Week 21: Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy...oh boy!

I went for my comprehensive fetal anatomy scan last week and we found out we are having another BOY! That makes four little men in our home!

I hope all of my exclamation marks adequately convey my excitement about having four sons! This fact of my enthusiasm, however, is sometimes as much of a surprise to me as it is to many of the people I talk to about this matter.

By the time you have your fourth child, people are occasionally confused by your seemingly odd behavior. Four...what? Why would you do that? Some assume you come from a big family and are just continuing the family tradition. I was the fourth of four, so I suppose this is true in my case. Some joke that you must not have a TV, and therefore you lack other ways to entertain yourselves. We do have one, we just don't watch it...Some recognize that you are Catholic, and kind of get it. Although I would add the caveat that Catholics are not required to have lots of kids, only forbidden to use contraception. This very often has the same result.

Another common assumption people have is that, if you have three boys and you are pregnant for a fourth time, you were probably trying for a girl. But this was definitely not true for me and my husband. This has never really played into our considerations for conception. We are always and only ever just trying for a baby. In fact, I have been so completely ambivalent about whether we were having a boy or girl this time around that I had a very hard time explaining it to myself or other people. With all my other pregnancies, I at least had a slight preference one way or the other. But this one, I simply could not decide which I wanted.

When I became pregnant with my first child, I was actually fairly desperate for a girl. I was a tad bit terrified to become a parent in the first place, in spite of the fact that conception was carefully planned. I thought it would help me be a good parent if I had a girl to raise: someone like me, someone whose personality and struggles I could identify with. I had experienced teenage girl angst. I had body image issues. I had a little bit of clinical depression and anxiety in my past. I could help someone through that. But anger? Withdrawal? Perhaps violent tendencies? Extreme behaviors like sky-diving, rock-climbing, and military pursuits? I just didn't think I would know what to do with those!

But three adorable little boys later, I am beginning to understand the destructive, loud, physical tendencies of these little creatures running around our house. They break stuff to figure out how it works. They push themselves into each other to see when and if and who will break. They are loud because they enjoy life. I'm not sure how different they are than girls, but I don't worry (as much, anymore) about the hitting and the damage done to property and the seeming desire to do these things over, and over, and over again. They are testing themselves against...themselves, each other, and the world.

In fact, I have gotten so used to being around little boys that I began to have the opposite fear with this pregnancy. Would I really know how to raise a girl? Would I really not be driven crazy by the challenges of parenting a female child? It could be fun...but what if I wasn't fit for it? I'm still not sure of the answer to the questions about my ability to raise a daughter, but we are thrilled to have a fourth man-child to add to our crew.

We are also quite certain and hopeful that this child will not be our last. I am only 29, and still very Catholic, after all. A girl, or a few!, may yet be in our future.  For now, we're just aiming for a baby.

Week 13: Sticking to My Guns

I know it's a little thing, and I probably shouldn't be so bothered by it. A really small thing, and most women probably don't even notice the difference. But I've always been a detail person, and this happens to be a really important detail: the due date.

Very early on in pregnancy, I estimated that my due date was probably June 22. This was based on when I believed ovulation to have occurred (September 28), so it was even more accurate than simply knowing the date of intercourse. Conception, after all, does not often happen on the day of intercourse (unless you have impeccable timing!). Conception occurs when you ovulate. That egg, it's precious. All the sperm are just lying in wait for it to be revealed.

(I don't think I would ever say that out loud to someone that I didn't know. I probably don't know you. This has now become slightly awkward.)

(...)

Anyway, so this is what I had figured out. When I had my surprise ultrasound at 5 weeks, guess what? She said that, by her measurements, my estimated date of ovulation and due date were right on. RIGHT ON. What I heard was: "you are a natural family planning genius."

So I was a bit dismayed that I could not convince the sonographer who did my 11-week ultrasound that I already knew my due date, and that her date was too early (she came back with June 18, based on her measurements). I explained to them about ovulation (I can't believe they didn't know, I can only assume they thought I didn't understand it well enough). I explained to them about the early transvaginal ultrasound (but I'm certain it was in my chart). I even explained to them that my husband is unusually tall, and all of our children so far have been unusually long at birth (my quack theory about why my due date keeps getting pushed up with each pregnancy). Alas, to no avail. It goes in my chart as June 18.

The reason I care about this so much is because I know that at 37 weeks, they are going to start asking me about induction. It's so predictable that it's almost funny, except not, because I've had one, and induction hurts. My children are not born before 40 weeks. They just aren't. And I have a stronger bargaining position if I simply refuse induction until my due date! Oh well. I'm sticking to my guns on this one, bargaining position be darned.

Week 12: First Ultrasound

I had my first ultrasound this week! The sonographer said everything looked great. I had all three boys with me, and they were great, too.

Because I had the boys with me, I asked her not to do ultrasound transvaginally. I thought a transvaginal would a) be awkward with a 4-year-old male child in the room, b) make it more difficult for me to calm the 1-year-old male child in the room with us, and c) not be necessary given the transvaginal I had at 5 weeks and the fact that I was already far enough along to see things clearly on an abdominal ultrasound. I would not have thought this would irritate her, but her demeanor was clearly annoyed by the request. Sonographers of the world, I beg of you: please don't be offended when a pregnant mother of three toddlers asks for a simple favor! We are adults and sometimes even think for ourselves, in advance, about what treatments might be good for us at any particular time!

The other thing I spent a lot of time talking to the doctors about was the genetic testing for Trisomy 18 and Down's Syndrome. I'm very skeptical of prenatal testing, not least of all because of what happened with the Statesman. In the end, he was a very healthy boy who happened to be missing a kidney. So anyway, I guess there's a blood draw they can do between 11-13 weeks that gives them a pretty good risk assessment for those diseases (although it's not a definitive diagnosis). I went back and forth, considering the alternatives, but ultimately decided not to do it. Here's why:

• First of all, it's only a risk assessment, not a diagnosis. This means that there could be a false positive or false negative. Even though these rates are not very high, it's a big heartache for nothing if it is.
• The ultrasound looked very normal - good, even. If it had not, perhaps there would be a reason to investigate further.
• The reason they suggest and push the prenatal testing is so that you have the information, and can be prepared. For some patients, this may be code for, "so you can get an abortion." But I would not kill my child to spare him (or us) pain: that would be an ultimate embrace of the power of death to ruin us. No, not that.
• So there is a value to having information before a baby is born, planning for medical needs, etc. But I realized last time that prenatal diagnoses change and develop many times over before they are finalized, so plans cannot really be made until the third trimester anyway. Not to mention, there are so many things that must be revealed about the child's health that cannot be revealed until birth. In short, we will have to be flexible at birth, whether the child has extraordinary medical needs or not. Only birth will tell us definitively what the needs are.
• The cost. It was going to be $223 to maybe tell me something that might be true, or not, and might help us plan, or not. Since I'm paying for these things out of pocket until Medicaid kicks in? Not worth it! We're happy to live with the uncertainty for a little while longer, knowing that all is in a kind God's hands.

Did you do early prenatal testing? What did you think? And has anyone ever had a sonographer give them attitude about the transvaginal/abdominal choice? Why does this keep happening to me?