The Waiting Game

by Miranda Peterson

My sister is having a baby in a few months. It's her first. In fact, it will be the first member of the "next generation" for my entire family, the first baby in close to twenty years. The new arrival will be my parents' first grandchild and my grandma's first great-grandchild. This is a big deal for all of us.

My sister announced in March that she was expecting, and since then it seems that the baby is all anyone in the family thinks about. It's certainly all we talk about. Will it be a boy or a girl? Will it favor my petite sister or her big-boned husband? Will it have the thatch of dark hair that all Peterson babies are born with, or will it be sporting the cue-ball look? Will it be a boy or a girl? What will they name it? Who will care for it when my sister returns to work? Will it be a boy or a girl?

I guess you can tell which of these concerns is most occupying our thoughts right now.

My sister, bless her heart, has decided that she doesn't want to know before the baby is born whether it's a boy or a girl. That's right--she's chosen to forgo the wonders of modern science and sit in suspense for the next several months. Worse, she's condemned all of us to sit in suspense. How can she do this to us? Doesn't she understand that we want to start buying wee, frilly things or tiny baseball gloves? How long does she think we can be satisfied shopping for green and yellow pajamas?

She has her reasons, of course. She says that she wants to be surprised, that it's more exciting when a baby is born not to know already that it's a boy, say, and that his name is John Robert. I can understand that, I suppose. I have friends who knew in advance whether they were having a boy or a girl, and I admit the baby's actual arrival was a bit anti-climactic (for bystanders, I mean--probably not for the parents). But this is almost sort of my baby, in a way, and nothing could diminish the excitement of his or her birth. Knowing the gender would just give me a head-start on all the spoiling I plan to do.

I'm impatient and I want to know now if I'll be having a niece or a nephew. If we knew we were waiting on a boy or a girl, we could cut our list of potential names in half. I hate to think that we're all wasting time considering names that won't even be needed when the time comes. My sister is deaf to this argument, though. She says that she likes thinking about boy names and girl names, and that she likes to daydream about both boy babies and girl babies. She has an answer to everything, that woman, and she refuses to listen to reason.

She went to her doctor's office yesterday for an ultrasound, and I went with her. In the car on the way to the appointment, I pulled out all the stops trying to convince her to ask the technician for the gender. She wouldn't budge, and finally sighed in exasperation. "Miranda," she said, almost patiently "do you want me to tell you, really, why I don't want to know?"

"Yes!" I exclaimed. "Yes, I do! I don't understand it at all."

"Okay." She took a deep breath. "You probably won't like this, but here goes ...."

She told me that although she was thrilled that everyone in the family was so excited about the baby, that she felt a little as though we were taking over the whole affair. Finding out or not finding out the baby's gender was one area where she could exercise some control, and she wanted to keep some little bit of the experience private, between her and the baby. I tried to work up some righteous indignation, but as I looked back on the past couple of months, I had to admit that she had a point. We had been overwhelming her, and I suppose we had appropriated some of the specialness of the anticipation.

She gave me a sheepish look and said, "I'm sorry... don't be mad. It's just--"

"No, I'm sorry," I interrupted, feeling a little chagrined. "I wasn't thinking about it that way."

So, needless to say, I didn't pressure her any more, either in the car or during the ultrasound. I'm going to try to respect her boundaries a little more from now on and not argue about the way she wants to do things. I'm not saying I'll agree with everything, but I think I've finally realized that this is her baby, and we're all lucky that she's been so gracious about sharing so much with us. I still would like to know if I should be buying pink or blue, but I have to say that after seeing those little kicks and waves on the ultrasound screen, it seems much less important to attach the label of "boy" or "girl" to that precious little bundle. After all, we will know soon enough, and besides, good things come to those who wait, right?

The Author

Miranda Peterson is a recent college graduate who is about to embark on the adventures of adulthood. First, however, she's taking the summer off to relax and travel.