Q: Pink or Blue?

19 weeks 5 days

We're at 19 weeks and 5 days. Almost 5 months now. With each passing week Tresa is getting slightly bigger. It's still hard to tell but when I put my arm around her belly, there's more to put my arm around.

Well today is another appointment with the Ultrasound machine. Between weeks 18 and 20, you should be able to tell the sex of the baby. But I've heard stories that some people couldn't tell until their 7th month. That's probably what we'll tell Teen - that we couldn't tell yet. If she's reading this, hey Teen, even if we do know what the sex is, we're not telling you so don't bother to ask.

Well we had the appointment a few hours back. Do we know? Or don't we? Tresa didn't want to know. But I did. It's not that it mattered to me whether it was a boy or a girl. I would be equally happy with either.

They did a very long and detailed ultrasound test today. About 45 minutes long. They took a ton of measurements of our baby. At first I couldn't tell what he was looking at or what he was scanning. It just looked like black and grey blobs like those 70's style lava lamps. I asked him what it was, because I didn't know. He said we was scanning the surrounding area first before he started scanning our baby.

He scanned and took snapshots of the spine. The feet, the kid was crosslegged so it was tough to get both feet, then the baby started moving. Whoa...it's alive. So neat. The hands were around the eyes sort of hiding it's face. He took measurements of the legs and arms and parts of the brain. Even the lips, nose and eyes. I'm not sure but the nose might have been big and pointy. Definitely not a filipino nose. It was kinda hot in the room and for a long time the ultrasound guy was just doing his job and not saying anything and I was only there to find out the sex and so I was starting to get drowsy and fall asleep, but these hospitals don't exactly like to purchase comfortable chairs.

I then began asking him what's this and what's that. Because it was the only way to stay awake. The Ultrasound Tech then began uttering words instead of operating like a robot.

He then asked the magic question. "Do you want to know the sex?"
Tresa said that she didn't want to, but I did. To which he said. I can only tell you - the mother. That's not entirely fair, I thought. That kid is half me. Without my boys, there'd be no baby there in the first place. And the sperm dictate what sex the baby is. Tresa looked at me to see if her veto power would crush me. It wouldn't crush me, but I would be constantly thinking. Boy or Girl? Blue or Pink.

So the ultrasound tech guy went out of the room to get the report from all the measurements. Tresa said, it's okay if he knows, I'll just turn my head. So then I stood up to get a closer look at the screen. He was moving the device and images were being displayed. Okay, what am I looking at? I didn't want to ask any questions he just keep scanning and looking for the tell tale clue that would identify the gender? I looked at the screen blankly. I guess he could tell I was not the radiologist of the family. Plus I was sleepy. Then he typed something on the screen and looked at me.

That was it. The answer to my question. Is it Pink or Blue.

He then started scanning again in order to get a profile of our baby. The kid's mouth was moving like a fish. Like it was breathing. One of Tresa's friends called their kid - Nemo - because throughout the ultrasound that's what their kid was doing. Hmm...named after a clownfish. Nice!

As we were walking back to my office building to get the car and head to this Christmas bazaar at a children's school near our house, Tresa asked me why I wanted to know. I said it didn't matter what it was. I just wanted to know. When I have questions in my head, I need to have them answered. It's just curiosity.

I am satisfied, I can now go about my day unfettered with this one lingering question.