It's a girl!

6/22/09

At least, that’s what the nurse said. But she didn’t sound too confident.

There’s a joke that Demetri Martin tells that goes something like this:

“‘Sort of’ is such a harmless thing to say. Sort of. It’s just a filler. Sort of – it doesn’t really mean anything. But after certain things, sort of means everything. Like after ‘I love you’ or ‘You’re going to live’ or ‘It’s a boy.’”

Lori’s ultrasound was today. We went together, because that’s what husbands like me do. But after complaining that she couldn’t get a good angle on the little munchkin growing inside Lori’s belly (not literally in her belly, you know what I mean), the nurse halfheartedly told us it was a girl, and pointed to her proof. But proof to a nurse isn’t always convincing to the untrained eye. Without turning this PG-13, let’s just say three white blotches in THAT part of the body doesn’t prove much to me.

And we’ve been down this road before of “it’s a girl!” only to be handed a boy at childbirth. So we’re skeptical. Cade was supposed to be Brenna. Conner was trained on the name. We were told “it’s a girl” twice back then. The nurse was 95% certain. Then BOOM. A boy popped out. That was October 27, 1999. We filed that away in our minds, wondering how certain we’d ever feel if we were told a girl was on the way.

So the nurse today sucked all the joy right out of the ultrasound appointment. With four boys already in the stockade, we were anticipating this ultrasound to be a watershed moment one way or the other: a FIFTH boy, wow! Or a FIRST girl. We were either going to be the freak family with a full starting lineup for the hardwood…or the freak family with a girl lopped on to the end to keep the rest of us in check.

But with that nurse hedging her bet, we feel we’re left hanging, with a little doubt. So for now, it’s sort of a girl on the way.