"Kiss the Baby"

Dear Random Lady,

No.

My three month old neither wants nor needs kisses from your toddler. I'm sure in your eyes, your child is the shit, but that doesn't mean I want his germy mouth on my baby.

Since we've never been introduced or had even a cursory conversation (and you didn't bother to ask my or my baby's name before instructing your son to kiss him), let me tell you something about our family: we believe in bodily autonomy. We don't believe in forcing kisses and we sure as shit don't believe in kissing strangers to appease their parents' sense of what would be really cute to see.

As mothers of boys, I think it's especially important that we teach them about consent from the get-go. That doesn't mean we have to discuss sex with toddlers, but it does mean that we probably shouldn't be instructing them to show physical affection to strangers with no regard for the strangers themselves.

Luckily for you, your son showed better judgement than you did and was about as interested in giving kisses as mine was in getting them. That saved us both from making an awkward scene at another kid's birthday party. Bully for us.

Neither of our children are dolls. They're not there for you to play pretend with. If you want to make things kiss for your own amusement, go buy some Barbies and leave my baby out of it.

My three month old can't speak for himself. It's my job to be his voice until he has one of his own. So on his behalf, let me just say:

Kindly back the fuck up.

He's Here!

Actually, he's been here for nearly 2 weeks, but this is the first chance I've had to sit down and write about it (well, not much of a chance; it's time for him to wake up and eat soon).

*possible trigger for a scary situation, which turned out ok*

I went to see my sister last Saturday and she told me she hoped I would go into labour that night. I didn't hope so; I was determined to have a March baby. But I guess the Hobgoblin listened to his auntie, because sometime after midnight, I started getting woken up by what I thought was an extreme need to pee.

At about 3, it occurred to me that I was likely experiencing contractions and downloaded a contraction tracking app to see how long they were and how frequent. At that point, they were about 8 minutes apart and one minute long. The app grew more and more aggressive as I progressed, first telling me I should get my hospital bag ready in the car (6 minutes apart) and eventually giving me the all-caps message "GO TO THE HOSPITAL NOW" (4 minutes apart). Since said hospital was 45+ minutes away, it really was time to go.

Mr. Wolfman was very good about not telling me that he couldn't see a damn thing on the drive there. It was (of course) very dark; the road is not lit at all - and it was snowing very hard and it was also extremely windy. The contractions were at yelling on the pain scale, so I wasn't really paying attention. I did take a picture when he asked me to, because he said it was like Star Wars with the snow, but I still didn't realize we were driving blind.

Despite the crazy snow and my ever-more-frequent shouts of pain, Mr. Wolfman got us to the hospital in one piece in just over 55 minutes. The contractions were so close together by that point that I didn't even make it across the parking lot before another one hit.

The admissions nurse took one look at me, asked my last name and called an L&D nurse.

I progressed for a bit without pain meds, and it was awful and I wanted to die*. Eventually, I gave in and asked for fentanyl, which worked extremely well for a while, and then stopped working and I gave in again and asked for an epidural. The anesthesiologist had to come from home and (it seemed to me) took his sweet time getting there. By the time he arrived, I was getting an extremely strong urge to push with every contraction. When I mentioned this to the nurse, the anesthesiologist got wide eyes and wordlessly left the room. Apparently he was afraid he would have to deliver me if he stuck around.

OB showed up, anesthesiologist came back and after they determined I was at 7cm, I spent about 15/20 minutes getting an epidural. Sitting still through contractions was not easy, especially since I couldn't even scream at that point, because I had to keep my back really, really still. But I managed that, and after 5 attempts, they got the epi set and put the drugs in and then I was a happy camper. I think the nurses mentioned to the anesthesiologist that I'd been complaining about him yelling at me when I had the monster, because he was overly nice. He told me before he left that I have scoliosis, so that's fun.

I'd been really worried about the epidural because of the thing where the monster's heart rate had dropped off when I got the epi with him. But they were really good about monitoring the hobgoblin and his heart rate stayed totally fine throughout.

