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Sex? September 30, 2003
How's that for a headline?
I'm referring, however, to the sex of our unborn child. We had the ultrasound today, and it could have gone better. But first, without further delay, let me say that if you're a family member reading this, the doctor is "pretty sure" you have a new granddaughter, niece, or ...uh, cousin on the way. PHAT!
Ger and I are moving our operations forward based on this intelligence, but let's just say that we're going to be leaving the tags on any gender-specific gifts and we're going to paint the nursery a nice gender-neutral color (yellow and white, pale green, something like that). I've heard that misclassifications on girls are more common, since if you don't see a little wang between its legs it could be because either a) there's nothing there, or b) you just couldn't see it. So we're now adopting a proper pronoun, but we won't be disappointed if things turn out differently at birth.
As I mentioned, the ultrasound fell a little short of our expectations. Baby wasn't positioned quite right, and it took some extraordinary measures (believe me, it's best left unsaid) to get a good look at her. We went first thing in the morning, but they asked us to come back in the afternoon in the hopes that baby would strike a new pose that was more suited to our needs.
The really bizarre thing happened when we came back in the afternoon and the ultrasound technician looked us and said --and I swear I'm not making this up-- "Did I give you a picture of the baby's twat?"
Geralyn and I have been together a long time, and we can communicate volumes by just exchanging a glance. In this case, our silent message was rather simple: "Did she just say 'the baby's twat'?".
After a brief pause, we answered the only way we could think of: "Ah, no." It was true.
As I write this, I'm still not 100% sure she did say "twat". I mean, I think she did --both Geralyn and I thought that's what we heard. When I got back to my office I consulted multiple online medical dictionaries to see if it there was some kind of clinical use of the term with which I was unfamiliar. Or maybe it was some kind of acronym --God knows for what. It was none of those things. My co-worker even called a pediatrician friend of his, who informed us that no, there is no noble context or definition for that word in the medical literature.
Yet I just couldn't believe that this very nice ultrasound technician had referred to my unborn daughter's anatomy with such a base and vulgar term. I guess I even feel indignant about it. There are so many other words that would have worked: "privates", "naughty bits", "primary sex organ", "genitals", "vagina" ...heck, I would have even settled for a good old fashioned "crotch". But no, the Tourette's Ultrasound Lady had other ideas.
So, anyway, to recap: We're (probably) going to have a girl, and the ultrasound tech said a naughty word. Oh, and sorry, no pictures from the ultrasound. None of them came out well enough. That's probably the worst part about the whole thing. :(
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Samantha
Tags: Pregnancy, Ultrasound
