We've had two more ultrasounds since the last post - one at 10 weeks and one at 12 weeks. The baby looks great and has been VERY active during the ultrasounds. The doctor called the baby a "bucking bronco" and the nurse told us a baby that active had to be a boy. Josh just smiled and said, "I don't know. That actually reminds me a lot of our daughter!" Of course, we would be thrilled with a boy or a girl, but it's fun to guess while we're waiting for the big 20 week ultrasound to (hopefully) show us whether we need pink or blue.
We still haven't told Claire the big news. I'm not really "showing" yet and, honestly, I'm still a little nervous to tell her. I know she'll be happy to become a big sister, so I'm not worried about her reaction. It's just that the stakes are a lot higher once she knows. Right now, if something goes wrong, it's just Josh and me who will be hurt and we can deal with that. But if something goes wrong after we tell Claire, it will be a whole new level of heartbreak.
Telling Claire also means that I will have to start talking about (and thinking about) the baby in more concrete terms. Right now, I usually say things like, "If this baby works out...". It's a bit of a protective mechanism, I guess. There's a part of me still waiting for the other shoe to drop. But once we tell Claire, we'll have to use more definite terms. Talking about the baby like it's just an "if", a "maybe", would be too confusing for a three year old. But it scares me to talk as though we're actually going to have this baby - like if I say it aloud, I'll jinx it. I know logically that's not how it works, but I'm willing to admit that, after the roller coaster we've been on the last 17 months, sometimes my emotions overrule my logic.
We have another doctor's appointment on Wednesday, so we'll probably tell her sometime after that. I do want to make sure we tell her before it gets too obvious, but I want to wait until after next week's appointment to make sure we still have a healthy heart beat in there.
