The Day We Learned Our He was a She {The Dollytales}

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It was my thirty-three week checkup. My husband and I had a full day ahead of us. Make and deliver a flower arrangement, go to appointment with midwife, grab something to eat, and take the dog to vet. And possibly relax at some point.
Since we have chosen to use a midwife, sonograms are by request, unless there’s a fear of something. Out of a curiosity about the size of our wee one, I asked if I could get an order for one.
The last time I had set up an appointment for one, I had to wait over a week to be seen; so I was anxious to set my appointment ASAP.

Let’s go back to that day.

I would have been approaching my 17-18th week and my husband and I were preparing to travel back to Louisiana for Christmas. I was anxious to get an ultrasound before heading back, in hopes of being able to do a gender announcement via Christmas presents. As we made our way to that appointment, I could feel my nerves eating away at me (or was that just the morning sickness?), and we sat in the waiting room for what seemed like hours.

I knew we were having a girl. I just knew. I could feel it. It felt right. So, to me, our ultrasound was just going to be confirmation. This was not the case. On any level. Our ultrasound tech told us it was too early to tell. He looked and said he wasn’t comfortable making a guess at this stage. I was shattered. So bummed!

I let some family know back home that we hadn’t found out and we would have to wait for a few more weeks. My sister in law called almost immediately and said she had found a 4-D ultrasound center that offered gender reveals as early as 15 weeks. Well, we were well within that! So she booked us an appointment as a Christmas gift.

A day or two after Christmas my husband, his sister and mom, my sister and her two kids, both of my parents and I all met at this place to find out. I was oddly filled with anxiety.

It took the ladies a little while to find the little privates, and they seemed to be wanting to make it into a little production. Finally, they started to type onto the screen.

“It’s a…boy!”

I stared at the screen. And then looked at my husband. And then looked back at the screen. Everyone kind of cheered and I think I mumbled something along the lines of, “Oh wow, I wasn’t expecting that. Yaaaayyyyy!”

We all took pictures and yayed some more and then went our respective ways.

In the car with John, I mused over how in shock I am. He agreed to be just as shocked. We mulled over it a little and finally reverted back to what we had been telling everyone when asked what we wanted, “a happy, healthy baby.” And that’s what we had.

It took a couple weeks for everything to sink in (in that time I even compared my ultrasound pictures with others I found online, only to come to the conclusion that they were the experts, not me) but once it did, my husband and I began planning and dreaming for our little boy.

We picked out a name. We began decorating. A baby shower was held. Hopes for this little boy were set into motion.

Yet all the while, something felt off.

One of greatest fears of becoming pregnant would be that I would lack this “parent gene” and I wouldn’t feel a connection with my child. It was one of the main reasons I had never wanted to have children.

But being married to John, experiencing this whole new love that I never knew existed, I began to think, maybe I could have a baby. Maybe pregnancy wasn’t so bad. Maybe I would be overwhelmed by this sense of love that I had read others had whilst pregnant. So when I became pregnant, it was with full expectation of a joyous nine months. One of self discovery and adventure with this little one growing inside me.

Everyone says your second trimester is your best. The favorite one. It’s when you first feel kicks and movements and your connection with the baby. It’s when you realize that this all so real.

I will tell you this. My first trimester was hell. Morning sickness morning, noon, and night. Migraines. Dizziness. It felt like my body was raging against me. So, I was anxious for my second trimester. Ready for all of these new emotions. Ready to feel better and start feeling this euphoria that I had heard of. It was none of that, I am almost ashamed to say.

The feelings of connection and overwhelming love never seeped in. I agonized over it. I wept over it. I prayed over it. I was devastated. All of my fears of not having that parent gene came bursting forward again. Everyday I would try and talk to the baby, to try and love on him, and feel one with him. And everyday I felt this void. It’s so hard to explain, really. I was SO excited for this baby. I was so curious about him. I so badly wanted to know who he was. But I just never felt connected to him. Even getting up to go the bathroom in the night was a struggle because it meant that I would have to rearrange myself and get comfortable again. And somehow this would always make me sad. I wanted those little moments that were just ours in the darkness of the night to be filled with whispers and little pokes from him and me touching my stomach to tell him I loved him. But it was none of that. It was just this feeling of aloneness. He was a stranger to me.

I battled these feelings with reminders that he was healthy and active. He was perfect. And I was so thankful. I would bask in that thankfulness. As the weeks went by, my love for him, despite the acute feeling of being strangers, grew.

When John and I sat down to lunch after our 33 week appointment, I told him I was going to go ahead and call to schedule our ultrasound since we had to wait so long for the last one.

“I can fit you in today at 4, if you want,” they told me. I jumped on it.

I apologized to John, as I had promised him a relaxing day off, and now I was just piling more errands on. We didn’t even have to wait in the waiting room; we were whisked back almost immediately. It was the same ultrasound tech we had 16 weeks ago.

I smiled as I saw our bouncing little boy on the screen. As active as ever. I glanced over at John. We shared a smile. As an afterthought, amidst getting all the measurements, I asked the tech to check the privates. A minute or two later, “Yep, it’s a girl.”

“What.”

“It’s a girl. See, looks like a little hamburger down there.”
(A hamburger, ladies and gentleman.)

I started laughing. He asked if it was funny. And I kind of got out, “yeah, yeah it is considering we were told we were having a boy.”

We went to eat afterwards and I just sighed a whole bunch. This little boy, our little boy, was not a little boy after all.

I was so confused. Absolutely baffled. And yet strangely at peace. It was the strangest feeling.

We let everyone back home know. It was received with almost as much joy as when we had announced our pregnancy. I think most of us had thought she was a girl in the beginning.

When I woke up to use the bathroom in the wee hours that night, I came back to bed and started to nestle back into my pillows; without thinking, I touched my stomach and wondered if she was comfortable. I froze. And felt this immense wave of joy wash over me. This moment was ours. This was right. Here she was. And here I was. Here we were. Together.

I can’t fully explain the lack of connection for all those weeks. Maybe a mother’s intuition (ha). Or maybe my heart was protected so that when we did find out our Brock August was a Dolly Evelyn, I would not have to fully mourn his loss, but rather be able to accept it and process it more easily.

I cannot fully explain it, but I do know that I am going to revel in the last few weeks I have with her in my womb.

I hope her dad is ready. Me and Dolly, we’re going to be a force, I tell you.

4 COMMENTS

  1. Beautifully written sweetheart. Our sweet baby girl will be here before you know it. Miss Dolly Evelyn your Mawmaw Nell loves you so very much❤️

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