It’s A Boy!

Payal
Payal
Aug 8, 2017 · 3 min read

Do you believe in angels, divine intervention, voices, grace? I don’t. But something cool happened to me when I was pregnant. I was told I was having a boy — before the doctors knew.

I was sitting around, being all pregnant and stuff and doing something normal and ordinary like washing dishes or eating a meal at home alone when all of a sudden this voice popped in my head and said to me “You’re having a boy”.

I know, I know, sounds like crap. Or maybe my subconscious. But it made me stop what I was doing and wonder — where did THAT come from? I wasn’t thinking about my pregnancy (not consciously anyway), I wasn’t doing anything baby related. I hadn’t even thought about boy/girl in my head. So it was eerie. I sat there for a few minutes, in wonder. I hadn’t heard the voice out loud, just in my head, but I knew it wasn’t my voice.

At the time I wasn’t far along in my pregnancy, and my husband didn’t want to know (I did!). Oddly, my doctor, usually professional and keeping of his opinions to himself was vocal about not finding out the sex. “The best time to find out the sex is when the baby is born,” he kept saying. That surprised me too, it was the first time I really heard an real opinion out of him.

So the compromise, we had the doctor write down the sex on a piece of paper (golly where did I put that paper anyway?) and put it into a sealed envelope. We decided we would open it after Paryushan (a super important religious holiday for Jains, which is coming up soon for us by the way).

Now, I don’t consider myself a crying sort of gal. I cry tons, but usually when I’m alone and I’m imagining up some horrible devastation that has befallen my loved ones. I keep my tears to myself usually. In fact, it was my husband who cried when I showed him the positive pregnancy test. Why he cried, I have no idea, because I told him a week or two ago I was pregnant. We had been carefully planning so I knew the exact day I was ovulating and when I was supposed to get my period. When a few days past my period onset date came and went, I knew I was pregnant. Done deal. I only took the pregnancy test because when I called my gynecologists’ office they refused to accept my self-declaration of pregnancy and made me call them back after I took one. So I walked up to him with the positive test and was all eye-rolling ‘Hey by the way we’re pregnant’ and was surprised to see his tears. I guess for him, the visible confirmation made it real. It was already real for me — but no tears, I mean what for? We planned this, right?

So it was another moment of unexpected surprise for me when we opened the envelope and read ‘Its a boy!’ that I just burst out into tears. They came out of no where and took over. I obviously knew I was having a baby. I believed the voice that told me I was having a boy. I think I cried because it was the visible evidence that someone or something had visited me to give me a message. I had never experienced anything that required me to have faith and believe, and I did believe it! To have a belief confirmed like that was overwhelming in that moment, but beautiful…kinda what it feels like raising a child.

Payal

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Payal

In no particular order: Mom, Indian American Daughter of Immigrants, All Around Fascinating Human Being