Clover and the case of the Disappearing (Reappearing?) Boy parts

So, the saga of Clover, the squirmy squid, is one of frustration. For me. See, I'm one of those that like to know as much as possible. That includes the sex of my internal baby. At my 16 week check up, I had an sonogram to check on some structural integrity issues (everything is up to code and we got all the green lights, don't call the fire marshall). At that appointment, the sono tech asked if we wanted to know if this baby was a boy or girl. I said if you can tell, tell me. So she looked and fairly quickly said, "looks like a boy." She was confident enough to have "It's a boy!!" (yes, with 2 exclamation points) printed on all the pictures that day. There was a picture of a baby butt with an arrow pointing towards something... round? Oh, look, testicles. No dangling parts, so she wasn't prepared to say 100% boy, go blue, but quite confident nonetheless.

Still, 16 weeks is pretty early as far as telling the squishy bits, so I didn't go shouting from rooftop just yet. I told J and we agreed to keep it mostly quiet, to try to prevent kind & loving friends from buying all the "baby brother" things in the world.

Now, a friend of mine works at a place with a brand new, fancy-shmancy 3D ultrasound machine. They're also training new nurse technicians to use this machine, so they've asked for volunteer pregnant ladies to practice on. I'm always down for an extra peek at the squid, so I signed up or a free 3D ultrasound and went in at 19 weeks. The big "anatomy scan" appointment is at 20 weeks usually, and that's when they measure all the things--heart, brain, liver, femur, and pretty much anything else they can get a picture of, including genitals. That's normally when you get to find out the boy/girl part. So 19 weeks wasn't too early at all. Bless the tech who did that ultrasound, because she spent a solid 5 minutes just looking for innie-or-outie parts. I'd refered to Clover as a he, so she asked if I already knew the sex and asked if I wanted confirmation. I told her just what I'd told the other tech--if you can tell, tell me. So she looked. But Clover's femur bones were quite parallel. Shy baby? She poked and prodded and wiggled and jiggled and much like the clouds parting for rays of sunshine and angel song, those femur bones parted as well. She said, "I've got a really good shot here, but..."

But? "But" isn't something you want to hear out of the mouths of most medical professionals, ok? It's just not that comforting. "But I don't see any boy parts." Oh, ok. Not a problem. No big deal. You can't always see them. Identifying them in a regular 2D ultrasound is difficult (and she only did 3D shots of the face, which had a tiny hand in front of it the whole time--stinker). I'll take another peek at my official 20 week appointment with my doctor. The tech shook her head at me. "No, what I'm saying is that...things look girly. Those are girl parts." So she took the time to scroll through the images and point out what she was seeing, the magic "three lines" that indicate girl baby. I left that appointment with the tech "80%" sure it was a girl.

The week between that appointment and today's appointment was... long. I don't like indecision. Ultimately, all I want is a healthy baby, but I really would like to know the sex of that baby before birth. Mostly for planning reasons. Do I want another girl? Yeah! I've got tons of cute girl clothes that I'd like to reuse. I've had a blast with my baby girl. Also, I always wanted a sister, so having sisters would be neat. Do I want a boy? Yeah! J & I are really good at picking out boy names. He's his father's only son, so he'd like a son to pass on the name. I've had a blast with my baby girl and I'd like to see how much fun a boy can be too. Seriously, I have opinions both ways. I got the girl I always wanted, and I would have loved her had she been a boy, but she isn't, so for now, I have my squishy dress up doll with the super cute cheeks and amazing eyelashes. This next baby is going to be different in more ways than I can imagine right now, so whether or not they have matching genitalia is kind of beside the point.

I JUST WANT TO KNOW ONE WAY OR THE OTHER!! Because if it is a boy, I have girl clothes to distribute to friends who are also growing humans from scratch at the moment.

Today, at my 20 week appointment, I told my ultrasound tech, who I'm now calling Lucy, because she reminds me of Lucy Liu, all about the disappearing boy parts at the 19 week ultrasound. She made sure to take an extra careful look, and we both saw it. Boy parts. Clear as... well, as clear as an ultrasound can be, but yes. Boy parts.