The Who

You guys don't really believe that cravings and/or aversions can predict the sex of a baby, do you? That or how the baby is "carried" or the severity of morning sickness or what color your corresponding box is on the Chinese lunar calendar? (I've used two different "official ancient Chinese lunar calendar"s and received conflicting outcomes.) I overheard Simon telling a friend that the best way to tell if it's a boy or a girl is during the twenty-week ultrasound: "...if it's a girl it will be wearing a little dress and matching bonnet." Even that is a little suspect to me (because I am oh so socially progressive), but at least then we'll know how to decorate the nursery to the baby's taste.

As of now, our stance on finding out the sex is divided. Simon wants to wait until the birth, no conditions or qualifications, and although I admire his restraint and consider his plan ideal in what would surely be the best of all possible worlds, I know myself too well to say with a shred of confidence that I'll be able to stand the not knowing for that much longer. I mean, what if we're shopping and we see something that, gender politics aside, is really and truly only appropriate for one flavor of human being? (Think not dolls or trucks but peepee teepees or white eyelet bloomers fringed with lace.) I need to plan, I need to prepare, I need to KNOW.

And yet...there's something old-timey romantic about waiting until The Moment, and seeing as how we're likely to forego many other old-timey, romantic traditions (e.g., expectant father in waiting room smoking a fat stick of cancer; me strapping the day-old infant to my back so I can resume work in the fields), I understand the attraction. "We get so few surprises in life..." people say in support of not knowing, but as Swistle once pointed out, finding out the sex, no matter when you do, is a surprise. The sex of the baby is just one aspect of a complex human being, and even that--anatomy aside--doesn't tell us who our children are going to be. (I hate hearing that someone is "trying" (ick) for a girl so she can take ballet or "trying" (gak) for a boy so he can play basketball. Boys can take ballet! Girls can play basketball! I know a four-year-old who wears one of HIS Disney Princess dresses to the grocery store!)

There's one other issue too, and I feel like this is a confession of sorts because I don't think this should be an issue, and yet I know that it might be and that even the possibility of it makes me feel weird: I think that knowing the sex of the baby before s/he's born with help me bond with him/her. Now, OF COURSE I will bond no matter what (already have, in fact), but I can't help but think that the more I know about who this kid might be, the more I'll feel like I'm meeting my baby rather than just a baby. Having never done this before, I have nothing to base this feeling on other than how I've reacted to other births, but looking at that alone, it really does make a difference (TO ME) to know. When Linda had Dylan earlier this year, after months of knowing he was Baby Boy, it felt like "How nice to finally meet you! I've heard so much about you!" In contrast, when previously ungendered babies have come into my life, it's been more like "Wow. A girl/boy. Huh. Who knew?"

As I said before, knowing the sex of the baby--no matter when you find out--isn't ever any guarantee of the child and adolescent and adult he or she will become, so it's not like I want to know so I can start the gender training early with miniature footballs or Fisher Price vacuum cleaners. It's just that, contrary to those who say "We get so few surprises in life," I think it's just the opposite in this situation: when having a baby, everything is a surprise. When will she be born? What color will his eyes be? What will her cry sound like? Will he eat his vegetables? Will I be able to breastfeed? Will I have postpartum depression? Will she be a musician or an athlete or brainiac spelling champion? Will I ever be able to fit into those pants again? Gender, you see, is just one piece of the puzzle, as insignificant as hair color or as significant as you want to make it depending on your not-so-socially-progressive expectations. (But if we could determine hair color at a twenty-week ultrasound, would there be as much controversy? No, because sex and gender and gender roles are one of those subjects, and people get their panties all twisted 'round, sometimes just out of habit.)

Anyway, although it sounds like I've made up my mind, my official position, as of today, this minute, is "firmly undecided." I want to know and I don't want to know. Mostly, I want to not want to know, but it's hard, you know? Who are you, kid? Who are you now, already, and who will you be?

The tentative plan is to have the ultrasound tech write out her best guess and put it in an envelope for us. That way we have the option to open it ceremoniously, perhaps at a celebration with family and friends, or rip into it while we're out shopping one day and have happened upon the most adorable cream puff of a party dress that, no matter how you look at it--backward, upside down, cross-eyed, or through oversized Elton John sunglasses rimmed with rhinestones--will simply just not do for a little boy. "In Case of Emergency" we'll label the envelope, and hope that the compilation of the wee one's wardrobe will be the worst of our worries.

Yesterday's News

Real quick-like:

--2nd OB appt., HB on doppler (at 9w3d!) strong and fast at 180bpm (n.p. says "It's a girl!"; Simon says, "It's probably just the cocaine").

--Simon tells checker at TJ's that we're having a baby and she gives us three balloons, which I wear on my wrist for the rest of the afternoon.

--My mom mails us a box of goodies and I cry all over them because oh my god we're having a baby.

--Aversions: asparagus, artichokes, meat in chunk form, chicken in any form, getting off my lazy ass

--Interests: apples, oranges, bananas, strawberries, raspberries, tomatoes, fruit juice, yogurt, cottage cheese, melted cheese, bacon cheeseburgers, enchilada sauce, sour cream on everything, pickles by the jar, television

--Puking: none

Thar She Grows

I ordered a Bella Band last week (mostly as a model for future bands that I will sew myself so help me god because $26.00 for a synthetic Unit belt? really?) but it took forever to arrive (where "forever" = four business days of wearing the single pair of pants that fit) and so yesterday was spent under duress of the ol' rubberband MacGyver contraption + my longest cami, which is still about two inches too short to conceal the fact that I am going about my daily business with my fly half open.

