10 Fingers, 10 Toes

This post could alternately be called, "Adventures in Getting to the Ultrasound Appointment." We woke up this morning to discover that a thick layer of ice had coated yesterday's 6 inches of snow. The minivan was frozen shut. Anticipating that it might take some time to get it going, I started clearing it off earlier than I normally would. After 1/2 an hour of shoveling and scraping, I loaded Luke and Jaz in (Zeb's nursery school had a two-hour delay due to the road and sidewalk conditions), and attempted to pull out of the driveway. No go. The car hardly budged at all. 10 more minutes of shoveling, and I tried again. Still no movement. I went inside and got Lena to come out and help me. She pushed, I pushed, we tried putting towels behind the wheels . . . still nothing. Lena decided that sand might help and started digging for the kids' sandbox, which was underneath about 18 inches of snow and ice. Luckily, she found the right spot, and we managed to retrieve a pail full of sand to put behind the tires. Unluckily, the sand made no difference at all.

The Excavated Sandbox

We gave up on the minivan and started working on Lena's car, the civic. Eventually we were successful, but by the time we got it free, Luke and Jaz were way late for school and it was time for us to leave for our ultrasound appointment, 1/2 an hour away. All in all, it took us an hour to get from warming up the car to driving away. If we hadn't had the appointment as motivation, I likely would have given up and kept the kids home. As it was, the whole time I was thinking, "if this doesn't work, we'll call a taxi . . . or a friend with four wheel drive . . . one way or another we WILL get there!"

After pulling out of the driveway with our little car, packed full of the five of us (it definitely won't qualify as a family car anymore, come June), we rushed, and rushed, and rushed to get Luke and Jaz dropped off (and out of their snowsuits, and into their "indoor shoes," and settled into their classrooms), pick up some bagels and muffins (neither Lena or I had had a chance to eat breakfast with all of the car chaos), and zoom towards the back-up midwives' office (I say "back-up midwives" because we are planning a homebirth with homebirth midwives, but go to a hospital-based midwifery practice for all bloodwork/tests).

We really didn't stop to think about what we were doing or what we were about to find out. We were just trying to get there. And we got there 10 minutes late. And we raced inside the building and then into the office where we were quickly ushered into the ultrasound room, and within 30 seconds Lena's belly was gelled up and the ultrasound wand was applied. And then we were seeing our baby, and the very first body part we could make out was this one:


And just like that, the years and months and weeks and days of speculation came to an end. And I felt a peace come over me. And then we saw his sweet profile:


And we got to watch him moving his hands around and kicking his tiny, perfect feet. And the whole time we were just thinking, "wow. Four boys." And saying it in my head, it sounded so right, like this was all part of the plan. That we would decide to make a fourth baby, and that we would track down one last vial of the kids' donor's sperm, and that Lena would miraculously get pregnant the very first time we tried, and that we would become the mamas that we were always meant to be: the mamas of four sons.

I had anticipated potentially feeling some inkling of disappointment about the baby not being a girl, but was surprised to feel none at all. The baby was exactly the baby I wanted him to be, how could I possibly wish him to be anyone other than who he was? So while I assume that I may someday feel some saddness about not having any daughters, I do not wish that this baby was a daughter in the least. I can't wait for him to join his pack of brothers on the outside and make our family complete.