Three Lines, Two Words

Durning the sonogram,  we waited until the fetus shifted enough for us to get a good shot of gender. Three little lines between her legs on the ultrasound screen indicated our child had a wee-wee rather than a pee-pee. I looked closer and thought I spied a small protuberance where the ultrasound tech pointed to our child's genitalia. "What about that?" I said. "That's not a penis?"

The tech patiently explained that a penis would be more pronounced, and that the three little lines indicated the labia of a bouncing baby vagina ... I mean baby. Given that we were talking about a fetus that weighed approximately 12 ounces and could fit into the palm of my hand, I needed to hear the logic behind her declaration. The lines were cute and delicate, and I wondered at how such a small detail could relay such earth-shattering news.

But the tech wasn't allowed to interpret or tell us anything except the gender of the baby. For the actual results, we would have to wait a minimum of three days for the hospital to send the report to our midwife.

Nonetheless, it was with overflowing hearts that we called or emailed various family members and friends to let them know the gender of our child-to-be. But by the beginning of the second day, I  started to become aware of a growing anxiety in my gut. By the end of the day I realized what it was: We still didn't actually know anything about the health of our daughter.

By the end of the third day, Jenn and I were  bouncing off our internal emotional walls. Margy, our midwife, had told us she would give us a call as soon as she received the results.

Not fast enough for us.

Jenn got home from work and told me she had contacted Margy who informed her she would make a follow-up call and see if the report was finished. She called us back an hour later while we were trolling the aisles of a local grocery store, and I watched anxiously as Jenn listened in silence. At last, she broke into a relieved smile. When she hung up, she uttered two words that I could never have imagined would make me want to laugh and cry at the same time--"No anomalies."