Monday, January 2, 2012

Today I ponder...the Ultrasound.

.....I sit here four years on from an amazing day in my life. A day that I must admit I did sometimes wonder if it would ever occur. Finding out I was pregnant with baby number 6, was quite overwhelming. I was very sick, with morning sickness. We were in the process of living in a shed. Trying to sell our house in town to build on our five acres. With five sons, ranging in ages from 11 to 1yrs, I was very busy. Very sick. Very tired. Very overwhelmed. Ever sat in a room with five boys? I always describe it like this. Imagine one man sitting at a pub. He's sitting there quietly. Relaxing....now imagine five men at a pub. There is noise. Mischief. It will get messy, glasses will get broken and drinks will spill. There may be fights, but lots of " I love you man..." lots of man hugs..lots of butt slapping. Now stop. That is my life. Noise, mischief, mess but heaps and heaps of love and brotherly hugs.

Looking for any signs that this pregnancy maybe different to the others. Could this baby be a girl? My morning sickness was worse. I googled the statistics of the chances of the same set of parents conceiving six of the same gender babies. Statistics swayed to baby being a girl. Hmmmm..could it be? No. I refused to go there. I would push the fact that I might be able to bring out the Shirley Barber Faerie books that I had been buying since 1998 (pregnancy number 2) to the back of my mind. Not once did I worry that I wouldn't love this baby. That was not what it was about. I knew I would....I loved my sons. Another healthy happy child. Blessing. A girl would be nice. Thats all.

The day of the ultrasound finally arrived. Ok, panic stations. Off sets hubby and I. During the hour long drive, my mind would flip between...'please let baby be healthy' to 'please a girl would be nice' to...'omg please don't let me pee my pants'. My bladder isn't what it use to be. I'd already had five babies tap dancing on it. Oh gosh, I hated having the full bladder. 'drink at least one litre of water....one hour before ultrasound.' it says on the paper. Stupid instructions.  They make it sound so easy. Where does it talk about, don't wet yourself or we will make you wait half an hour for your appointment...just to sit there and watch you squirm with your big pregnant belly and bladder that is going to explode, not forgetting the baby that will not show any signs of being interested in tap dancing once born, but in uetreo...thinks it's the lead dancer in a Riverdance Performance.

It was time to go in. Going through all the routine checks. Heart...four chambers check. Two arms, one head. Two legs. Two hands. Two feet. check, check, check...check.check.  Kidneys, all good. Yes baby looks healthy. Heartbeat is normal. I'm laying there looking at heartrate. I'd read about heartrates giving you a clue on the gender of baby. Trying to remember. Is above 130 a girl..or below???  I would've googled it if I had a smart phone on me. Then the radiographer says these words. 'can you please go the toilet and just let out half'. This gives me anxiety. Half!!!  How does one pee half???  Do I measure? or is it an estimate? What if I pee too much and then I've stuffed it all up and that will be the end of the ultrasound. What if I walk back into the room and she says to me...."well well well..who didn't listen to the lady with the machine? I said half...you pee'ed three quaters. Out you get..ultrasound is OVER!" Apparently I am pretty good at estimating half a full bladder and Ultrasound continued. Next anxiety question. "Would you like to find out?"
I glance over at husband. We can pull out now? Yes, no, yes no???  Anxiety levels are intense. Where is my Rescue Remedy??? Husband sees my panic. He takes control. 'Yes please'
Waiting...looking...prodding...pushing...all I can see are patches of gray and white...bit of black..even after all the ultrasounds I've had...that screen makes no sense to me. We decided not to tell the lady anything about how many kids we already had..or about the 'girl' thing...before we had found out.

"looks like you are going to have a little girl" she says this so casually. Girl. I look at her...asking if she was sure. "no sorry I can never be sure of girls. Boys are easier to see...but from what I can see, it's a girl."
We then explained about our five little boys sitting at home. So she went to a bit more detail, pointing out what makes her feel it's a girl. I feel like asking her if she would sign a legal document, committing to the fact that this baby is a Daughter. I'm hormonal, this request did not seem out of the ordinary to me. Luckily I don't always say what is running through my mind. Nearly always..but with the tears running down my face...and really wanting to go to the loo...plus I didn't have the documents on me, I feared she may think I'm a little crazy. So I left it.

We left happy. Happy baby was healthy. Happy baby was most likely a girl. I was happy to see the bathroom.
We then decided to go shopping and buy something to mark this occasion. Holding hands. I felt like I was floating on a cloud. We talked about what she would look like. We started discussing names. How would we tell the family? I started thinking about where the Faerie books were that were packed away for over 10yrs?.
  My Mum rang. 'how did the ultrasound go?' We told her that baby was healthy and happy, but we told a little fib. We said they couldn't tell us what gender baby was. Wanting to see every bodies reaction.

When we bought our lunch. The man said the usual. "hi how are you today?" How are you today? Looking at each other with grins spreading across our faces, we would answer. "we are fantastic today!!" Probably a bit too enthusiastically. He may have thought we had been experimenting with illegal substances.

We decided to buy our little girl her going home outfit today. Looking through the clothes. We found a perfect set. A white cheesecloth top, with perfect pink butterflies sewn randomly on it. The little wings were free. Pink little pants. Two little matching cloth booties, with mini butterflies on them. Perfect.

Heading back up the hill to home. We picked the boys up from my Mum's. She seemed disappointed that we couldn't tell her what we were having. So we called the boys over. Handed Mum a bag, telling her we had a gift for watching the boys. Opening the bag, she pulls out the perfect little outfit...for the perfect little girl....that was born on this perfect day...four years ago.

Happy Fourth Birthday my little Angel. Your brothers, Mummy, Daddy, and all your family and friends love and adore you. Thank you for being you. x x x



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