The Sex of Our Baby

It's New Year's Eve. It's actually nearly 11pm and Ben and I are both still up, but we had fully expected to be in bed by now, so we've already opened the envelope that contained the results of our chromosomal tests. We already knew that the baby had tested "negative" for all the abnormalities, but we had asked the nurse to put the results in an envelope and mail them to us so that we could find out the sex of the baby on New Year's Eve. This was a good day to do it, too, since I just had my first appointment with my midwife today, after transferring our care back to my midwives after seeing the OB for the first trimester. She found the heartbeat right away and we heard the baby zooming around in there, just like Greta used to do. It's a good day to find out the sex of the baby, when I am feeling a little less anxious overall.

I gotta say, it's totally surreal to know this information though. We haven't even made the pregnancy fully public yet. This post, for example, is one of the ones that I will be saving as a draft for another week or so before publishing, because we are not "out" on the blog yet.

For us, it's not only bizarre to know the sex so early in the pregnancy, but it's just plain strange to know the sex! And to have found out on a piece of paper, without even looking at the baby. I still feel a little skeptical, like we just received the results of a virtual psychic reading instead of a lab report on cell-free DNA.

I have to say, I am more excited to know than I had thought I would be. I was very worried that I would immediately lose interest in the pregnancy, having been deprived of the remaining months of anticipation and wonder. Although I do worry a little about whether the remaining 6 months of pregnancy are going to drag more slowly, I'm still excited. It's nice to be able to have a picture in my mind of our complete family.