Everything after the epidural was super smooth and really relaxed. I only used the button once for some extra meds, so I could feel all my contractions still. They hurt, but I could breathe through them, and talk if I really needed to. When it came time to push, I had enough energy and my OB (the one I had never met until that point) talked me through everything. If we planned on having more kids, I would definitely request her again.

At the last minute, the hobgoblin decided to pull a Superman and his head and one arm came out first, the other shoulder got stuck. It went from "you're doing great" to "Get help in here now!" and I couldn't see anything, so of course I was freaking out. I kept asking what I should be doing, should I be pushing, should I wait, etc. Dr? stayed really calm and answered me when she could and between her and I, we got him out.

Before pushing, they'd told me how they delayed cord clamping, how they'd take him out and put him on my chest (or belly, depending on the length of the cord) and we'd do an hour of skin-to-skin. That didn't exactly work out. They pulled him out and put him on me, but he wasn't breathing. DH and the nurses kept trying to tell me he was ok, but I was screaming that he wasn't breathing and they cut the cord and took him away to a table to work on him.

Brilliantly, he started breathing and crying on his own. I've never been so relieved in my entire life. They gave him back to me and he was and is just perfect.

I think because I waited so long for the epi and didn't press the button for extra, I didn't end up needing a catheter and they discharged me just over 24 hours after the hobgoblin made his appearance. He's a giant, over a pound heavier at birth than his big brother.

We're at home, getting into the swing of things. It's not exactly easy with 2, but we're slowly figuring it out.




*I have a very ranty rant about one of the nurses, but I'll save it for another day.

"Boys Books"

On my local buy&sell Facebook page, I saw a post for Baby Books and Boy Books.

And I thought to myself: What the fuck is a boy book?

The baby books, presumably, are the stack that include a potty book (the only book in the bunch that could conceivably be just for boys), a Sandra Boynton book and a couple of Sesame Street books that have the titles obscured. The boy books, I'm guessing, are the others: Cars, Thomas and Spiderman.

Of course. A book that (I'm guessing) tells you how/where to pee from your genitals can be for anyone. But a book that has something manly like a mode of transportation or a superhero, that's only for boys. I mean, it's not like women and girls drive or take public transit, after all. And why would they want to read about Spiderman? A girl can't get superpowers from being bitten by a radioactive spider; that would be so unrealistic.

The monster would enjoy all of these. He loooves Thomas. He doesn't know what Cars is, but he is a big fan of anthropomorphized vehicles as a general category. He likes Spiderman well enough (although, in the world of superheroes, Spiderman is a distant 3rd behind Superman and Batman). But, just to clear it up, for anyone who might think otherwise, NONE OF THAT IS BECAUSE HE HAS A PENIS.

Let me break it down:

He loves Thomas because a) Thomas is a train and we live relatively close to the train station; b) His Dad likes trains; c) His aforementioned enjoyment of anthropomorphic vehicles; and d) The biggest reason, he has two Thomas books. Books are are the best things in the monster's world and a character that appears is a book is, to him, infinitely better than any other.

He loves cars because a) Mr. Wolfman and I (you know, the parent without a penis) both love cars. We collected them as kids and started collecting them the Monster. He has about 30; and b) They have wheels. Wheels are cool. He loves faces on cars because... he's creepy? I don't know what's up with the faces, but I'm pretty sure it has more to do with him being two than it does with having an XY chromosomal makeup.

And he passingly likes Spiderman because I found a bag in the shape of Spiderman's head about a year ago and bought it for him. It has a zipper and it's sparkly. He loves zippers. He loves sparkles. It may also have something to do with Spiderman being red and blue, which were his favourite colours until he discovered purple. Spiderman, incidentally, also has eyes and at 16 months old, when he got this wonderful bag, eyes were one of the few body parts he could name.

