Chapter 102 Finding Out
Crew's POV,
The twenty-week ultrasound was scheduled for a Wednesday afternoon, right in the middle of what would normally be practice time. Coach had given me the day off without me even asking.
"Go find out if you're having a boy or girl," he'd said. "Team needs to know what color baby gear to buy."
Harper was nervous. More nervous than she'd been for any previous appointment. She'd barely slept the night before, kept getting up to pee and then lying awake worrying.
"What if something's wrong?" she'd whispered at 3 AM. "What if they find something on the anatomy scan?"
"Then we deal with it. But Harper, every appointment so far has been perfect. The baby's healthy. You're healthy. Stop catastrophizing."
"Catastrophizing is my love language."
Now we were in the waiting room of Dr. Yoon's office, Harper bouncing her leg anxiously, me holding her hand.
"We don't have to find out the gender," I said. "We can wait until birth. Keep it a surprise."
"No. I need to know. I need to be able to plan. Buy the right clothes. Paint the nursery. Call the baby something other than 'blob.'"
"Blob is a perfectly good name."
"We're not naming our child Blob Lawson."
A nurse called us back. Same routine as before—vitals, weight check, questions about how Harper was feeling. Then into the ultrasound room where Dr. Yoon was waiting.
"Twenty weeks," Dr. Yoon said cheerfully. "Halfway there. How are you feeling, Harper?"
"Tired. Anxious. My back hurts. I have to pee every thirty seconds. Other than that, great."
"All very normal for twenty weeks." She pulled up Harper's chart. "Weight gain is right on track. Blood pressure looks good. Any concerning symptoms? Bleeding, severe cramping, vision changes?"
"No. Just the normal stuff."
"Perfect. Let's take a look at this baby." Dr. Yoon set up the ultrasound, this time abdominal instead of transvaginal. Squeezed cold gel on Harper's now-visible bump. "This scan is more detailed. We're checking organ development, bone structure, placenta position, fluid levels. Takes about thirty minutes. And if you want to know the gender, we should be able to tell you."
The screen came to life. And suddenly there was a baby. Not a blob. An actual baby-shaped baby. Head, body, arms, legs. Moving around like they owned the place.
"Oh my god," Harper whispered.
"That's your baby," Dr. Yoon said. "Much bigger than last time. Let me get some measurements."
She moved the probe around, clicking and measuring. Called out numbers I didn't understand. Harper watched the screen like she was trying to memorize every pixel.
"Baby's measuring right at twenty weeks exactly. Head circumference is perfect. Spine looks great—all the vertebrae are forming correctly. Four-chamber heart, all beating as it should. Stomach, kidneys, bladder—everything's where it should be." Dr. Yoon moved the probe lower. "And if you want to know the gender, I can tell you now."
Harper looked at me. "Do we want to know?"
"It's up to you."
"I want to know. I need to know." She turned to Dr. Yoon. "Please tell us."
Dr. Yoon smiled. "You're having a girl. Congratulations."
A girl.
We were having a daughter.
I felt something crack open in my chest. Not breaking. Opening. Like I'd been holding something closed for thirty years and suddenly it wasn't necessary anymore.
Harper was crying. Happy tears. "A girl. We're having a girl."
"A healthy girl," Dr. Yoon corrected. "All the anatomy looks normal. No markers for any conditions. She's perfect."
She showed us more—tiny fingers, tiny toes, the profile of our daughter's face. Printed out a dozen ultrasound photos. Gave us a recording of the heartbeat that was stronger now, louder, more real than it had been at eight weeks.
After the appointment, Harper and I sat in the car in stunned silence.
"A daughter," she said finally.
"A daughter," I repeated.
"We're going to have a daughter. A tiny human girl who's going to depend on us for everything."
"That was true before we knew the gender."
"I know, but now it's real. Now I can picture her. Now she's not just 'the baby.' She's our daughter."
I put my hand on Harper's stomach. "Hey blob. Turns out you're a girl blob. That's cool. Your mom's a girl. She's going to teach you everything. I'm just here to make sure nothing bad happens to you and probably fail at that constantly."
"Stop catastrophizing to the baby."
"I'm being realistic to the baby. There's a difference."
We drove home and immediately called everyone.
My mom first. "It's a girl! You're having a granddaughter!"
She started crying immediately. "A little girl. Oh sweetheart, that's wonderful. Have you thought about names?"
"We literally found out five minutes ago. We haven't thought about anything except the fact that she's healthy."
"Well start thinking. I'm making a list."
Harper's mom was next. Same reaction. More crying. Immediate questions about names and nursery colors and whether we'd thought about schools yet.
"Mom, she's not even born. We have time to think about kindergarten."
"You'd be surprised how fast it comes. I need to start planning now."
Maya screamed when we told her. Actual screaming. "A GIRL! I'm going to have a niece! Simone, they're having a girl!"
