He sighed and walked around to the passenger side. As I backed out of the driveway, he grumbled, "I don't know why you wouldn't let me drive."
"One, you're nervous. Two, you drive too fast on a normal day. Three, I wanted to."
J.J. chuckled but didn't argue with me anymore.
Twenty minutes later, we were in Dr. Stubens' office and I was lying back on the table with gel smeared on my belly. I knew how big the baby was supposed to be but it was still a surprise to see it on the screen. Well, the parts I could recognize, which was essentially the head in profile. Everything else was a strange mix of light and dark shapes.
Dr. Stubens seemed to know exactly what she was looking at though because after she checked to see that the baby was developing properly, she looked at me. "You still want to know the baby's sex, right?"
I nodded.
"Okay, then. Let's see, shall we?" She moved the device across my belly, shifting it here and there. "All right, little one, cooperate please." After a few seconds, she smiled. "Well, Mommy and Daddy, you're having a little girl!"
I smiled. "A girl? You're sure?"
"Well, I have been known to be wrong occasionally, but my accuracy is usually around ninety percent or so."
I looked up at J.J., who was still holding my hand like a lifeline.
"A girl?" he repeated, staring at the screen in awe. "How can you tell?"
Dr. Stubens pointed at some lines on the monitor. "See those? That's how I know it's a girl."
"I have no idea what I'm looking at," J.J. said.
I giggled.
"You don't have to know," Dr. Stubens said. "Because I do."
I imagined that was the tone she'd used when she babysat him decades ago because J.J. looked chastened.
Dr. Stubens removed the device from my belly. "Well, that's all for today. I'll print out some pictures for you to take home with you and then you can get dressed and go tell everyone you know that you're having a little girl."
J.J. and I laughed together.
Dr. Stubens put a towel on my abdomen so I could wipe myself off and she left the room.
I cleaned the gel off my belly and watched J.J. with a careful eye as he flopped down in the chair next to the table.
"You okay?" I asked.
"Yeah, I'm good." He looked at me and smiled. "I'm great. Just...oh my God, we're having a girl!"
I grinned and shook my head at him. "You have something against girls?"
"Absolutely not. I love Brody's girl to pieces. I should probably be grateful since that gives me some experience with girl children. I wouldn't know what to do with a boy." His eyes widened and he stared at me. "If we had a boy, do you think he would act like your brothers?"
I winced. "There's a good chance our daughter is going to act like my brothers, too. Our only hope is to make sure we don't leave her with them unsupervised until she's too old to be indoctrinated."
"How old will that be?" J.J. asked, looking less shell-shocked by the second.
"Forty-five?"
He laughed and leaned his head back against the wall. "Wow. I mean, I knew we had two options in terms of what the doctor would say today but knowing for sure just made it seem more real."
I knew exactly what he meant.
"Just be glad I didn't let your sister talk me into a gender reveal party," I commented. "She's been trying since she found out I was pregnant. Something about making an ice cream cake with pink or blue inside."