I know this was an individual post and not a marketing campaign, but this mindset, this divide between boys and girls, is exactly what every industry has been shoving down our throats for (at the very least) my entire life. We're told not just this is for boys and this is for girls, but actually tricked into believing this is for boys because they like it better, this is for boys because girls wouldn't be interested. Gendered nonsense exists because the market demands it, not because products and marketing create a demand.

I think campaigns like Let Toys Be Toys,  Let Books Be Books and Let Clothes Be Clothes are so important. Not just to get producers and marketers to change the way they operate, but to get parents to think about why they buy what they buy and why they teach their kids what they do.

Obviously, I don't have a problem with what are often considered boy books or characters or toys. My son, as I've mentioned, adores a lot of things that would fall into that category and I'm happy to buy him the things he likes. But I'll be damned if I let either of my boys believe for a second that they have special rights to superheroes, tools, sports, the automobile industry or carnivorous animals* just because of what's in their underwear.

*except cats, 'cause they're for girls. Obviously.

Survey Says...

It's a boy!

I don't know why I put that in blue, it's a bit gendery, but whatever, it looks nice.

I was absolutely sure I was having a girl - and absolutely shocked to feel actual disappointment when the doctor told us otherwise. I honestly and truly believe the only difference is what's between the legs, and since I already know how to change boy diapers, I've no idea why I was suddenly overcome with what I felt, which was grief.

It's not that I wanted this baby to be a girl. I was sure he was a girl. Like, deep down in my soul, sure. I think I'd built up this fictional daughter in my mind, I knew her name, I had dreams about her being born - I knew what her face looked like. So I think it was more that I was mourning a child who never existed. Part of it is knowing that number two is our last, so I know now that I'll never have a daughter. It's not that I think I'm going to miss out on mother-daughter bonding, or tea parties or dress up, either. None of that has anything to do with the sex of my baby.

The worst part was the doctor, suddenly going from saying they were really quite sure to maybe you'll be surprised in the delivery room - not because it was so fake, which it was, but because I could tell it was a reaction to my reaction - that I had utterly failed to hide my totally irrational feelings.

I cried pretty much all day. Mostly because I was so mad at myself for being anything other than over the moon with excitement. Because I know that my son is who he is and will be who we raise him to be, and that his genitals have nothing to do with any of it. Because Mr. Wolfman kept trying to comfort me by saying we could have a 3rd child, like this one is somehow insufficient.

Anyway, it only took me a day to get comfortable with it. One more day to get over my initial reaction completely, and now I can say I'm really excited about boy #2, our little Hobgoblin. Mr. Wolfman and I have been talking over names, and I feel like we're almost decided. We're leaving room for the possibility we'll see him and rethink our choice, but I'm pretty happy with our current selection, and I feel like it'll stick.

We don't stress sex and gender, so I don't think the monster has any idea what a brother is, vs. a sister. He's excited about the fact that the baby will have a bed, and he has his own bed, which has blankets and a pillow. Also, he knows that the play kitchen in fact belongs to both of them, but that he doesn't have to share with the baby until he can walk, which won't be for a long time. And, as the monster is fond of pointing out, he can already walk, and no one is stopping him from playing with the play kitchen.

Also, the monster knows that the baby is in my belly, that we went to the hospital in [town] and the lady pushed buttons and we saw the baby on the computer screen - but none of that is anywhere near as exciting as the fact that the lady pushed some other buttons and the bed came up. That was clearly the highlight of the trip for him.

I have a rant coming, about Dr. Ginger and the absolute clusterfuck that was my genetic screening blood work - and possibly one about yesterday, the horror show that wouldn't end,  but I'll save those for another day. Right now, the monster has (yet again) ransacked the entire apartment and between that and trying to get stuff ready for Mr. Hobgoblin,  I have a lot of cleaning to do.

More about "Boy" stuff.

