At twenty weeks we had another routine ultrasound. This one took about an hour, during which time the sonographer took photos of every part of the baby that a baby has. She checked the size of my uterus, size of the baby, looked at the kidneys, limbs, spine, face, and spent quite a while getting different shots of the heart. Actually, she spent an extra long time on the heart because baby wasn’t quite in the best position for viewing that particular organ. She pushed on my belly a bit to try to induce some fetal shifting, but really only got shoved back and produced some wiggles, not a half somersault that I think she was hoping for.

I’m not really sure what exactly they look for in all these pre-natal photos, but apparently we should be getting the results soon. All I knew is that we would likely discover the gender, which we did. On the way home Dave asked if we could keep it a secret for a little while or at least wait until those in our immediate families asked specifically. This is a little tougher for me because I don’t necessarily like secrets and my family is less likely to ask, but Dave does have a point that we haven’t really kept a lot of secrets about this pregnancy.

Although, I would argue that the fact that most people didn’t know we wanted to have kids or, not surprisingly, thought we were opposed to the idea, means that we did keep some secrets in that area. Not really intentionally, but mostly because we’re both the type who keep things to ourselves until we feel an overwhelming need to talk about said things. I don’t mean to contradict myself. We don’t tend to keep secrets, we just don’t always think to say things out loud or feel comfortable talking about emotional things with other people.

Avoiding the subject with others or speaking disdainfully about kids was a good way to keep from having to talk about it before we had worked it out with each other or before we each individually knew how we felt about it. That, and neither of us are terribly fond of children in the wild even though I’m sure we’ll become typical proud parents who are biased in favor of our own domesticated spawn. Being indifferent to children was a clear way of sending a message to parents that we honestly weren’t interested. Sounds a bit harsh, I guess, but I hope that I retain the insight needed to keep from inflicting my bundle of adorable responsibility and stinky rambunctiousness on other unwilling adults who probably don’t have the tolerance for baby antics and who would do everyone else a favor by being honest about it.

So in that sense, we did unintentionally keep a secret. We also have plenty of inside jokes, come to think of it, that we share with a quick glance or a conversation when we’re alone and unwinding from the day. I’ll honor Dave’s wishes for now and enjoy knowing something just about no one else does for a while. I just hope I don’t slip up and accidentally use a pronoun.

How do you feel about keeping secrets?