The official royal portrait of Me and Matt.
All of Matt's friends definitely have a good chuckle at his expense when it comes to mingling: we all know each other, but we tease Matt that he doesn't like his "circles to mix". So we all get together once or twice a year and joke about how if we stayed too long, the world might end. At one of the most recent gatherings (before we announced our pregnancy), we were celebrating the impending birth of a friend's baby (this backstory is important, I promise). Being the good friend that he is, Matt was excited about their pregnancy.
When it came time to tell Matt that I was adding a member to our team of depravity, We called him over for a beer on his way home from working downtown. He arrived dutifully, joined us in the basement, and he and I popped open a good sarsaparilla ("Sioux City Sarsaparilla?" "Yeah, that's a good one.") After a few moments Jan, in a far more suave fashion than when she informed me that she was pregnant, casually tossed Matt a bib that we had purchased, embroidered to read, "My uncle is hot AND single". His reaction? He said, "thank you," put it in his coat pocket, and started telling a story about work. Jan and I looked at each other, incredulous. She then gestured toward his coat pocket again, saying "You didn't like the bib we bought you?" His response: "Um, I said thank you. ...wait. ...you're... are you pregnant?" We had to take a moment to clarify that we had bought him the bib in order to inform him that we were pregnant, and not (as he had originally surmised) to celebrate the pregnancy of our aforementioned friends. "I was like, 'why would they buy me a bib to celebrate someone else's pregnancy?'" he queried. Thus began the jumping up and down, and Matt's now famous secondary reaction to our good news, in the form of his generous (?) offer: "You guys, I will TOTALLY videotape the birth for you!"
So now that it seemed that all the key players were finally involved, it was time to pick a gender for our little peapod. ...relax, friends and family: I have a clear understanding of how this actually works. I was at the time, though, making my fair share of guesses and jokes. Of course, I went over the top; and I had no clue of the psychological impact it would have on my poor wife. I had always joked that, as Luca Brasi from The Godfather had hoped, my "first child would be a masculine child." This was not an issue years before we were pregnant, but I and a number of friends kept the gag alive well after Jan had a bun in the oven... and it terrified her. At one point there was also a premise that I would cast out any female offspring into a rocky quagmire with only their infant wits and strength to protect them, and if they returned, then they were worthy of our last name. (Yeah, we DEFINITELY took it too far.)
I hope that any men out there planning on getting their ladies knocked up are afforded the great pleasure of watching the girls try to figure out what the gender of their unborn child is. It's really quite hilarious. Again, everyone will have their opinions on which method of detection is the best. "Oh, you're carrying high; that means it's a girl with 6 toes on her left foot," "So you burped twice last week after you put on a green shirt? It's a boy for sure," and even "My sister's cousin's best friend's neighbor's nephew's warden was pregnant, and she also had brown hair. So you're having a girl." You thought all of those "different position" stories were ludicrous? You ain't seen nothing yet.
My personal favorite method of gender detection though came to us via our Latina friends from Miami. Two different families taught Jan how to use her necklace and some serious voodoo (a.k.a., The Confirmation Bias) to gaze into the future.
"Wanna know da sex of yah bebe, Jan? Call me now!"
She was instructed to remove her necklace and hold it so that the pendant dangled betwixt her thumb and forefinger. Once it stopped moving, she was to dip it three times down into that finger-gap, and after the third dip, hold it over her open palm and note the pattern of it's movement. If it turned in a circle, she was having a boy; if it swung back and forth, she was having a girl. If it spun around the chain and got twisted... I don't know, hermaphrodite?
So here's the kicker: not only was this method to be employed to detect the gender of your child, but also how many children you were going to have. Apparently, after noting the movement of the necklace, you can "reset" it by dipping it three more times and noting the next pattern (this was the gender of your second child, and so forth). You keep doing this until the necklace stops moving following the dip; this is understood to mean that you are having no more children. ...so this is what it's come to: my wife, the Ph.D. student, the education program coordinator, the center of my universe and keeper of our checkbook, sitting in the living room dipping her necklace into her hand and every four-to-six seconds, yelling, "OOOOOO, IT'S MAKING A CIRCLE!!!" She insists that every time she did this, the necklace-that-knows-all told her that we were having four children: two boys, a girl, and another boy. Ok then. When I asked for something, ANYTHING, scientific to help me out, her response was as follows: "...well, I did it to the dog, and she's spayed. The necklace said she wasn't having any puppies! SO THERE!"