I mentioned in my last post that we got the monster underwear with little tools all over them. I wanted to get him ones with monsters, but those are only available in 4T and he's not quite there. I also mentioned that the ones with "boy stuff" on them, were cheaper than the ones that were just solid colours. Because apparently we have to be financially motivated to enforce gender stereotypes (I'm poor, so this worked on me). I like building stuff, I want the monster to like building stuff; tools are cool - but since the girl equivalent underwear were a) more expensive again, b) covered in flowers, and c) had little, less comfortable lacy bands around the legs and waste instead of thick flat, comfy bands, this grated.

 Anywho, after a walk to the fabric aisle for PUL fabric for the outside of said underwear (girls'  available in pink, white and leopard print; boys' in monkey, owls and orange), we went to the toy section so that Mr. Wolfman could pick out a car for the monster (I think this is his favourite part of going shopping - Mr. Wolfman's, I mean). He took a while to choose the best possible car for the monster*, so I wandered the aisles and found, in 2016, this:

The "girl" aisle, which was a veritable sea of pink and purple, contained, big-eyed, alien looking animals, baby dolls and accessories (all the baby dolls were white, all of their accessories were pink), Barbie dolls, toy housewares and "girl" Lego. Just the Lego Friends and Disney Princess sets.

A couple aisles over, the "boy" aisle contained Ninja Turtles, superheros, various modes of transportation, Star Wars, video game characters, dinosaurs, astronauts, Playmobile and ALL THE FUCKING OTHER LEGO. Including the sets of just plain blocks. The First Builder Mega Bloks  that come in "boy" (primary) and "girl" (pink, purple and neon green) colours were both there, as well, just to drive home the message that if you want to be creative and build something from your imagination, rather than Elsa's ice castle, you need the girl version of a toy that's actually for boys.

Oh, just to double up on that message, the one thing in the girl aisle that wasn't pink or purple was a blue and green toy vacuum. It was next to the pink and purple one, so if you're a boy and you want to play house, you need the boy version of a toy that's actually for girls.

The one seeming place of refuge, the baby aisle, is ostensibly just for babies. No genders in there. Until you look closer and realize that one small section of the aisle has princesses and ponies and pink and rest has everything else. The educational toys, the animals, the cars for littler hands, everything. This teaches kids that for boys is the default, and for girls is the exception. Also, it teaches them that for boys and for girls are things that exist. And they're not, other than in our brainwashed, apathetic minds.

I don't have a problem with the toys themselves, for the most part. I like tools and cars and dinosaurs and the rest, and my monster does, too. So while they're not promoting violence or animal cruelty or something, I'm happy to get them for him. I also like baby dolls and barbies and ponies, and I'd be happy to by those for the monster as well.  But the colourcoding and weird segregation gets to me. I mean, wouldn't it make more sense to have a Lego aisle, organized by age appropriateness? or a playing house section with all the little irons and dishes and lawnmowers and barbecues in one spot?

I really think it is up to us as parents to combat this, actively. I've said before, I think it's especially incumbent on the parents of boys to teach our sons that there's nothing inherently feminine in playing with baby dolls or toy irons or whatever - and also that there's nothing wrong with being feminine. Because while Tomboy at least sometimes has some positive connotations, Tomina Girl probably never will. Our society, in 2016, still values boys and men above girls and women - no matter how much we collectively try to deny, ignore or avoid the fact. And it starts from the time they're born.

I'm beginning to think that all this isn't just a matter of corporations wanting profits and not caring about the possible negative effects they're having on kids; I'm honestly starting to think that they have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo, and they're intentionally planting these stereotypical ideas in the minds of very young children.

*I love my husband. He is such an awesome Dad.

My Son, the Crossdresser

#letclothesbeclothes

Yesterday, we bought the monster some long-sleeved T-shirts from the sale rack. One shriek-of-joy inducing Superman shirt and one plain white one. The actual mall was a bit colder than the store, so we decided to put the white one on over the shirt he was already wearing. Whereupon, I discovered that it's a girl's shirt.