"We can hear you without the speakerphone," I said.
"I don't care! This is scream-worthy news!" More screaming. "I'm going shopping. Right now. Girl clothes are so much cuter than boy clothes. Your daughter is going to be the most fashionable infant in Vancouver."
After we'd called everyone, Harper and I lay on the couch together, my hand on her stomach where our daughter was presumably doing backflips or whatever twenty-week fetuses did.
"We need to pick a name," Harper said.
"We have four months."
"We need to start thinking about names. We can't just call her blob until June."
"Blob was growing on me."
"We're not naming her Blob." She pulled out her phone, opened a baby name app. "What about Emma? Charlotte? Olivia?"
"Everyone has those names. They're too common."
"That's what your mom said about Emma. You're both name snobs."
"I'm not a name snob. I just want something that's hers. Something that doesn't make her one of five kids with the same name in her class."
"Fine. What do you suggest?"
I thought about it. "What about after someone important? Your mom. My mom. Someone who matters to us."
"Susan Lawson sounds terrible. And Diane is your mom's name. That's weird."
"Not their first names. Their middle names. Something that honors them without being obvious."
Harper scrolled through her phone. "My mom's middle name is Marie. Your mom's is Rose."
"Rose Lawson. That's not bad."
"Rose Marie Lawson?"
"That's a lot of names."
"What about just Rose? Simple. Classic. Not overly common. Could grow with her from baby to adult."
I tested it. "Rose Lawson. Rose. Rosie." It felt right. Sounded right. "I like it."
"Rose," Harper said to her stomach. "What do you think? Do you like being Rose instead of blob?"
As if in response, Harper's stomach moved. Not much, just a flutter, but visible from the outside.
"Did you see that?" Harper grabbed my hand, pressed it to where the movement had been. "She moved. That was her moving."
"That was blob—Rose. That was Rose."
We stayed like that for twenty minutes, my hand on Harper's stomach, both of us waiting for Rose to move again. She did, three more times. Tiny movements that felt impossibly huge.
"She's real," Harper whispered. "I mean, I knew she was real. But now she's real in a way that's different. I can feel her. I can see her on ultrasounds. I know she's a girl named Rose. She's not hypothetical anymore."
"She was never hypothetical. She's been real since the positive test."
"I know. But this is different. This is—" Harper's voice cracked. "This is our daughter. We're having a daughter named Rose and she's going to be here in four months and I don't know if I'm ready."
"Nobody's ready. We just fake it until we figure it out."
"What if we're bad at this? What if we mess her up?"
"Then we unmess her. Or we pay for therapy. Or we do our best and hope it's enough." I kissed Harper's forehead. "We're going to be okay. All three of us. Even when we don't know what we're doing."
That evening, Maya and Simone showed up with bags from the baby store. Pink everything. Dresses, onesies, blankets, bows, shoes that were impossibly tiny.
"I know you said gender-neutral," Maya said, dumping everything in the nursery. "But she's a girl now. Girls get pink."
"Not all girls like pink," Harper protested.
"She can decide that when she has opinions. Until then, she gets what Aunt Maya buys her." Maya held up a onesie that said "Daddy's Girl." "This one's for Crew."
"I'm not putting my daughter in something that says 'Daddy's Girl.' That's creepy."
"It's cute!"
"It's possessive and weird."
"You're overthinking baby clothes."
We spent the evening organizing baby gear, folding impossibly small clothes, arguing about whether pink was too gendered or perfectly appropriate for a baby girl who couldn't possibly care yet.
By midnight, the nursery looked almost ready. Crib set up. Changing table stocked. Dresser full of tiny clothes organized by size. Bookshelf waiting for books we hadn't bought yet.
"Four months," Harper said, standing in the doorway. "In four months, there's going to be a human in here."
"A human named Rose."
"Rose Lawson. Our daughter." She turned to me. "Are you scared?"
"Terrified. You?"
"Beyond terrified. But also excited. Is that normal?"
"I think that's exactly normal."
We went to bed late, both exhausted but wired. In the dark, Harper said, "What if I'm a bad mom? What if I don't know what to do?"
"Then you ask for help. You read books. You call your mom. You figure it out." I put my hand on her stomach. "Hey Rose. Your mom's already worried about failing you and you're not even born yet. That's how you know she's going to be a great mom. Bad moms don't worry."
"Stop giving parenting advice to the fetus."
"Someone has to. You're too busy catastrophizing."
Harper laughed. "We're going to be parents to a girl named Rose. That's insane."
"That's our life now. Insane but real."
"I love you. Even when you're being annoyingly optimistic."
"I love you too. Even when you're catastrophizing about our daughter who currently weighs less than a pound."
We fell asleep holding each other, both of us thinking about Rose. About the daughter we were having in four months. About the fact that our family of two was becoming three.