Some things you just know. I (and thank goodness I have back-up on this one) knew I was having a baby girl. At 19 weeks, the sonographer scratched her head and said, “Huh. I thought it was a girl too,” but printed out a picture that said “It’s a boy!” And off we went to announce to everyone that mama’s intuition is a myth and that we better buy some Vikings baby gear. I was confused by the news that disproved both my gut feelings and a beautiful dream that Joe had of his long-haired daughter chatting him up, but I didn’t want to act like i didn’t want a boy. I would love a boy. So I started trying to love my “boy.” But every now and then we’d ask each other, “What if the ultrasound technician was wrong? What if all these blue clothes are for a little girl?”

“As long as the baby’s healthy” is one of the cliches mocked in the song “Pregnant Women are Smug.” Of course, I found myself saying it today, since this was the sonogram that I mentioned in my last post, to determine if the baby was too small. And no, not too small. Not too big. Just not a boy. One of my best friends flew in to visit within an hour of the appointment and was able to join us in the doctor’s office. To her credit, she said to our new ultrasound technician, “I still think it’s a girl” moments before we learned that she was. We all saw clear as day that the baby due to arrive in one week is a GIRL. I’d post a sonogram picture for you, but when I say clear as day, I mean it. And I don’t think that’s how she should make her first appearance on the Web.

This discovery upended the last five months’ preparations, but also lead to hours of euphoric laughter and endless I told you sos. And then we began the list of moments when we were just sure that she was a girl: how we had her name picked out ages ago, but struggled to commit to a boy’s name, the way that she danced in my belly at the Indigo Girls concert and the Chorus Line documentary, the day that I almost bought her a dress when we were in Mexico but never bought a single onesie for fear that it would be the wrong size or color for a person we hadn’t met. Even after the first ultrasound (the one when the baby looks part amoeba-part alien and they refuse to identify gender for fear of getting it wrong), I came running to Joe’s rehearsal with a stack of pictures, saying things like, “She put her hands up above her face” and “She looked at me!”

“She?” Everyone asked.

“Well, I don’t know. But I just know.”

How nice to discover that all the fancy equipment and medical training can’t always compete with what you or your body simply knows. And no worries, she’ll still sport her Vikings fan wear.