in which i compare my unborn child to a rabbit

Back when I lived in Yuma [and Tim still hadn't noticed me], I decided to join 4-H.  I'd been begging for a dog for years, so I guess my parents figured that this was an easy way to appease my desire.  [It didn't work.]  They finally settled on letting me get a rabbit.  [Getting a goat and a rabbit was just too much to ask, I suppose.]

The day I went down to pick out my rabbit is still burned in my memory.  On a warm, sunny day, I chose a beautiful female mini-lop, with black and white spots covering her entire body.  I held her tiny frame in my arms the entire ride home, my heart already completely attached to my sweet little girl.  I named her Precious.

Over the next few weeks, my tiny baby bunny and I became inseparable.  As she grew, she became the most cuddly rabbit I have ever met.  She would always jump up into my lap and just wait for me to start petting her.  We even potty-trained her.  I couldn't have loved her more.

One day, my friend Ashley brought over her female rabbit and we decided to let them run around together in my backyard.  Before I knew it, however, my rabbit had gotten on top of her rabbit and started doing things the likes of which I'd never seen before.  I grabbed Precious off of Ashley's rabbit and frantically ran inside to my dad.

After I'd explained Precious's actions to him, he laughed a little and said that it sounded like my sweet little Precious was actually a boy.  I couldn't believe my ears.  I didn't believe it.  Hot tears ran down my face.  Could it be possible?

Once the shock wore off a few minutes later and I'd gotten used to the idea, the universe seemed back in alignment again.  Everything was fine.  I'd just change his name to Domino and that would be that.

[It never worked, by the way.  I always called him Precious and he was still the sweetest bunny I have ever met.]

But that brings me back to the present.  Over the past few weeks, I have had an inordinate amount of people ask me what I would do if my sweet little Ellie were actually a boy.  While I always found it an odd question, every single time, I would think of the story of my sweet little rabbit and smile a little inside.  Because I know that if Ellie were to be born a boy, I would probably react in the exact same way.  With hot tears.  Not because I wouldn't want a boy, but because I'd be in such shock.  Though thankfully I'm sure I wouldn't find out in the same dramatic fashion as when I was an unsuspecting nine-year-old.  [And, quite frankly, I don't think I'd get away with continuing to call him Ellie.]

But all of those unusual questions started to make me paranoid.  After doing several loads of laundry full of baby girl clothes, I started to wonder.  Even though I'd been told a couple of different times by different ultrasound technicians that my sweet baby was a girl, I couldn't help myself.  Why else would I keep getting asked that question?

At our appointment yesterday, as our doctor was checking up on our baby through an ultrasound, I asked him to please confirm for me one more time that we were actually having a girl and not a boy.

After looking around for a minute, he pointed to the screen.

"Does that look like a boy to you?"

"I, uh...I can't tell," I admitted.

He adjusted the wand.  "How about now?"

"Oh.  Oh yes.  Definitely a girl," I said, smiling.

Then a few minutes later, he dealt us the news that I hadn't made any progress and that baby girl was not likely to be born by my due date.  [Which is TODAY, by the way.]  And suddenly, I was no longer smiling.  We scheduled an induction for next Thursday morning just in case I haven't gone into labor by then.  But all rational thinking went out the window yesterday afternoon as I tried not to cry about the fact that I might be pregnant for another entire week.

But at least I'm not crying about the fact that my baby has had an unexpected sex change.

Because, you know, that would be traumatic, too.