the new man in my life

We had another appointment with the scary Finnish Perinatal specialist this morning (I say scary, because he was very alarmist at our last screening and suggested our child may have a heart defect –which is why we returned for this appointment today). So, once again, I found myself in a darkened room with slime on my belly and a leaping image on the screen before me. The baby had grown tremendously since the last time we met, no longer a soft human-like blob, he had grown fatter and his features had begun to develop. In fact, the doctor informed us that according to the measurements he is a full week and ½ ahead of schedule (“He’s already weeks ahead of the other kids,” M bragged in jest, warming up for his future proud-father role). He squirmed and rolled all the while we watched him. The doctor asked if I had felt any movement yet, and when I answered in the negative, he assured me that I would soon since the boy was a bundle of wild energy. His frantic movements allowed us to peak at all his bits and pieces, his adorable profile, his tiny rump (as he pushed his bum in the air and curled face down), his genitalia, which was unmistakably male. At one point he actually waved at us as we stared straight into his little alien skull-face. The technician giggled as we both marveled at the coincidence. She snapped a photo at that instant.


And so, it’s official: I’m outnumbered. We’re having a boy. I greeted the news with joy, relief and a few reservations. I grew up with a sister and know nothing about the world of boys (my brother left home when I was five). And yet, the thought of being adored by a little man (instead of being loathed by a teenaged daughter) sounds like a refreshing change from the parent-child relationship with which I am most familiar. A friend of mine who has a 4-year-old boy remarked in jest that mothering a boy is like getting to raise small version of your husband. I like the thought, but hope I can avoid the creepy mother-son relationship that proves the bane of so many poor daughters-in-law, myself included. But that is what we call putting the cart before the horse…As another dear friend says, you don’t just wind up with a teenage son, you get an infant first, then a toddler, then an 8-year-old and so on. You have plenty of time to warm up before the game gets difficult….or more difficult, as the case may be.