Is It a Penis or a Vagina?

(Finding Out the Sex)

I ’m one of those people who believes if you can find out something, you FIND OUT. Screw surprises. If I could’ve found out what this baby’s occupation was going to be, I would have. Speaking for my need-to-know self here, I simply felt that if I knew what the sex was I would be able to bond even more with my baby.

That said, I didn’t have a firm grip on my preference. I kept bouncing from wanting a little girl to wanting a little boy. My wanting a little girl was for obvious reasons: someone to get my nails done with, to teach some cheerleading moves to, to pass down my jewelry and my Gucci dresses to. But then I would really want a boy, some little tough tyke who I could wrestle around with and who would be my little man. Of course my husband wanted a boy first. He loved the idea of having a mini version of himself running around in this world. But either way, it goes without saying that we both would have been ecstatic with a girl or a boy. Good thing, too. Chances are that we were going to get one or the other!

Most people find out the sex of their baby (if they choose to) through ultrasound at about twenty weeks, but you can find out earlier and more accurately if you decide to have some genetic tests done earlier. For one, there is a test called CVS, which is short for chorionic villus sampling. Sounds bad but it’s ultimately good: It tests whether or not your baby has Down syndrome. It’s usually performed between nine and eleven weeks, and you find out the results within a week. Joy of joys, they perform this test by going up your wazoo and having a needle pluck through your uterus to gain some fluid for testing.

Another test is called amniocentesis. This is usually performed at sixteen weeks. Instead of going up your wazoo, the needle is poked through your lower belly to extract fluid. With amniocentesis, it takes longer to find out the results because they count the chromosomes to make sure Junior has no abnormalities. Both tests are considered invasive, but if you’re thirty-five or over, the doc usually wants you to have one of these tests done because your chance of having a child with Down syndrome increases each year. So remember, not only do WE get old and ugly, our eggs do, too.

I opted for amniocentesis. I was under the thirty-five age marker but I still wanted it done. I wanted to know that my baby was healthy so I could relax throughout the rest of my pregnancy. Even though I hoped for relaxation on the horizon, I was nervous because of how big that damn needle looked on all those pregnancy shows I had seen. Sorry to have to break it to you, but in reality . . . it’s still damn big.

In preparation for sticking the needle in my belly, the doc looked around with the ultrasound. A woman this time, she checked to see if there was enough fluid for the baby to float around in and then began to check his or her extremities so that she wouldn’t poke one with the needle. My husband and I laughed as we looked at the little toes and fingers. Then the doctor told us that we might be able to tell what the sex was right then, just by looking on the ultrasound screen. She said she couldn’t be absolutely certain until the results of the amnio came back, but she said from what she could see, it would be a pretty good guess. So, of course we asked her to go for it, to go ahead and make an educated guess. As she moved the ultrasound camera down my belly, my husband and I held hands and smiled. We were holding our breath out of pure excitement. She stopped the camera on a certain spot, and without saying a word, my husband smiled so big it could have ripped his face apart. His eyes lit up as he shouted, “That’s a penis . . . YES!” Low and behold, he was right. There was the largest baby penis on that screen that I have ever seen (not that I’ve seen all that many, mind you). Even the doc looked a little surprised. She nodded at my husband and told him that it looked pretty good that we had ourselves a boy.

A BOY!! I was so excited that my eyes filled with tears. I was having a little boy. YEAH!! But my little bubble of happiness was burst wide open when she told me she was preparing the needle. Uh-oh. Now I was scared again. I closed my eyes and tried to relax. I started envisioning me and my little baby boy playing on a beach. I saw his little smile as I threw him up in the air and heard his little giggles. By keeping my focus on my vision the procedure came and went. The needle going in sounded a little like piercing the skin on a nicely cooked Thanksgiving turkey, but it didn’t hurt at all. I opened my eyes, smiled, and looked at my husband. He was greener than a Martian. I guess watching something like that can’t be too good for the hubby. Of course, months later, at delivery time, he would get his fill of gory sights!

A few weeks after the amnio, my gyno left a message on our machine that ours was a healthy baby and that we were right . . . the penis we’d seen was definitely a penis. A little boy was headed our way!

I have to imagine that the joy of finding out your child’s gender would be just as powerful if you were to find out after all the pushing and grunting of delivery. But to this day, the memory of the moment we found out is deeply etched in my mind, and imagining him as a him for months thereafter was a luxury I wouldn’t have traded for the world.