Almost time to find out what gender our baby is

The previous two days passed so slowly, I thought they were never going to end. Nights of little sleep certified my excitement and impatience, and a low tolerance of anything non-baby was its manifestation.

We left nice and early, getting over to Heidelberg a good hour before our appointment time. We filled some time by getting a coffee and a bite to eat at the nearby McDonalds; a lot of people and families have no doubt done the same thing at one time or other.

Arriving at the hospital we parked and caught the elevator to the imaging department. We said yes, we’d like a DVD of the scan please, and we sat down. I really was getting anxious, it felt like my heart was beating for two rather than my wife’s! Her name was called, we went into the room and took our positions – she lying on a bed and me sitting next to her on a chair, both of us looking up at a monitor that was fixed to the roof. It was a good set up, which was nice as we knew it was a 45-minute scan on this occasion.

The obstetrician asked if we wanted to know the sex of the baby and we both quickly said ‘yes’. She then put the jelly stuff on my wife’s belly and we started seeing some images of our bub. It was pretty active again, jumping around all over the place like a prize fighter after one too many Gatorades. After only a few minutes the obstetrician said she was pretty sure she knew what it was but she wanted to have a closer look over the next little while to make sure she was 100% right. We then got to see the heart, kidneys, stomach, arms and legs before finally, we were told:

We are having a boy!

I was pretty excited and so was my wife, it was really nice to be able to put a gender to it and narrow our field of names by 50%. Shortly after my wife was allowed to go to the ladies and I waited for her while the obstetrician went and did something. When my wife came back I asked how she felt and she was giddy like me, it was awesome just knowing. It really made it a lot more real and for the first time I felt I was starting to get a bit of a handle on my baby’s personality.

The rest of the scan was all pretty smooth, even the cyst on my wife’s ovaries wasn’t cause for concern, it was all ok. We did get a good look at our boy in 4D, which was both cool and freaky. It was cool as we saw a lot more definition, down to his ears and we could even make out what looked to be a smile. It was freaky though as the images did resemble some bad, grainy footage of the ‘Roswell Aliens’ I saw back when my brothers and I were X-Files-philes.

The scan done, we left and walked out into the hall. I called my mother to tell her the first grandchild was going to be a Grandson and my wife called her parents to tell them that their 3rd would be a boy (I have a nephew and a niece on that side). All were excited for us and couldn’t wait to tell everyone they knew! We drove off and headed for some baby shops to look at cots, rockers and car seats. On the way my wife made some more calls to tell our siblings and close friends.

We spent the next few hours shopping for our boy and ordered a cot, car seat and some of the cutest little outfits you’ve ever seen! His room at our new place is really starting to take shape, all it’s missing now is the cot itself, which should be delivered in a couple of weeks.

I can see I will lay awake at night now, thinking and planning for all the fun things my son and I can do together, I cannot wait to be his friend. All those Father-Son things I never got to do as the child, I can now do as the parent. It really is very exciting!