new date for baby’s arrival is August 17.
Lately we’ve been intrigued by the variety of responses we get when asked if we’re finding out the sex. When we say we’re waiting for the birth, most people say, “oh that’s great! What a wonderful surprise!” A few people though have given us the death stare. We’re not exactly sure why.
It certainly is an unusual choice. Some of our student nurses from the Alaska trip were telling me that they had only one woman who didn’t know the sex coming in to delivery and that was in a 3 month rotation per student.
We’re excited to find out the moment of. My friend Natalie sent me this great quote from Madeline L’Engle about her experience waiting to hear the gender of her baby announced. I thought this was so beautiful. I hope it will be like this for us.
A Glimpse of Kairos
In the heart and spirit we are less restricted by time. We are given glimpses of kairos in our own living, moments that break free of time and simply are. It is fascinating that music is so bound up with time and yet some of the greatest moments of music are the silences between notes. We all have moments of kairos, though we seldom recognize them till afterwards. One such glimpse that I remember with particular delight came after a long and very difficult labour when my doctor and friend dropped a small wet creature between my breasts, saying, “Here’s your son, Madeleine.” And I heard the angels sing.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: baby, gender
Did they tell you that ultrasound due dates can be off by two weeks? You probably don’t want to hear that
I loved the gender surprise in the delivery room both times! It added so much to the already exhilarating moment!
Hi! I’m back again and so enjoying reading about your journey into parenthood!
I chose with all three of my pregnancies to know ahead of time and with each one there was still that breathless moment when you know *for sure* at delivery…but I knew that *for me* I had to know early.
Some of my closest friends have never learned baby’s gender before birth and I’ve always enjoyed the moment so much!!
I attended the delivery of my nephew who I was sure the entire time was a girl. When he arrived I looked back and forth between this lovely little baby and his beaming mother and said “A BOY????” It still makes us all smile and laugh.
Best of luck to you and your little one!!
Melissa, I don’t know if I mentioned this to you already or not, but my sister Lindsey is due on August 3, so you two are very close in your pregnancies. They found out they’re having a boy, but we didn’t want to find out with Clara. We sailed through our first ultrasound totally confident that we wanted to be surprised, but we ended up needing a second ultrasound at 30 weeks, and Dave totally caved, knowing that we’d have the chance to find out again. He bullied me into it, and we found out we were having a girl–a mere 2 weeks before she ended up arriving early! I still love the notion of being surprised. The sociologist in me feels like the child has an entire lifetime to be gendered… Let the little one dwell in mere personhood for a little while before the gender baggage starts getting piled on!
Caren - This is so funny because I have often said that one of my only ethically motivations for waiting on the sex is so that we don’t get a ton of pink or blue. Keeping it neutral feels very important. My sis and I just had this long talk about a child with ambiguous genitalia, something that happens a lot more than people like to think and how it would be to live within that ambiguity until our child decided with what gender they self-identify. Or what if they didn’t. It’s an interesting question and we want to be open to whatever comes up.