The verdict is in.....

And it seems that I will have a lot more time to mull over gender roles and the shaping of gender identity and expectations by cultural influences because we are going to have....a girl!

The ultrasound was just beautiful. It's so intricate. The details of the anatomy: the perfect spinal column, all 4 chambers of the heart working with the valves, the individual metacarpals, metatarsals and phalanges. The mouth opening and closing as if to say, "Hi! Here I am!". The little hand waving back and forth and opening and closing. Truly amazing.

I, personally, am thrilled. My daughter comes from an amazing heritage of brave, strong, intelligent women, particularly on my maternal side. Her great-great grandmother, the second daughter of four daughters born to the mayor of her village in Japan, sailed across the pacific ocean at the turn of the 20th century to become a picture bride to a man she'd never met. Her great grandmother, also the second of four sisters, left an American internment camp with her husband, during world war II, to farm for the government that imprisoned them. While her husband oversaw German POWs working in his fields, this woman cooked extra food at lunch so that all would have enough to eat. Her grandmother broke the color line for her sorority nationally, and went on to break the color line in a school district in the Midwest as an English teacher. And then there's me, her mother, who has had all sorts of adventures. Aaron said he knew it was a girl from the minute he found out that the baby was kicking the surrogate when she was in a position the baby didn't like. It's not a Yokoyama-woman trait to sit on the sidelines. ;)

Now I really feel as if the pressure is on to get ready. The baby's room, until now, has been the room in our house that we toss stuff into when we're not sure what to do with it. And, to be completely transparent, it's mostly my stuff! So the rest of the day will be spent cleaning that room out.

Aaron and I have been holding off on name discussions until now. We quickly realized we had some strong opinions on names, and decided that there wasn't any point in arguing the finer points of one name over another when half of the names we would argue over wouldn't even matter. So now it's time to get into heated name discussions.

After Friday's ultrasound the reality very much set in. We're going to have a baby! It's going to be a girl! And we've got to get our rears in gear and prepare!!!!!