Whatever. I don't really care. But when I offhandedly pointed it out to Mr. Wolfman, he asked a question which really made me think: How did I know?

He wasn't being glib. In the logical, less jaded mind of my husband, a plain white shirt for a toddler is without gender.  I mean, how could something so basic, for children who will be essentially the same shape until puberty, be for one gender or the other? And what made it suddenly obvious to me that this was a little girl's shirt, instead of a little boy's?

The answer, which I gave while all of these thoughts were still forming in my head, was this: It's skin-tight (even a 3T, a full size bigger than what we usually buy for the monster, hugged his torso to the point it was actually a bit difficult to get on) - on closer examination, it's actually made out of a different, stretchier fabric - and it has a swooped neck.

Apparently, even 2-3 year old girls need to wear skin-tight, low(er) cut tops.  Because... well, I can't think of a because. To show off their curves (aka baby fat)?

I actually find this kind of thing way more worrisome than fluffy skirts or cap sleeves or other 'girly' fare - because it's so insidious. Parents could easily buy a shirt like this for their daughter (or son), without even realizing what it is.  And in so doing, they could be propagating stereotypes, or getting their child accustomed, from a painfully early age, to the type of clothing that some people will expect her to wear for the rest of her life.

My monster will go on wearing this shirt until he outgrows it. Probably as an undershirt, because that stupid swooped neck means it's not very snug for this time of year (toddler girls should sacrifice warmth for style, apparently). Part of me kind of hopes that someone will see it, notice it's "for girls" and ask themselves why that is.

What is it with Boys and Sports?

...or, more accurately, boys' stuff and sports.

Probably about 75% of the monster's clothes and toys are 2nd hand. Which means that it's not always about style when I'm shopping for clothes; it's about what condition something is in, whether or not it will be comfortable, and how long it will fit.

I look everything over before I buy it, but I don't really look at it. I'm looking to see if there are stains, tears, worn patches, etc.

So I bought the monster a pair of fuzzy PJs.  A little pilling, but in otherwise good condition. Plus the nice guy was working at the thrift shop, so them, the other pair of PJs I bought, 9 pairs of socks, 1 pair of mittens, 2 decorative spoons and a book only cost me $4. The PJs are cookie monster - pretty cute.

And then I got them home and noticed... football helmets?

The fabric is seriously: baby cookie monster eating a cookie, baby cookie monster in a diaper eating a cookie, jugs of milk, cookies on their own... and random sports equipment. Helmets, sneakers and whistles.
They're sadly not footie pajamas, so I grab the monster one of his new pairs of socks.  Giant 9s on the side, in the same font you get on the back of football jerseys.

And this isn't even the first time it's happened. Not long ago, he outgrew some great quality PJs that were covered in various sports paraphernalia and had numbers and a baseball applique on them; when he was a newborn, I bought a set of hats on sale, only to get them home and find out that the cute little bulldogs were surrounded by footballs.

I could pay closer attention, if it bothered me that much.  But it's not so much that some of his clothes are sports-related, that gets to me.  It's more the insidious way that sports and construction themes get sneaked onto boys' clothes, and the glaringly obvious way they're omitted from girls'.

It's all the: this is for boys, this is for girls bullshit that's still going on, even though it's nearly 2016. You know what you never see on boys' clothes? Horses. Unless there are cowboys involved. You never just see a horse, on its own, on a boy's sweater.  Or a cat. And you're equally unlikely to see a dump truck on a girl's shirt.

It's like, at some point, there was a secret meeting, and not only did all the various activities, professions and interests get divided by genitals, the fucking animals did as well.

Dinosaurs? Obviously for boys. Dolphins? Girls. Cats and horses are for girls, too.  Lizards and sharks, boys. Dogs can go either way, but need accessories to gender things up.  A bow or a sparkly collar indicates a girl-appropriate dog, while a surfboard or suspenders make it for a boy. Nerdy glasses are a bit too ambiguous, so a second accessory is usually required.

