The envelope, please…

Nothing smacks you between the eyes quite like the sight of that positive pregnancy test and, from what I understand, the only moment to top it is the instant  your child–or, for us, children–are born.  But, thanks to ultrasound wizardry, contemporary parents get to enjoy a very specific pre-birth moment of adrenaline about midway through the 9 month journey.  And for Carey and me, that was today:

Today we found out what our children are.

For us, it wasn’t a question of whether or not we wanted to find out ahead of time.  We both agreed immediately: we need to know.  Life is loaded with enough surprises, particularly if you’re expecting triplets.  You’ll remember we calculated the odds and collected guesses from friends and acquaintances.  We had our secret druthers, but we knew that all the prayers and predictions in the world wouldn’t change any XXs or XYs in those little ones’ chromosomal soup.

Carey had her fingers crossed for two boys and a girl.  I didn’t really have a preference, as long as a boy was somewhere in the mix.

We headed back to Magella Medical Group today for the official anatomy scan.  They asked us up front: did we want to know?

Oh, yes.  We wanted to know.

So, the ultrasound tech did her thing and told us, one at a time, what we had.  Baby A was obvious, as was Baby B.  Baby C was a little more stubborn, but the kid finally moved the offending foot out the way and gave us a look.

Anyhow, enough wind-up.  Here’s the verdict:

I guess the Bear family name gets another go ’round.  And then some.

It’s true, the news hit Carey a little hard.  It’s difficult to resist the romance of a little girl… the cute outfits and the the perfume-y, sweet little moments that most every mom-to-be fantasizes about.  It’s difficult to trade dollhouses for action figures, dresses and hair ties for fart noises and broken furniture.  And she’ll probably need to mourn the daughter we’ll never have a little bit… and, I can’t lie, so will I.

But holy cow.  Check us out.  Three boys!  Three sons!  Can you beat that?

It’s time to get to work on the names, that’s for sure.  We’ve been putting it off, but the time for procrastination is over.  Truth be told, I think we’re fairly solid on two of the three.  So far, we’ve got two legitimate first name contenders and a middle name that now may need to be promoted to first name status.  But I suppose it’s all still up for grabs.

Hah.  “The Bear Fellows.”  I can honestly say that, of all the combos, it might be the one I expected the least.  But I guess that’s par for the course at this point.  Because, brother, who knew, I’m now a modern-day Steve Douglas (the TV one, not the guy Lincoln beat).

And I can hardly wait to meet these gentlemen.

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The Odds: Gender Edition

“Are you finding out what you’re having?”

It’s not an issue I covered in the FAQ because it honestly didn’t occur to me it would even be a question.  But friends have asked and cripes, yes, definitely, we are finding out the genders, tout suite. The births day will be insane enough without throwing Dancing With The Stars-style reveals into the mix.

The gender-unveiling could happen as early as a few weeks from now and we’re beyond anxious.  We’ve heard stories about modest fetuses that refuse to let their parents know, ultrasound after ultrasound.  Fingers crossed for three little exhibitionists.

Anyhow, I started doing a little math, because I’m a sucker for things like odds and research.  So here goes:

ASSUMPTIONS

• All three babies will survive delivery and beyond
• The triplets are not identical
• Gender-bending oddities like hermaphroditism has been discounted
• Ratio of boys to girls under normal circumstances = 1:1

Okay, that said, odds of a single-child pregnancy (you know, the way normal, sane people do things) is pretty straightforward:

Non-identical twins. Slightly more complicated, but not much:

Triplets?  I had to grab a pencil and paper for this one and break down each possibility, of which there are 8.  As follows:

That said, we have 4 basic combinations with odds that look like this:

Chances of at least one girl: 87.5% At least one boy: 87.5%

The odds seem to sharply favor a combo, but I guess we’ll see.  It’s what Carey prefers (her ideal is 2 boys, 1 girl).  Me, I don’t know.  I suppose I’d like to have a son somewhere in the mix.  I think we’re in agreement that all three being the same gender (25% chance) probably isn’t what we’d want most… though, I’ll admit it, when we first got the news, all one gender was my preference.  “Stick ’em all in one room through high school.  Boom, done.”

But here’s where we do our classic parent-to-be refrain (I think they take away your permit if you don’t repeat it at least a couple of times a week).  All together now, people:

WE DON’T CARE WHAT THEY ARE, AS LONG AS THEY’RE HEALTHY.

(But c’mon, Jesus, do us a solid and throw a boy in there for us, would you?)