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‘It’s a GIRL!!’ – our scan that didn’t quite go to plan!

Multiple Guinness World Record holder, serial Adventurer & Fundraiser Jamie McDonald is renowned for being one of the most talented motivational speakers in the world.

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Here’s a parenthood vlog that will show all:

 

 

This adventure baby journey is turning into an absolute rollercoaster, especially for our second baby scan!

So, I wanted the sex of the baby to be a surprise and annoyingly Anna didn’t! She’s the planner in our relationship, so she figured being able to know the gender of the baby would help with all of that side of things.

We thought the best way to reach a compromise was to flip a coin, OBVIOUSLY. Everyone knows that it’s the best way to solve any dispute…..isn’t it?!!

Anna suggested we do ‘best of three’, so I agreed. I opted for ‘tails never fails’ which normally stands me in good stead and that’s when Anna declared ‘No, I want to go tails!’ – Uh oh!!

I didn’t bat an eye lid at this, we were both jittery and I’ve had many victories with ‘heads’ so I did the gentlemanly thing and said ‘Ok. I’ll go with heads then. Heads always win.’

Anna was astonished, she said ‘I can’t believe you let me have that. Ok here goes.’ But she didn’t know what I knew about heads luck!

Anyhow, whatever the chances, I’m supposed to be a motivational speaker, so I HAVE to be ultimately optimistic – even when it’s a 50/50.

Thinking about it, if it’s a 50/50 situation and I’m blindly optimistic, maybe that’s a BAD THING.

Ah well, the first spin was from Anna and it was tails, she whooped! I shouted ‘Noooo!’

‘Okay. I’ll flip this one.’ I said confidently. Sure enough it was heads.

This time Anna shouted ‘Noooo.’

Even stevens now, one all!

Anna flipped the next one but it went so far up, it landed on my head and then hit the floor.

Anna was the first one to look at it and shouted ‘Oh, no. It’s heads.’

‘Yes. Yes. And Yes!!’ I shouted. Anna was gutted.

As we were driving to the hospital, I felt a slight pang of guilt as I knew how much Anna wanted to know the sex of the baby. So I told her it was fine if she wanted to go ahead and find out the gender at the scan.

She jumped for joy (obviously whilst remaining in full control of the car!) and then explained, ‘It’s like I’m carrying it and I’ve got to bond with it and I just want to stop calling it, “it” and start calling it he or she. Does that make sense?’

It totally did.

We both agreed too that our gut feeling was telling us it was a boy. We had total boy vibes. Anna also explained that even if it was a boy, we were going to dress it up in unicorns and rainbows.

As we got closer to the hospital, I wondered if I’d be let into the ultrasound scan room. On the last visit because of the corona virus I wasn’t allowed to go in with Anna. I was really disappointed about it. So this time both of us were keeping our fingers and toes crossed that I could.

The first thing I eagerly asked when we saw the receptionist was if I was allowed to go into the scan with Anna and see the baby, she casually said ‘yes’ probably not realising what that meant to me.

We both let out a big ‘hooray!’ We put on our masks and waited excitedly.

Whilst Anna got lubed up on her belly the nurse began doing the scan and very quickly it was clear that the nurse wasn’t happy with the position of the baby. Its legs were scrunched up to its head.

I asked concerned ‘Is it supposed to be like that?!’ Panicking that our baby was deformed. The nurse reassuringly replied ‘It’s totally normal. Babies get themselves into all sorts of tricky positions.’

I felt a little bit better but it did immediately reminded me of my childhood and being a sick kid and I must say, it was my overwhelming worry that the baby would end up sick, like me, and that was scaring the hell out of me for sure.

With the baby scrunched up the nurse couldn’t do her health check or find out the sex of the baby, regardless of who won the toss of the coin!  She made Anna do star jumps, Shakira moves, the full works to try and get the baby to move into a better position but it just stayed as it was, clearly having a lovely sleep despite the things Anna was doing!

Walking out and reflecting on what we had been able to see, it was amazing just to see its’ head move for a little while. However the sonographer said we had to come back for a further health check and that did worry me slightly.

Three weeks later we were back in the car and heading back to the hospital. In preparation, Anna had been for a swim, apparently that gets the baby moving and into better positions. Who knew?

We’re both motivational speakers, so I suggested to Anna that she should imagine getting onto a stage in front of thousands of people – that kind of adrenaline will wake the baby up for sure!

She thought it was a good idea, but decided for the swim instead.

This time walking into the hospital, I weirdly didn’t care what the sex of the baby was. I just wanted an all clear health check and to know it was healthy. I think, because of my illness as a kid, it was becoming obvious that this was now my greatest and uncontrollable fear.

In the waiting room, Anna kept giving my chest a reassuring rub from time to time to help ease my anxiety and kept saying ‘It’s going to be all right.’

Back in the ultrasound room, it turned out that our little McNugget was in a much better position and was wiggling around as if it was at a party!

More importantly, as the nurse was doing each health check, she gradually eased my concerns by confirming that they were ‘normal’. Even the head size was normal, which I thought was strange because I have the longest and thinest head on the planet.

Then the nurse said it ‘It’s a girl.’

We were both initially in a bit of shock really, as we’d been adamant that it was a boy.

Walking out of the hospital, I lost it and started screaming ‘It’s HEALTHY!’

Anna responded with ‘Shhhhh. It’s not like we’ve won the lottery! We’ve got a healthy baby.’

In my world that was winning the lottery.

Anna wanted to chat about how she felt after all of the excitement ‘We’re having a little girl. I’m in shock. I swear I had boy vibes. And I feel all this pressure now. I feel more pressure if it’s a girl. I don’t know why. I just feel like, I mean, she’s going to be awesome but I just feel all this pressure to be a role model with it being a girl.’

I stated the obvious ‘She’s going to be awesome!’

I’ve seen her as a motivational speaker, speaking to hundreds of kids and equally I’ve also seen her just interacting with one kid, and both experiences melt my heart. Deep down I know Anna is going to be one of the best Mum’s on the planet.

Whilst we were driving back, we danced and sang, thinking our ‘baby girl’ will be listening.

Anna was right, we don’t have to call it ‘it’ anymore, it’s a baby girl.

The next day, my Mum wanted to pop round with some baby clothes and I thought I’d surprise her with the sex of the baby.

I won’t spoil the surprise for you, it’s pretty priceless, again you can watch it on this vlog here:

 

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