From our very first ultrasound in March.

Quite possibly the only benefit of going through months and months of infertility is that if you’re lucky enough to become pregnant, you get to have lots and lots of ultrasounds. Whereas most people only get one, maybe two, we’ve had, like, five already. For awhile there, it was basically every other week we’d get to see our tiny little fetus on a monitor that reminded me looking at Doppler radar.

What’d you do today? Oh, you know, went to work, grabbed lunch from the Wok & Roll, and took a look at my tiny baby. It sort of looked like a high pressure system moving over the Gulf.

Today is our 20 week ultrasound, and despite luxuriating in this prior bounty of ultrasound technology, today shit gets real. Today we find out the sex, and as soon as you find out the sex, you suddenly have a real person in there. And that’s mind-blowing.

Until today, my wife has been pregnant (which, by the way, I was recently reminded that WE are not pregnant, she is), and while I sort of abstractly understand there’s a baby in there, it’s been either a boy or a girl. It’s a boy OR a girl. Which one? Technically each is equally possible, so both are true. It’s Schrodinger’s Pregnancy!

And it makes my brain hurt. Kristin and I have been asked by, well, pretty much everyone, if we’re going to find out the sex. We have never hesitated in answering in the affirmative. Why? Because we want to know. In Kristin’s case, patience is not her strongest suit, which is why she doesn’t like when someone holds a surprise over her (I’ve got a surprise for you… Great. I don’t want it.), she doesn’t give a shit about spoilers which is how we were able to watch the last 5 episodes of “Breaking Bad” guilt-free much to the annoyance of basically everyone we know, and in terms of our immediate situation, she wants to know the sex of this baby as soon as she possibly can.

In my case, there are two reasons. One, I just don’t understand the point of waiting. I don’t begrudge anyone who does, but I don’t fucking get it. The data is there, look at it. People say they want to be surprised. Okay. Thing is, I know I’m signing up for a whole lifetime of crazy surprises, so this one I’m fine with spoiling.

Second, and more importantly, being on the outside of this process, I feel somewhat disconnected from it. Kristin feels this baby growing inside of her (and in many instances, sucking the life force from her very being), and if judged solely by the list of things she can no longer do, experiences this new life in very pointed, life-changing ways.

Outside of not having my running buddy with me in the same way I used to, my life is pretty much the same. I still drink beer. My clothes fit fine. I don’t want to throw up at the idea of defrosting a chicken breast. It’s all pretty much the same for me.

And in an odd way, that’s totally isolating. I want to feel more, but in many ways don’t or can’t or I don’t fucking know. I don’t even like writing this because I can’t help but feel like an ass. I have no idea if this is normal or if I’m a total d-bag or what, but the only path to understanding is often confession. So there it is.

And I’m excited for today because at the day’s conclusion our baby is no longer both male and female. It is definitively one or the other. I will have a son. I will have a daughter. I honestly couldn’t care less which it is, I’ll just be happy to have closure one way or the other.

Because at that point, I am one step closer to fatherhood, and one more step to having my life change just like my wife’s has changed. I can’t wait for it, and the big genitalia reveal at 20 weeks is a nice treat for the halfway point.

Who ya’ got? Gos or Flav?

We’ll find out in a couple hours…