Today I'm sporting the white Bella Band (which would be much improved if it (a) would stop creeping up my back and (b) didn't have multiple tags advertising to unsuspecting coworkers that I am wearing a maternity accessory), but I suppose it's better than the alternative, which at this point is the aforementioned rad overalls from 1991.

We're leaving for Southern California tonight and my luggage so far contains several roomy, flowy tops that do not camoflage but rather emphasize my girth (I don't expect to run into anyone I know, but then isn't that the perfect invitation for it to happen?), as well as the dress I wore to the wedding last month, which is skin tight and yet somehow still flattering to my expanding figure. Simon is getting sick of me complaining about my premature rotundity (again, it's not that I mind being "large with child" but that I'm self-conscious about being so large with a child that is as yet the size of a gummy bear), so back me up, will you, as I sheepishly reveal just exactly what we're dealing with.

Here's five weeks, both sucking in and relaxed:

And here's last night, eight and a halfish weeks, both at attention and, brace yourselves, at ease:

Granted, the after shots were both taken at night, following days spent coating all nearby edibles in a thick spackle of sour cream and salt, but still. STILL. That is at least a second trimester belly, am I right? And yet here we are at 8w4d--only 17 percent done, with a loooooong 83 percent left to go--and I'm scared for what this might mean. Maybe that brochure from the Scooter Store came not forty years early but just in time...

Two crappy photos to illustrate the INSANITY. The first is from December 2006 but was more or less accurate until about six weeks ago, and the second is from yesterday, before dinner *burp*. The picture on the right is overexposed in the sunlight, yes, but that just further emphasizes the fact that my stomach now has a dark side, not unlike the moon or, say, Jupiter.

Fool Me Twice

Forget about April Fools, I've got your May fool right here!

After spending Saturday at the Maker Faire with Emily and Dan (who were in town to wrap up some wedding business) and then killing time with the hipster hooligans in Dolores Park while we waited until it was late enough for Simon to pick up something in the Marina that had to do with my top-secret birthday event later that night, we pulled into our driveway at around 8 and, commenting on the number of cars that lined our street, I said, "Ooh, someone's having a party!"

Flash forward to three minutes later, when I open the front door and a room full of people jump up out of the dark and yell "SURPRISE" in my face. I am thrilled and embarrassed and, well, surprised. Completely. The "sneaky bastard" strikes again!

The house was full of people and food and drinks and gifts and a giant chocolate cake (on a new glass cake stand, which I have been coveting for months). Friends (I have friends!) had shown up early to cook and arrange the snacks and light the tiki torches and wrangle the cats into a bedroom, and everyone had come dressed to the "international" theme. Sara and Ron were Mexico and France. Sean was in a Panama hat. Emily (who did not have wedding-related business but had instead flown to California from Denver specifically for my party!) was in a shirt that said "Canada." Simon slapped a beret on my head and strapped himself into a kilt and we partied late into the night, drunk on champagne (or Martinelli's, or root beer) and good times.

Although I was surprised by the party itself, I continued to be surprised throughout the night as I walked around the house and realized that all of those people were there for me. Coworkers, former coworkers, old blog friends, new blog friends, friends of Simon's I've gotten to know over the last few years, and of course some of my very favorite people. (I'm looking at you, Teddy.) I'd never had a surprise party like this before (Simon threw me a smaller one at a restaurant in 2006) and although he knows I HATE surprises, he also knows I like parties--especially parties that I don't have to prepare for and completely stress out about for weeks beforehand. He, on the other hand, LOVES surprises and loves planning parties and loves coordinating complicated schemes behind my back, especially ones that result in my clapping my hands with glee, so it really was perfect for both of us.

For days he'd had presents tucked behind musical instruments, decorations hiding behind books on the library shelves, and food stashed in the Polish/Mormon fridge, and all the while I had no idea what was going on. When I said I was going downstairs for a Mexicoke that morning, he practically lept in front of me--"No, let me get it for you!" "But I am fully capable of walking down the stairs to get it myself." "No! Let me do it!"--and it's a good thing my laziness is stronger than my feminism or I'd have ruined the surprise. I was a little suspicious that he was being a tad overfamiliar with the "contractor" he was on the phone with all day, supposedly directing some off-hours work at his building (it was really our friend Patricia getting the food and house and guests ready), and I knew something was definitely up when I noticed that the window shutters by the front door--the ones that we usually kept closed but had left open that morning--were shut when we got home that day. But up until that moment I didn't have a clue what was going on, which is a surprise in itself because I am always suspicious of everything. But he tricked me and tricked me good, and this was one of my best birthdays ever. Even after everyone had gone home, I couldn't stop talking about the party--we were up until 3 a.m. in bed giggling about it--and I'll probably be talking about it for years to come.

Thank you to everyone who came and helped (or tried to come). Having you there was awesome.

And thank you to Simon, who will probably always insist that pizza a movie (or even two movies) isn't a proper celebration when one can have a party and chocolate cake instead.