“That feeling makes me a little nervous”

The life of Tess Hoens is wonderful, but getting pregnant didn't go as she had thought. Because there is already enough of a facade and because honesty helps, she writes about how her pregnancy is going. This week: is she having a son or a daughter?

The gender of the baby. It's quite a thing nowadays. On social media, you see the most extreme parties and ‘reveals’ passing by. Full of blue or pink confetti and smoke cannons, cakes with color, and many guests with gifts and fuss. Recently, I saw a video of a man who jumped into the pool when he became a father to a son, he was so happy that his child was the same gender as him. I immediately wonder how he would have reacted if pink smoke had exploded from his cannon. Would he have jumped into the pool and then not been able to come up for air out of despair? I hear many men around me shamelessly express that they really expect a son. Now you can even influence the gender in some countries. Personally, I don't find it entirely ethically responsible (read: not at all), but maybe my opinion is a bit colored by my fertility journey and I think everyone should be happy with a healthy baby. With a penis or a vagina.

The ultrasound where we would initially see the gender, at 14 weeks, was canceled due to corona. That meant we would find out at the next medical ultrasound, which was at 20 weeks. On the way to the ultrasound, I naturally become more and more curious about the gender. I dream every time that it's a girl, but in the last dream, I wasn't happy about it at all. The fact that I felt that way (even if it was just a dream) makes me a bit nervous. My boyfriend is not allowed to go to the ultrasound, so he watches via FaceTime. We decided to experience all the medical stuff together this way, but to have the gender written on a note, so we can be together when we find out. At the ultrasound, they check a lot. The kidneys, the spine, toes, fingers, heart chambers, you name it. Everything looks good, but it will take a while before we can open the note and I am getting more and more impatient. Soon I will walk around the corner to my boyfriend's work to read whether we are having a son or daughter.

It's my boyfriend's honor to open the note. I get to carry the little one and bring it into the world (although I don't know if I should be that happy about it). Friends asked me if I want to film the moment and our reaction for them, but I'm not in the mood for that. This is something for us together, I want to be able to look at my boyfriend's face properly. He opens the paper and stares at it briefly, he looks at me and it seems like I see teary eyes for the first time in him. ‘A boy’, he hands me the paper and I read the same. We are having a son.