In Ireland it's more common than not to discover the sex of your baby at the very end of whole affair. I'm not like that, I like to know what I'm getting for Christmas in November, when my surprise birthday is and who's gonna be there and so on...
So we had the first appointment yesterday in the Fetal Scan Unit and being me, we turned up 15 mins early for it. So we had plenty of time to work ourselves into a frenzy before hand. What if this wasn't a baby - what if it was an alien, what if I wasn't really pregnant and had been gaining weight for no reason.
No reason...
After stressing ourselves out completely we were called into the scanning room and met our midwife.
She was lovely and told us she'd be taking measurements of the foetus and checking for abnormalities and did we have any questions?
We'd like to know the sex, please?
That's not a problem, I'll check at the end and see if we can tell.
Then I had cold stuff squirted on my stomach and the scan began. The relief we both felt when we saw Herbert in there was overwhelming - then she showed us he had a beating heart and I leapt a little on the bed. Then Herbert began moving here there and everywhere - the midwife kept asking him to stay still as she took measurements. His brain, his stomach, his femurs.
We had lots of questions - most of which were - "is that normal?"
She had lots of answers - most of which were - "yes, that's normal!"
Herbert was having a ball though - lots of turning and had his feet crossed at one point - so cute! I even asked will he be playing rugby or football?
Then she said, well we're done - "You wanted to know the sex didn't you?"
Yes please...
Herbert spins upside down on the screen beside me.
It's a girl!
Wow...