Seriously, people, what the crap are we teaching our kids?

Gender Marketing, Whee!

I recently started a Twitter account, and quickly started following @LetToysBeToys, which is a great campaign aimed at getting toy manufacturers to stop segregating the genders and make toys for kids as opposed to boys and girls.

We also recently found out some friends of ours are pregnant.  Don't know the gender, but I wanted to get knitting ASAP because I usually procrastinate, and then I agonized over whether I should go with gender neutral colours or wait until we find out.

It's got me to thinking, though, that the toy manufacturers aren't the problem.  At least they're not the whole problem, and I'm inclined to think that their part is smaller than we're often inclined to believe.

Maybe my perspective is coloured by the fact that we don't own a TV, so my family and I aren't bombarded with shows and marketing clearly aimed exclusively at boys or girls - maybe it's because, at 10 months, the little monster is too young to care who a toy is supposed to be for.  But this is what I think:

Toy (and movie and clothing and cereal and lunchbox) manufacturers are going to keep making things for boys and different things for girls.  Why? because it's in their best financial interest to convince us (and our children) that it's necessary to purchase multiple versions of essentially the same toy.  I don't think there are marketing teams sitting around saying "Let's do one in pink with flowers because we believe that girls are inherently pretty and delicate." They're saying, "Let's do one in pink and one in blue and people will feel compelled to buy both." Which isn't to say that gendered toys don't enforce stereotyping.  They do. But I think it's more a matter of toy companies using an outdated cultural narrative to their advantage than that they actually care about maintaining a dichotomy of gender on a societal scale.


But whether I'm right or wrong about their reasons, I'd say the chances of everyone realizing their mistakes and taking initiative to fix them are fairly low. It's up to parents to explain to our kids, in age appropriate terms, exactly how and why advertisers are trying to manipulate them, while at the same time letting them know that they can be whoever they are.

For example:

"Mum, that one's for girls."
"What makes you think it's for girls?"
"There box is pink and there's a girl on it."
"That's because the toy makers want to trick you into thinking is's just for girls."
"Why?"
"Because then people with a boy and a girl will feel like they have to buy two, so the toy company gets more money."

Depending on the age of this hypothetical child, I'd also ask why a pink box with girls on it means it's just for girls.  "That girl on the box has brown hair.  Does that mean it's only for brown-haired girls?"

I think a similar conversation would work fine for clothes.  Asking the kid questions like, what makes something for boys or for girls? Who decided what colours are for boys and girls? Also, referring to the boys' and girls' clothing section as "The kids' section".

Of course, my monster is still little, so none of this has come up for us yet.  He has a few "girl" things, a pink polka dot plush toy, a couple of butterfly toys, a pair of embroidered Capri pants*. As he gets older, he'll be allowed to play with and wear what he wants**. Right now, I dress him mostly in "boy" or gender neutral clothes because, while I really don't care whether strangers can easily identify his gender (which is the only real reason for gendered clothes, when you think about it), I'm trying to be careful not to make him into a walking(!) billboard for my philosophies and beliefs about gender politics.  So if I see an adorable dress, and think to myself that there's logically no reason why he can't have it, I ask myself if it would be for me or for him - and since he could happily leave the house naked and not care as long as it was warm enough, the answer is pretty clear.  That, and while I have free reign over his fashion choices, turning him into a little Dad clone is just too adorable to pass up.

What I'm getting at with all of this is, yes, absolutely keep hounding the toy companies to change their ways.  They will, if they get enough consumer pressure.  Actually financial pressure from consumers is likely the only thing that will make them change, so if you don't like the options a toy company is giving, don't settle, boycott.

But more than that, parents need to say fuck it and just buy our kids what they want regardless of which gender it's "supposed" to be for.  I think it's particularly incumbent on parents of boys to do this, because while it's now socially acceptable in many circles for girls to be tomboys (another useless label), boys who want to wear/play with/ do girl things are mocked, because our society still views boys and boy things as somehow better.

