To see or not to see

We have our level II ultrasound tomorrow. First of all, we are really hoping we find out we have a healthy little monkey in there.

About 6 weeks ago, we did a "First Trimester Screen" based on advice from by OB. Since I'm now the ripe old age of 35, there seems to be a general fear in the medical community that I will give birth to a two-headed goat or something, so they want to test anything and everything they can get their hands on.

The First Trimester Screen looks at an ultrasound measurement called the Nuchal Translucency and then also assesses some bloodwork to determine your overall risk for Down's Syndrome and Trisomies 13 and 18. I won't to into the whole traumatic ordeal we went through there. The highlights were this - the ultrasound showed a "borderline" measurement - meaning it was on the big side which indicates a problem (either the above-mentioned or a cardiac defect). Thankfully, the blood work was so good it negated the trisomy risk and my overall screen came back "normal risk".

While I feel strongly this baby is healthy, because of that experience it seems less of a given than it did with Kate, so I have to say outright - most importantly, we hope it is healthy.

But that's not what this post is about. This post is about a far more trivial matter: should we find out the gender? We wanted to and planned to with Kate, but she was modest, and we wound up kind of enjoying the unknown. So we're trying to decide if we want to know now (for planning, names, etc.) or if we want to wait it out again. If we do find out, we're trying to decide if we're going to tell other people or at least try to keep it to ourselves.

I guess I'll just have to see what mood takes me at the appointment tomorrow. I almost wish I felt strongly about it one way or the other, because it would just be easier. Or maybe I am focusing on this one, relatively unimportant detail because it keeps me from worrying about finding a two or three chambered heart or something else that would be incompatible with life.

Either way, I look forward to getting this over with.