Baby News

My husband held my two-year-old on his knees as the sonographer squirted a cool gel on my lower abdomen. She began to run the ultrasound tool over my skin, and a grainy black and white image appeared on the screen. The baby's face was instantly clear; its eyes were open.

"Do you see the lens there?" she said, pointing a manicured finger at the screen.

I nodded.

"What's that?" my daughter asked.

"That's the baby, sugar," my husband whispered.

The technician continued to move the tool, prodding my side in an effort to get the baby to move out of its position.

"It's got its legs crossed," she said. "Let's see if we can get it to move."

She prodded me again. "Come on. What are you?"

The baby stretched and waved a tiny fist in the air as if in defiance of being disturbed.

"Here we go," she said. "Okay, you guys want to know what it is?"

My husband and I smiled at each other. My daughter stared at the screen.

"Well, I'm 99.9% sure it's a boy!" she said, and she pointed her cursor at our baby's "body parts."

The first time we were pregnant, my husband and I could not decide if we wanted to know the baby's sex. I liked the idea of a true surprise. My husband's curiosity was killing him. After about four months, I still had not felt the baby move. A friend of mine told me that finding out her baby's sex helped her to connect with the child she knew was there but could not feel. This argument made sense to me, and so we found out.

Although I have been feeling this baby for some time now, we made the same decision.

We have named our son, and we are able to talk to him in a very personal way.

It was the right decision for us.