So this is getting long, and could easily get longer, but I think I'll call it a day for now.  I'll undoubtedly revisit this subject (over and over) as the monster gets older and has more exposure to advertising and the expectations of society.

*I actually nearly removed the candy embroidery from them, to, I don't know, de-girl them, until Mr. Wolfman asked me why, and then I realized that there was zero reason, other than that I've been brainwashed by society to think there's something wrong with my son having lollipops on his pants.

**Within reason; I'm not a huge fan of electronic toys and clothes that cost 10 x as much because they have a certain logo.

23 Weeks and Counting

So!

I've been very lax in keeping this updated and a lot has happened since my last post.

We went for our 18/20 week ultrasound. The ultrasound tech was very excited and very nice.  She even offered to change her relaxing background music, if it wasn't to my taste.  Much to my surprise, though, she wasn't allowed to tell us anything.  Not the gender, not if the little monster was healthy, nothing.  She said she could lose her job for telling, so I didn't push it.  It was wonderful anyway, seeing it swimming around in there, being all cute, seeing the heartbeat, etc.  Then Mr. Wolfman and I went for a nice long drive and took pictures and just had a generally fantastic day.

I eagerly called my clinic the next day to find out that they had received the results, but they weren't allowed to tell me anything either; I needed to book an appointment with the Dr... and the Dr. was going to be away for a week.  Then my new work decided to not give me a schedule and just tell me each day when I needed to come in next, so finally, a week after Dr. Illegible got back, I got in for an appointment.

He said everything was good, and looked healthy, but when I asked the gender, he said they hadn't put it on the report.  I just about lost it.  I did keep very calm, though, when I told him that I was going to be making an angry phone call to the ultrasound tech if it wasn't on there.  He looked again, and after playfully negotiating a bribe (which I told him would not be my firstborn), we found out...

WE'RE HAVING A BOY!

It's funny, I kind of always felt like I would want a girl, but by the time we found out, I just felt like he should be a boy.  Like, it would be somehow wrong if he turned out to be a girl.  The gender-neutral blanket I was knitting is now done (all blue and green and teal) and I'd already bought some variegated blue, yellow, white & teal yarn for a hat, which I only held off on starting until my boy suspicions were confirmed.  I'm a little bit nervous because I feel like it'll always be a little bit easier to raise someone the same gender as you, but I'm so effing excited :D

The only thing wrong with the ultrasound was that they hadn't been able to see his left hand, so Dr. Illegible sent us to have another one in the city (400km away).  Luckily, we had plans to go there the next day, and the imaging centre was able to squeeze us in that afternoon.  Unluckily, they were pretty unprofessional and incompetent and when they couldn't find his left hand either (that, at least, wasn't their fault, it was just the way he was lying) after 45 minutes - and after 2 techs had had an exhaustive argument about whether what they were looking at were his hands or his feet (I could tell the difference, I'm not sure why they couldn't)--they lied and said that they could see his hand, and sent me away thinking that everything was OK.

So when I went to see the Dr. for my next checkup, I found out that they hadn't been able to see his hand again, and now, because I've had 2 anatomy ultrasounds with no left hand visible, they're sending me to a university hospital (again in the city) that specializes in obstetrics.  I don't know when, though.  Still waiting on a call from the hospital to schedule.

I think Mr. Wolfman is more worried about the hand thing then I am.  Dr. Illegible keeps telling me not to worry, and I'm actually really not.  That could be because I'm getting kicked and punched so much that I simply can't believe this child has any less than 4 limbs.  He may even have five or six.

I'm still very happy about everything.  The posts about us having to move (in a week and again at the end of July - and then possibly again in September) will have to wait for another day, because I'm not really in such a ranty mood.  Mostly I just wanna go lie down and work on my little man's hat.