They say that with ultrasounds, there’s a 60% confidence rate that it’s a girl when they say it’s a girl, and about a 90% confidence rate when they tell you it’s a boy. For those I have to spell things out to, the idea is that with boys, you tell by figuring out if there are bits. For girls, it’s more about the lack thereof.

The first time Tony and I were told we’re having a girl, I had asked the ultrasound technician how certain she was, and had repeated that spiel about girls being more difficult to work out. In reply, the technician had just stopped short of rolling her eyes back at me, and then had tightly told me that they are “pretty accurate about these things nowadays”. Our obstetrician settled the whole Blobette question in both our minds the following week, when his own scrounging around by ultrasound drew the same conclusions.

Well. Apparently we’re not out of the woods yet.

We’ve been attending antenatal classes at the hospital we’re booked at, and the midwife this week – entertaining lady, name’s Jenny – happened to mention that three – three – births in the last month alone came up with surprises at the end of the tunnel.

One couple was told they were having a girl, and so they promptly ran out and spent $2,000 on baby girl clothes… only to find they had to dress their boy in pink.

Another couple – and this was their second child – were told they were having a girl, got a boy, and the father was pretty much inconsolable.

And for those smugly thinking, “Heh. I know I’m having a man-child because my blob has bits,” the third couple were told they were having a boy. The sonographer even went as far as to point out testicles and the almighty tell-tale doodle. Only for it all to shrink back in or something, when he emerged a beautiful baby girl.

For months now, I’ve been talking to her. I’ve been referring to her. I’ve asked her to stop tickling me. I’ve announced when she’s awake. When I think she’s hungry. When I think she’s having hiccups, which crack me up. I have been singing to her. (I’ve been trying to sing more Mother Goose classics, but Gloria Gaynor and Abba seem to win out.) I’ve been dreaming of her.

And today, after figuring out that we have 6 weeks to go – less if you remember that full term is 37 weeks – we have been shopping for her.

It’s hard to avoid pink, if you want to shop for a girl but balk at a $32 funky onesie from Sooki. As for neutrals, you’re either stuck with white, which is boring and impractical; blue, which signals to everyone that it’s definitely a boy; and brown, which is not really a girl colour unless she’s 30. There’s hardly any yellow, orange or red nowadays. Purple almost always comes with insipid cartoon butterflies, and green comes with even stupider looking frogs and crocodiles.

So you go back to pink. All the while praying that you will be thick-skinned enough to swaddle your child in candy-floss shaded, butterfly-printed blankets and wraps and onesies when she turns out to be a baby boy. All the while hoping that everyone who’s been wishing you well and showering your child with girly gifts aren’t going to kill you because they’ve thrown away the receipt, but they can’t blame you for not dressing Blob in that $60 tutu they got you.

So here’s my plan, if we find out Blobette is a Blob:

  • Love him to bits because hey, it’s our boy!
  • Use up the pink stuff indoors, save the adorable lacy/ribbony/girly stuff for the second round
  • Beg the wall decal online shop to send me blue leaves to replace the pink ones in the nursery
  • Replace the pink IKEA cloth drawers in our bookshelves with purple and black ones.
  • Get that ridiculously cute pirate cotsheet set I’ve been eyeballing for months.

Because let’s face it. She/he won’t care, as long as she/he is comfortable and fed and loved. And we’ll still do all the things we’ve been planning to do – which includes playing with dolls AND trucks, and learning how baseball works, and what fun reading is, and what fun being naughty to mommy and daddy isn’t.

And besides… it makes for a funny story at their 21st birthday party.