No, Jan. No, no, no.
Personally, there were too many holes in this mystical-necklace-theory. The friends who taught it to her swore by it (and to their credit, it has been reportedly accurate for their families; although again, confirmation bias). Even though it held just about as much scientific water, for the sake of parsimony, I was inclined to listen to our local pho proprietor: "Oh, you're having a girl. The baby will be born in the year of the horse. That's a girl for sure."
Soon enough, it was time for the ultrasound to employ actual science (oh, the horror!) to tell us what the gender actually was. Ever the scientists, we wanted to be sure, so we organized our own double-blind study using two different ultrasound places: one found privately, the other recommended by the doctor. Being the poor students that we were, Jan found a Living Social coupon for the first ultrasound, where we would get a 2D and a 3D ultrasound (which really kinda creep me out; I can't get the thought of my child as a solid yellow Simpson's character out of my head!) as well as a DVD full of videos and photos for a very reasonable price.
Driving to the appointment, Jan was visibly nervous, asking me over and over again what I thought it would be and asking me if I would really be upset if it was a girl. Now I knew for sure that I had let the gag go on for too long. I tried to assure her that I shared the philosophy of fictional US President Jed Bartlett: "When you're going to be a parent, you hope for 10 fingers and 10 toes." She was not to be soothed though.
Having done my research, I pride myself in my ability to read an ultrasound. Depending on the baby's actual position, I was looking for what I was affectionately referring to as "a hot dog or a hamburger" (which I find to be a fairly PG way of describing the shapes one is seeking as data on the ultrasound screen). As the technician gooped up my wife's belly and started to wave her proverbial magic wand, we strained to see the screen. It appeared to me quickly, and thank goodness the lights were out, because SOMEONE got a tear in my eye as I was overcome with a wave of happiness as I saw a patty and two sesame seed buns, right there between her grainy, fuzzy, tiny little legs.
It became clear when the technician started typing it onto the screen.
I was thrilled. Absolutely excited. I honestly didn't care if it was a boy, a girl, or a lizard, as long as it was ours, was happy, and was healthy. All signs pointed to me getting my wish. Jan, however, seemed concerned when I turned to celebrate with her. This poor woman, the victim of my witticisms, glanced at me with a guilty look on her face and said, "Are you sure this is ok?" like we have the option for some kind of return if it wasn't, or something. No dear, see that tiny little sliver of a thing all the way down there beneath me? That's the moon. That's how far over it I am right now.
We were perfectly content just calling people and sharing the good news, but weeks prior, Matt had literally begged us to surprise him with a gender reveal at our annual joint Thanksgiving. He could not be convinced otherwise, despite my vehement protestation and assurance that a gender reveal just for him would be cheesy. He insisted.
That's when Jan looked back onto previous Thanksgivings and ways in which Matt and I have pranked each other: via the now-defunct social artifact that is "icing" (click the link if you're unfamiliar). Previous icings have included Matt hiding a bottle inside a scotch box, and my personal favorite, me hiding one inside our turkey so Matt would encounter the bottle as he was stuffing the bird. So Jan, a prankster in her own right, recorded the gender onto a piece of cardboard, taped it onto the bottom of a 24oz bottle of Smirnoff Ice, and wrapped it for presentation to Matt. When it came time for his gender reveal, he was presented with a small gift, and we were all treated to what we now affectionately refer to as "Baby's First Icing":
What a good sport, huh? So that's the story of how "B_A" became "BGA", how I accidentally made my wife insane with some poorly-timed gender jokes, and how between Jan, Camden, and BGA, I finally had an embarrassment of riches: living in a house with three females, unsure of which one I love the most.
SCORE!!!
ReplyDeleteI love this blog and I love you guys and I love that you are going to have a baby girl
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