16w2d - How I Became a Member of the Pen15 Club

Um, you guys? There is totally a penis growing inside of me. A mini penis with mini testicles attached to possibly the cutest little boy fetus that you have ever seen. I kvell, swoon, melt when I look at the ultrasound pictures from this weekend. A little boy. He is real and not a figment of my imagination.

Am I glad I went to a creepy Sneak-A-Boo elective ultrasound shack? You bet your tiny balls I am! I need to break down the experience for those of you considering a trip to the local strip mall and/or currently tssking and eye-rolling. First off, as I said before, mine was not in the mall. It was located in a very nice brick office building in a lovely, leafy neighborhood in Chicago. We signed in, presented our last ultrasound pictures (wisely, they make you prove that you are getting actual prenatal care and not using them as a filler for actual medical expertise), and were quickly called into the ultrasound room. It was giant, dimly lit, and had a big flat screen television on the wall. The examination bed looked like it had been custom made to accommodate a 600-pound man. Cooooozy. I laid down, scooched my pants down to the pubic bone and accepted an unnecessarily large blob of ultrasound gel. J sat next to me and held my hand. The sonographer found our guy - at that time an "it" - right away and swiveled the probe around to get the infamous "toilet shot." Clear as day were two legs, a tiny butt, and something dangling in between. The sonographer said, "There it is," and J was like, "What? Do you know? What is it?" Someone obviously hasn't been studying google images of gender ultrasounds apparently.  Good thing the sonographer and I were all over it. Then she typed it out "It's a boy!" on the screen. This is the point at which I started crying. It just all of a sudden became so so real. We got to see more views of him including in 3-D which is a total freak show affair and not overly adorable. They don't begin building fat until 26 weeks so the 3-D images make your cute 2-D black and white baby look like an animated skeleton. Appropriate for Halloween. My unsolicited advice is to stick to 2-D early on or at least not despair that your child is a monster based on a single ultrasound image.

J and I left the ultrasound palace grinning and kind of skipping. We were giddy motherfuckers. When I walked in, I felt like I had a "condition" with a questionable prognosis. When I left, we were the parents of a growing little boy. I would have paid a million dollars for that feeling (or a similarly feasible sum) but I only had to pay $45. At my insistence, we drove directly to Buy Buy Baby (which, as the name suggests, is a total commercial horror show) and each picked out a vaguely boyish onesie. J detested the big box store experience but I loved buying something for a real person.

I feel I should briefly address the gender question. Like, feeeeeeeeelings. So, I have written before and would have told you candidly at any point in my life that I wanted a girl. And I still do. One day, I would love a daughter. That said, it was really difficult to get one kid of either gender on board and honestly, I don't know that it will happen again. Having a daughter very well may be something that doesn't happen for me. It makes me a little sad but I have so much more happiness over my little boy that it's completely overshadowed. I am truly not disappointed at all that we're having a boy. I'm overjoyed. I love this little being inside of me and that's who he is, a boy. It was pure magic to find out another piece of the puzzle. He's his own person and gender is a small but important sliver.  The goal of unprotected sex (hilarious) was to have a child. Any kind of child. Just not a serial-killery child. As it became blaringly obvious that the whole sex thing was not going to pan out, the urgency to have a baby, any baby, like potentially a stranger's baby on the street, just kept getting stronger. I'm thrilled that it's a baby. I'm thrilled that it's my baby and that we successfully made a baby with genitalia. Go us! I'm a little afraid of baby penises and getting peed on. J came to me fully potty trained. I'm a little afraid that he'll be drawn to guns and general warfare. I don't know from boys. I'm from a family of girls. This is going to be an adventure. I'm married to a boy so we'll figure it out. Now, I just can't wait to meet our little guy. I insist that he keep cooking for 22-24 more weeks. In the meantime, I know a little bit more about who I'm talking to and talking about. My boy. I'm super in love.