Anticipation and imagination.

So I'll admit to being a little (just a little) bit disappointed about the "it's a boy" news.  Not because of an inherent preference of girls over boys, I don't think;  I am pretty sure I was kind of rooting for my daughter to get a sister, which she doesn't have yet, that's all.  It will go away eventually, probably long before the birth, certainly by VERY shortly after.   

Hannah said that it's different when you find out the gender at the birth -- there almost isn't a possibility of real disappointment, because at the same moment as you discover the sex of your baby, well, there's a BABY!  A real live one right there in your arms!  (Or maybe you don't know until even a few minutes after that.)  And there he is! (Or she.)  And beautiful!  And perfect!  A whole little person, and how could you want anyone else?

The photographs, and even the wriggling live image on the tech's screen, are beautiful too, but there is an element of unreality about them.  I can't look at those pictures as pictures of a person I really know, not yet; it's like a photograph that arrives in the mail.  You open the envelope and think, "There he is;" but no, there he isn't, it's just a picture, it's not illuminated from within with a memory and a knowledge (connaitre) of a person, with the reality of someone making themselves known -- a voice that shoves the air around like he means it, limbs that kick and elbow and make room for himself, winks and smiles and snarls, picking things up and putting them down where he wants them to be.   The squirming creature in my belly (who really is the baby, though unseen) is already doing that, shoving my insides about and kicking me in the cervix.  It's hard for me to connect him with the photographs in any deeply felt way.

Not much strikes us as unusually callous about, "Gosh, I was hoping for a different sort of picture to arrive in the mail."  But it would feel wrong, maybe even impossible, to hope for a different real person when the real person is really right in your arms.  When he is there he is himself, and himself is the sweet baby, you know?

It led me on to contemplate the nature of prenatal testing in general.  We had news that "everything looks fine," lucky us so far.  Some don't get that.  What a difference it must be for those who get Bad News after, or right at, birth, compared to finding out while the baby seems little more than images on the screen.   It's not quite the difference between hearing sad news about a stranger, and sad news about a close friend; but maybe a little like that?   

I hear people say that it is helpful to know Bad News ahead of time because it gives time to prepare.  Maybe that is so.  I can see it giving time to prepare for living with Bad News.  I don't think, though, it can prepare for knowing and loving the little person, the person who lives (for however long) with the reality that the Bad News represents imperfectly.  

There's a  terminology called "person-first language" for speaking about people who live with disabilities and conditions of one kind or another -- it's occasionally derided as politically-correct, and not all people want it used about themselves, but as a matter of respecting human dignity I use it as my first choice at least when it is not linguistically awkward.  It's the difference between "a cancer patient" and "a person with cancer," between "a Down's kid" and "a kid who has Down's."  Instead of putting the disease or disability first, it reminds us that people are first and foremost people.  It is a slight difference, but I think a difference that makes a difference.  

Prenatal diagnosis of disorders of one kind or another has utility.  I see that.  I do.  I think though that it can't help but put the disorder, disease, disability, dis-whatever before the person, because you can't help but know it outside the context of knowing the person; the person is still secret, hidden, inside.  It's a trade-off.  That's all.  There may be consequences.  Almost no new good thing is without them.

This is not my story, and there is a twist of irony about my writing it; here I am writing about people who receive Bad News, and imagine its effect on their lives, before they can the whole story, the whole person, the wholeness of the effect on their lives; and of course in writing it I am imagining how I would feel if it were me, even more imagination.  I can hardly fault imaginary people for imagining things.  Silly blogger.

The whole thing should teach us all to avoid, or sharply curtail, imagining how things must be in the lives of other people we can't really know.  It's not true that we can't make judgments about ought-to and should; but we really cannot judge how things must be and how experiences are lived.  Including how people live in circumstances we think we would find intolerable.  Many real people are imaginary to us, and when we move their little avatars around in our minds it's good to remember that the avatars are just that, imaginary; the real people are somewhere else, making their own moves on a distinctly real field.

But all that is beside the point today.  I have a new little boy to get to know.  This is not he, not exactly, but it is a picture of him:

He is squirming and real, and I can't show him to you just quite yet.

Comments

[Barbara C.]

Like I mentioned before, I was one of those people who got "Bad News". And it was horrifying on many levels. For one thing, I had spent a good thirty minutes admiring the toes and fingers of my baby girl and then the doctor came in and started mentioning abortion. Secondly, when he gave us the "Bad News" we were so over-whelmed that we couldn't completely process what he was telling us. Plus, he kept giving us worse case scenarios instead of the most realistic scenarios, which were way lest scary.

But we tried to function for four weeks before our next ultrasound thinking about the worst. When I learned what the real situation was I was so angry...I still am.

Thankfully we had a super-happy ending. I'm glad your experience went well, too.

As for the boy/girl thing, my husband really wanted to know the sex because we already had two girls. He knew that he would be more disappointed to find out it was a girl at birth instead of having time to adjust. So there's that aspect, too, since men don't have the post-birth hormones to helping them bond in quite the same way as mothers.

[MrsDarwin]

Congratulations!

When we found out we were having our third girl, I had a momentary twinge of disappointment, but it passes real fast -- the joy of being able to call the baby by name quickly takes over. I really enjoy being able to talk to baby by name; after all, they can hear you. :)

[Cathie B]

I, too, got bad news with Ambrose. They didn't believe me about my conception date and insisted on going with my "LMP" date, which would be fine if I had a 28 day cycle. But I often have 42 day cycles (like that month)...So, he had three markers for some "genetic disorder". Our care team never once mentioned abortion, but we had made it very clear upfront that it didn't matter. IF something was wrong, we wanted to prepare ourselves, not terminate the pregnancy. I did opt to do the blood test because the results would be back sooner than they would schedule the next ultrasound. Sure enough, my chances of any "genetic disorder" were less than that of a 22 year old. By the time the next ultrasound came, all the things that were markers, cleared up with age/time. Now, I do wish they would have caught the other problems with that pregnancy (placenta that failed early on), but that's another story ;-).

Hey - maybe you'll just have to have another after this little boy so MJ can have a baby sister to baby.

[Sara]

My 4th was born at home. The oldest is a girl and he was the 3rd boy. She awoke when we were all settling down for the night and came to meet him saying, "A Boy? Two boys was too many!" But she got over it rather quickly---when she came back in the next morning she said she didn't care if he was a boy or girl, she loved him anyway!

[Margaret in Minnesota]

And thus, Miss MJ remains a princess among knights. She will probably come to relish this title, and on days when the rough-housing gets to be too much, she can always come play here.

We've purple and pink all over the place.