Arica and I have two friends and one sister-in-law that are currently pregnant. In the past month I have seen ultrasound pictures of both friend's babies. One was the first ultrasound. The other was that ever proud sex determining second ultrasound.
Our friends proudly showed us the picture so carefully labeled with the words "boy parts" (couldn't a medical professional come up with a better term?). They could barely contain their joy. Their little swimmer had boy parts. This little phrase and the sharing of black and white photos has long since surpassed the traditional declaration of "it's a boy" that used to follow right after birth.
I think it's a good thing. It gives everyone the opportunity to be ready with gender specific baby gear when the little one arrives. The pre-birth sexing has virtually done away with appalling gender neutral nursery designs. Maybe now we can do away with dessert colored walls altogether.
However, with this new way of doing business a strange tradition is being formed. All around America there is an army of pregnant women carrying around pictures of their unborn sons' private parts. This is clearly the only time in our society that it is OK to carry around a naked picture of your child and show it to everyone you meet.
It is perfectly acceptable to see your aunt in Wal Mart and say hey we're having a boy. Look right there. You can see his penis.
The advent of these ultrasound DVDs is no different. They are like little in-utero adult movies. There are long periods of grainy footage that looks nothing like a human life intermingled with proclamations of "There it is!" or "Look right there. No there. See it?"
More aptly these things could be narrated as such, "blah, blah, blah, penis, blah."
Now I love technology just like the next guy. It has brought me unspeakable happiness, but sometimes it makes us act just plain crazy.
Of course if we have another boy some day we are going to show the picture pages to everyone just like we did the first time. I would just like to note that if aliens are watching us from some planet in a distant solar system, they probably think we are a little strange.
9 comments:
this post was cracking me up. i have one friend that's pregnant and due in march and she's not finding out the sex. I'd have to know!
My wife is also due in March, and we'll find out tomorrow whether we are having a boy or girl.
I started writing a comment but then it got long winded so I just turned it into my own post. :)
http://twistedchristian.ca/dadblog/sprouts-ultrasound-tomorrow/
haha. this is hilarious...nice...
You are right...I never thought of it like that, but I carried around that ultrasound pic proving that I had a little boy in my tummy until I had the little boy himself. Okay, maybe not that long, but I did show EVERYONE!
It's a little strange when you think about it.
Funny story. We described to a coworker of my wifes how the tech had pointed out the boy parts to us when we were at that stage. She said 'Oh, where they insert a little arrow to show you where it is, right?"
Once we got to the car we simultaneously busted up. We were both thinking. 'We didn't need no stinking arrow to see it!'
Too funny how proud that made us at the time. lol.
You know, I remember when I was pregnant with Ari and the ultrasound technician (who had a thick Russian accent) proudly handed over a picture of my future son's penis (on ultrasound) to Wil. "Eet-z a boy!"
She proclaimed. Yes, our country is werid.
Personally, I think they are just guessing half the time when they point things out on ultrasounds. It all looks like a bunch of gobbledy gook to me. But it would be nice to eliminate walls that are painted like dessert.
It's almost as if women are as penis obsessed as men.
as always -- good takes here. when we learned that 2 of our 3 were boys, i asked the nurse tech how she knew.
she printed out the pictures and drew circles around nearly-indiscernable extension coming from between their legs.
"see these protrusions?" she asked. "they're penises."
"YEAH," i answered like a jackass. (i half-thought about going for a chest bump, but i thought better of it.) "You damn straight they are," i continued as i held up my hand for a high-five (which she reluctantly granted. "my boys are locked and LOADED. they can drop the HAMMA."
my wife begged me to stopped, telling me how embarrassed she was.
"oh, it's okay honey. it's perfectly natural. well all get a little red-face when confronted with such a startling display of virility."
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