Double, double, toil and trouble

As I approach the 20 week mark, and thus the BIG ultrasound, I am starting to get more questions about whether or not we are going to find out the sex of the baby. While we were entrenched in the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" camp for most of this pregnancy, when my acupuncturist accidentally said that she thinks that it's a girl, I began to wonder if we should find out. I didn't want to think of the baby as a girl only for it to be a boy! Luckily, one of my friends told me that her acupuncturist was wrong about the sex. Now, I feel pretty comfortable going back to thinking of it as "baby" rather than "little boy" or "little girl."

There are few really big surprises in life, and since we really don't care whether or not it's a girl or a boy, we may as well wait until it pops out! The probability is that it will be one or the other. Also, since we plan on Daniel "catching" the baby, it will be so much fun for him to announce, "It's a X!" (Hopefully, "X" will be replaced with "boy" or "girl.")

It seems that people really like to focus on the sex of the baby. I have a different obsession. As I am pretty sure that it will either be a girl or a boy, I like to spend my extra time thinking about what it will look like and what traits it may have! I am so amazed by the caldron of genes that are boiling in my belly! Just looking at my five brothers and sisters demonstrates how the same ingredients can make some very different casseroles!

Ingredient One: "Eye of newt"
-My first internet search focussed on eye color. Seems simple enough. Au contraire! The difficulty began when we needed to define what color Daniel's eyes actually are! After some time shining a flashlight in his eyes, I determined that they are a dark steel blue with brown around the iris. Basically, we went with blue. Mine are hazel, but most generators don't have "hazel" so we went with green. By imputing our eye colors, our parents' eye colors and our siblings' eye colors, we found that we have a 50% chance of a green eyed baby and a 50% chance of a blue eyed baby. Of course, neither of us has a "true" green or a "true" blue eye color, so really, who knows!

Ingredient Two: "Finger of birth-strangled babe"
-Daniel is left handed and very ambidextrous. I, on the other hand, really only have my left hand for the purpose of symmetry. According to a Johns Hopkins study, left handed people are generally more adept at language and usually go on to be wealthier than their right handed counterparts. Plus, I think that it's awesome to be called "sinister." Unfortunately, when the father is left handed, the child only has a 12% chance of being left handed. If I were left handed, there would be a 16% chance. Here's hoping to beating the odds!

Ingredient Three: "Lizard's leg"
-More than having a girl or a boy, my husband really wants our child to be tall. "A 6'-0" tall daughter would be awesome!" I then had to inform him that his 5'-6.5" tall wife is unlikely to have a 6'-0" tall daughter. I hope that he doesn't ask for a divorce! So let's see how tall our kids could possibly be based upon this equation:
-Girl: Daniel's height (73.5") - 5 = 68.5" + my height (66.5") = 135"/2 = 67.5", so 5'-7.5"
-Boy: my height (66.5") + 5 = 71.5" + Daniel's height (73.5") = 145"/2 = 72.5", so 6'-0.5"
I guess we'll see in about 18 years how accurate this is!

Ingredients Four & Five: "Nose of Turk, and Tartar's lips"
-Determining what a child's nose will look like is rather difficult. While the "Roman" nose is definitely more dominant, neither of us really has a "Roman" nose. I did find one study that indicated that the sharp nose, like Daniel has, is more dominant over the rounded nose, like I have. However, he is the only one of three brothers to have the sharp nose, so I'm thinking that our odds are really 50/50 round v. sharp nose! (This is obviously very accurate!)
-In terms of lips, full lips are dominate over thin lips. I wouldn't describe either of us as having really full lips, but I think that mine are a bit fuller. I win!

Ingredient Six: "Wool of bat"
-Who knew that hair color would be so difficult to determine! We can be fairly certain that by a certain age our child will have dark hair, as we each do; however, up until puberty, who knows! Daniel was blonde for most of his childhood, and while I always had dark hair, all of my siblings - all five of them - had blonde or red hair! I also carry the red gene, so it is possible that we could have a red haired baby! The hair color component is actually the most disconcerting to me. I think that I always imagined that my child would have dark hair from the get-go, so now I'm having to come to terms with the possibility that I may have a little tow headed rug rat!
-As we both have curly hair, it is unlikely that our baby will escape summer frizz!
-And in terms of hairline, my widow's peak is dominant, so our little baby should have a little widow's peak! How cute!
-In other hair notes, Daniel's long eyelashes are dominant over my regular ones! Awesome!

Ingredient Seven: "Scale of dragon"
-It is also likely that our child will get my freckles! I had better start stocking up on sun block.
-Daniel has a small cleft in his chin, but, as this is recessive, it is unlikely that our child will have it.
-Unattached earlobes are also dominant, so, as Daniel's earlobes are floating free, so must our baby's be!

For another five months, all of these little genes will stew. In the mean time, I'm sure that I will come up with more predictions about how this baby will look - a fun little exercise to look back upon in the future. Beyond that, however, my main desire is that "the charm is firm and good."