Why do I always choose the wrong supermarket line? Yesterday, I had a choice between two seemingly identical lines, and I chose the one where the cash register decided to break down. Past wrong choices have been choosing the line behind someone trying to pay with personal check, and standing behind someone who was disputing a ten-cent difference between an item's advertised price and it's actual price. Dude, I'll give you ten cents. But please, stop arguing with the manager about the price of your stupid E.L. Fudge cookies, because I don't want to grow old and DIE standing on line at the supermarket.
As much as I'd rather not have been on call Friday night, it's nice having the rest of the weekend off. Much of our free time in the past day or so has been spent disseminating news about the ultrasound, and the peepee we saw therein. Even though I really couldn't have cared a rat's ass either way whether we were having a boy or a girl (though now my paranoid mind is now obsessing over X-linked genetic syndromes and the relative lung immaturity of premature male infants as compared to their female counterparts), it's just nice to know. It makes everything seem more real, and less in the abstract. "Yeah, but don't you want to be surprised?" advocate some proponents of the wait-until-the-kid-comes-out school of finding out the sex. Well, I'll either be surprised later, or surprised now. And I never much liked delayed gratification anyway. Sure, as a medical resident, my whole life is delayed gratification, but I don't have to like it all the same.
There is kind of a patriarchal chauvanism in Asian cultures about having a boy, though. Some will deny it, and many will not subscribe to it (my parents, for instance, who have three girls, purport that they've never minded this CRUEL TWIST OF FATE), but it's definitely a cultural attitude. For instance, this conversation with my mom, right after I told her about the ultrasound-identified weiner.
MA
So, you finally made a boy!
MICHELLE
Uh, what do you mean, "finally?" We don't have any other kids.
MICHELLE'S INNER MONOLOGUE
"Made a boy?"
MA
Oh, yeah. I just mean we're finally going to have a boy in the family.
MICHELLE'S INNER MONOLOGUE
Yeah, after having all these crappy girls, finally, a BOY.
MICHELLE
Well, Joe and I don't have any other kids, boys or girls. Well, except for Cooper. So we're happy either way.
MA
Oh. Maybe I was projecting.
MICHELLE
Gee, you think?
Anyhoo, I feel like the grandparents (and great-grandparents) were just waiting on tenterhooks to find out the sex so they can finally go out and shop for the baby. We explained to them (more in the event that the ultrasound didn't yield the requisite views) that it didn't really matter what we were having, because we really weren't into the whole pink-and-blue thing anyway. But I don't think it mattered. Now that we've announced the boy-ness of Cletus, we're just going to get a slew of blue clothes, sports equipment, and...I don't know...toy guns or something. (Whatever. I don't know of boys. All girls in my family, remember.)
The other thing that's making the reality of this pregnancy set in a little more is that we just recently started feeling Cletus's movements on the outside. I think I've been feeling movement for the past two weeks now, but it was hard to say in the beginning if it was Cletus or if it was just colonic gas moving it's way down to the business end of things. But in the past week or so, it's become fairly obvious. Joe just felt Cletal movement for the first time earlier this week, and he was excited about that. "It must feel weird for you," he said. Well, kinda. But it's fun, too. I'm trying to savor this part of the pregnancy, before Cletus gets so big that he can start kicking me in the diaphragm. Because breathing is important for life.
Anyway, "almostMD" in the comments section was asking if we could reveal our top choice girl name. Now that it looks like we're going to be using it any time in the immediate future, I can say that if we were having a girl, we were planning to name her "Nina." Thus fulfilling the five-letters-or-less mandate. But looks like that name will have to go back into storage for now. Unless we decide to name Cletus "Nino." We actually do have a real name picked out for the kid already, but I think I'll wait a little while longer before the unveiling. Specifically, I think I'll wait until we're at least at 24 weeks. As for the reason why, I will let my clinic preceptor say it all. "So, you're 18 weeks pregnant? Wow! Your fetus has almost reached the age of extrauterine viability!" Uh, yeah. Thanks for reminding me about all the transparent shrivelly 24-week preemies in the NICU, and that in a month and a half, our kid might be among them. Pediatricians saw weird things sometimes.
Currently watching: "My Super Sweet 16." Have you seen this show on MTV? Truly, it is awesome, even better than "Rich Girls." It has all the perks of the latter show (following around a passel of overindulged, entitled, spoiled rich teens, spurring righteous indignation of the "did you just hear what she just said/did/bought?" variety), but a new teen every week, so you never get tired of them.
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