MYOB

My sister is hopping up and down in the hospital lobby, washing down a pack of Hostess Chocolate donettes with a coke.

“Do you feel anything?” I ask.

“I feel something, but I don’t know if it’s me or the baby,” she says. My brother-in-law asks for one of her Donettes. She says no.

Renate and I have been invited along for the final attempt to determine the sex of our niece/nephew. The baby refused to cooperate during the initial try back in May, keeping its legs chastely clamped together during the sonogram.

“All we could see were feet,” my sister told me in bemused frustration over the phone. “In one of the sonograms, it looks like the baby is flipping us the bird.”

“You mean like, ‘mind your own business,’” I said.

“Exactly.”

During this morning’s inaugural twenty minute exam, we meet with similar resistance.

“I’ve tried to get a look four times now,” the sonogram technician says apologetically as we huddle in the darkened exam staring at the computer screen. “The baby is facing Katie’s back, and it’s basically kneeling. I can’t even get a peek.”

She could have lied and none of us would’ve been the wiser. To me, the baby looks like a bunch of blobs.

“You can see the baby is practicing breathing,” the technician says, pointing at a blob that moves rhythmically. “Oh look, the baby is sticking its tongue in and out.” The technician also points out a hand, and I actually see one. It is the only thing I will recognize on the screen all morning. “This won’t come as a surprise to you, but the baby is covering its face,” she says. This baby loves its privacy.

The technician spends a few more minutes jabbing and kneading my sister’s stomach with the sonogram probe in the hopes of coaxing the baby into movement.

“Are you a gestational diabetic?” she finally asks my sister, who is not. “If you want, go downstairs, get a coke and a candy bar, and we’ll try again. The sugar and caffeine might get the baby moving.”

Ten minutes later, my sister is hopping in the lobby with her Donettes and soda, giggling at herself out of frustration. Renate and I suck down coffee and Krispy Kreme donuts, and John sips a dreamsicle-flavored slushee. We’d planned to get breakfast afterwards to celebrate the good news, but we’re rapidly running out of time.

“That kid owes us breakfast,” I say.

“This stuff tastes like wax,” my sister says, grimacing.

For luck, none of us go in with my sister for Round 2. I excuse myself to the bathroom, then panic that I’m missing the big revelation. I envision myself walking back in to the doctor’s office to find my sister hugging John and Renate. But they’re both still flipping through magazines when I return, and the waiting room slowly fills with pregnant women and new mothers.

Five minutes later, my sister emerges, gritting her teeth and shaking her head.

“Sorry,” Renate says.

“If it’s this stubborn, it’s got to be a boy,” I say.

Looks like we’ll have to wait and see.