So as it turns out, Blob is actually Blobette. Little Miss Blobette to you. 

That’s right, folks! We’re going to have a girl. While some friends and family who were personally told the news figuratively punched the air and yelled, “I knew it!”, Tony and I kinda leaned forward and went, “Uh… what?”

See, the ultrasound technician didn’t give us any warning. Little Miss Blobette had once again gone camera-shy, and had spent the bulk of the $235 session burrowing her head into my pelvis so we had lots of difficulty getting quality shots of her bones and brain and what have yous. We kept having to go back and forth, hoping that we could get a better angle later.

By the nth minute, I was actually stifling a very unmaternal yawn as the dulcet tones of the nice ultrasound technician crooned,

… one hand… <click> <click>… other hand… fingers all there… <click> <click> … thigh bone… <click>… one foot… <click> <click> <click>… other foot… <click> <refresh>… legs… ooh, three stripes – it’s a girl… <click><click> <refresh>… back to head…

 Girl? Girl? I looked over at Tony and shot him a quick grin, and he looked about as stunned as I felt. And that’s when it hit me that we’d both been calling Blob an ‘it’ and a ‘he’ for so many weeks, that we had unintentionally assumed Blob was going to be Meester Blob.

We left the ultrasound clinic grinning uncertainly, laughter in our throats, utterly gobsmacked.

What is it about expecting mothers? Almost all I’ve talked to have some kind of gut feel about what they’re having. I’ve met mothers who’ve guessed wrong on most of their pregnancies – but that isn’t even the question. Because the bigger question, the real question is: why do we fixate on a gender in the first place? What makes us even HAVE a gut feeling? Why can’t most of us just chill and go, “it’ll be right?” Secretly, secretly – hush hush, mind you. Deep deep down in our guts and our most secret place, we all wonder, imagine, have a hunch. We all have a clue. Or we think we do.

For some bizarre reason, I thought Blob’s a boy. I wasn’t 100% sure of course… but I was about 75% there. There was NOTHING to indicate the gender. I’m really not into the swinging rings test, or the carry high / carry low theories. But on hindsight, I was ridiculously sure I was having a boy. It wasn’t even a case of some self-inflicted reverse psychology voodoo, where I was secretly hoping for a girl and telling myself that I’m having a boy just in case I got disappointed. Nup. Saw a boy. Knew his name. Loved him.

But then… a girl!

Words are failing me. It’s so hard to articulate the breadth and depth, the absolute schmozzle of feelings without sounding like I prefer one gender over the other. I don’t. How can I – I was born a girl. I loved being a girl. And Tony was a boy. And he’s now a gorgeous man. And I heart him to pieces. Either would be such a delight to behold. But we spent the next half hour in a cafe, holding hands and just soaking it all in. Adjusting the colour scheme in the fictitious bedrooom. Lengthening the hair on the child of our imagination. Adding a skirt. Changing her voice. But she is still learning to play softball with her daddy. And she now accompanies her mommy at the shops.

And I love her.