Boy, Girl or Alien?

Another milestone out of the way – I had my first ultrasound on Monday night. I promise not to go on and on about how cute it is and how much it looks like Richard, because – let’s be honest – all ultrasound pictures look basically the same. You’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all.

I was very nervous during the few days leading up to our appointment. I was convinced that they would find something wrong (I’m a glass-half-empty kind of girl so I expect the worst). The 32 ounces of water that I was forced to drink at one time an hour before the ultrasound didn’t make me feel any better. Now I was not only worried about my child being deformed but that I might pee my pants as well.

Luckily, I didn’t wet the bed. And more importantly, Baby Kopp did not appear to have any abnormalities. It didn’t have hooves or horns, a very good sign that it’s not the Jersey Devil. The ultrasound technician didn’t faint or scream à la American Horror Story. In fact, she seemed pretty bored.

Richard was disappointed that he wasn’t allowed to join me for the exam, thinking he was missing a peep show or something. I had to explain to him that the technician would just be rolling the thing-a-ma-jig over my tummy and nothing like a breast exam was going to happen. So Richard was relegated to the waiting room until the technician was ready to just take some fun pictures at the end of the exam.

Baby Kopp’s head looked pretty big (probably got that from Richard) and opened its mouth a lot (I hope that’s not an indication that it’s going to be as talkative as Aunt Emily). Baby Kopp also refused to cooperate while the technician tried the 3D view (definitely not like 3D in the movies). It wouldn’t look at the camera no matter how many times the technician tried for a cute shot. Apparently, it’s stubborn like Richard and doesn’t enjoy having its photo taken like me. Overall, our ultrasound pics are unimpressive – we only have profile shots and its bottom half is cut-off so that we couldn’t see if it was a boy or girl.

But these grainy, black and white, waist-up profile shots were enough to convince Richard that it’s a boy. He claims that its facial structure is masculine and that it must be a boy or a very ugly girl. I don’t know what Richard is looking at, because to me it just looks like a skeleton or alien with a large head. I think I have a pretty discerning eye, so I’m confident that I’m right when I say that it didn’t look feminine or masculine but more like something you would find stuck to the bottom of your shoe. I mean it’s a 20-week old fetus – how manly can it look? It’s not like it has a chiseled jawline and a five o’clock shadow. Richard has an overactive imagination. And clearly he subconsciously wants it to be a boy, even though he says he’d be happy with either sex.

Although I won’t be changing my Facebook profile picture to a Baby Kopp ultrasound photo anytime soon, I am going to share a couple photos here just so you can see our macho-faced baby for yourself and weigh in on our sex debate.