I'm having my very first ever ultrasound, in this my fourth pregnancy, early this afternoon.
I don't do routine ultrasounds, being the crunchy home birthing type, but had a variety of reasons for choosing to do one this pregnancy. Everyone who knows me, knows I don't like having "routine" unnecessary testing in pregnancy, and could go on at length about it. Which is why it may seem kind of weird, but… now that I've made the decision to go on and get the u/s, I'm actually excited about it.
Anyway. More later…
Side note. I was at a family wedding a couple of weeks ago, and everyone — people I knew, and perfect strangers — kept asking me "So do you know what it is yet?" and I would say truthfully, "No, but we'll know in a couple of weeks," and the small talk would continue to "I never had an ultrasound with any of my others so this is a first time" and invariably they would say: "Oh, my gosh — how come you're doing one this time? Is there anything wrong?"
This kind of shocked Mark, who asked me later: "Isn't that kind of a strange thing to say to someone as part of small talk? I mean, what if you had some terrible condition that you didn't want to explain?"
I had to remind him: This is the way it is with women and pregnancies. Pregnancy and childbirth stories, breastfeeding and in some contexts fertility stories, even horror stories, are the stuff of small talk among strangers. It is very strange, and I don't understand it, but discussion of one's (female) reproductive system is not reserved for among intimates.
Anyway, I skirted the question fairly gracefully, if untruthfully, by laughing and saying, "Oh, no, it's because I'm getting so old," a comment that was accepted with knowing laughter by all the mothers present. I mean, I AM thirty-five next week, and if I was seeing an OB he'd expect me to, oh, I don't know, expire any day now…
Anyway… as I said… more later…
UPDATE: It's a boy:-)
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