Baby, We're Having a Baby

Ok, so this being my first post I promise this blog will not be all about the baby. But, seeing as how it is a part of our (Mine & John's) life... I will make the occasional update about the progress of the pregnancy.

John and I went last Monday, May 15, to the doctor to find out the sex of the baby. John told me that everyone he had been talking to said they thought we were having a girl. I, on the other hand, heard from everyone that they thought I was having a boy. I think only because I kept hearing, "boy, boy, boy..." I was pretty sure I was having a girl.

Aside: As I was waiting for John to get there to meet me, I was reading in my book, "Dragonfly in Amber," by Diana Gabaldon. (It is a scottish adventure/love series.) I had just read this passage before John got there and my name was called to go back for my appointment.

..............................

I felt it for the first time while lying in bed the next morning, watching Jamie dress for the day. A tiny fluttering sensation, at once entirely familiar and completely new. Jamie had his back turned to me, as he wriggled into his knee-length shirt and stretched his arms, settling the folds of white linen across the breadth of this shoulders.

I lay quite still, waiting, hoping for it to come again. It did, this time as a series of infinitesimal quick movements, like bursting bubbles rise to the surface of a carbonated liquid....

There it was. There was no sense of him, or her as I had thought there might be- but there was certainly a sense of Someone. I wondered whether perhaps babies had no gender- physical characteristics aside- until birth, when the act of exposure to the outside world set them forever as one or the other.

"Jamie," I said. He was tying back his hair, gathering it into a thick handful at the base of his neck and winding a leather lace about it.... "Awake, are ye? It's early yet, mo duinne. Go back to sleep for a bit."

I had been going to tell him, but something stopped me. He couldn't feel it, of course, not yet. It wasn't that I thought he wouldn't care, but there was something about that first awareness that seemed suddenly private; the second shared secret between me and the child- the first being our knowledge of its existence, mine a conscious knowing, the embryo's a simple being. The sharing of that knowledge linked us close as did the blood that passed through both of us....

He closed the door gently behind him, as though I were already sleeping, leaving me to the early morning silence of the chamber, with the small busy noises of the household safely barred by paneled wood.

So did I rejoice, alone and not alone, in my peaceful cocoon of warmth and quiet.

"Hello," I said softly, one hand over the butterfly wings that beat inside me.

..............................

Wow, if that didn't make me emotional right before we went back, I don't know what will! It was perfect timing in my book... literally.

Once we got there, we found out that we were about 2 weeks too early to have the anatomy scan and find out the sex. :sigh: You can only imagine our disappointment. The ultra sound tech said that she would at least try to find out the sex for us, because I'm sure she could sense how badly we both wanted to know. Once she got everything prepped and ready to go and put the wand thingy on my stomach she said that what ever sex this baby was, "it" was definitely a wiggle-worm! As we soon saw with our own eyes! She was all over the place. It was so amazing to see.

I won't keep you in suspense any longer.... we are having a ... GIRL. We have decided to name her Suzanna Rae Beam. My mama's middle name was Sue, and she gave me the middle name Suzanne. So I decided to keep the trend going as a way of remembering her. Rae is Pam's middle name. (Pam is my aunt to helped to raise me.)

For all of you who were so sure that we would have a boy.... we will keep trying until we get a little John Pinkney Beam, V. And if that opportunity never arises..... we'll just count our blessings, and know that we never meant to break the tradition. (Aside: For those of you who do not know, my grandfather's middle name is Pinkney. And his grandfather's name was John Pinkney. Most of you know that the "John Pinkney" name has been passed down throughout John's side of the family for generations. So, the "John Pinkney" name holds a particular place in both of our hearts and ancestry.

Well that's it for now. I'm pretty sure my next post will be about my garden. I'm super excited about it!