Seeing Red?
We had dinner at my dads last night. A friend had sent him some fresh Alaskan Halibut that had been caught and FedExed from Alaska just the week before. My MIL noticed that when my dad took it off the BBQ he called me over to check that it was done. Having always done this for my dad, it wasn’t odd but Heidi asked me about it later. My dad is colorblind and cannot always see if there is too much pink left inside the meat. She asked me if my brother was colorblind and I explained that it follows the maternal gene line. This means if this child inside of me is a boy, he will likely be colorblind as well.
This hit me like a ton of bricks. This is not the first time I’ve had this thought, but it suddenly seemed so present. I cannot imagine not being able to see the colors of a sunset, the subtle shades and flecks of blues and purples in the eyes of those family members I cherish. To see Mark’s brown eyes, like the color of cream swirled gently into coffee, as flat. And lets face it, not many men can dress themselves… what do you think happens when they can’t see color?
Couple this with another baby dream last night: we’d gone to have a sonogram – something we don’t plan to do this time around – and had brought along our friends Nate and Sandy (who we collectively refer to as Nandy when pleased with them and Snate when not… we have yet to call them Snate!) After the sonogram, Sandy realized that she left her purse inside and goes back in to fetch it. Inside she hears this conversation:
“How’d the G Sonogram go?”
“Great! Very healthy looking baby boy”
So, of course, she comes running out and announces that we’re having a boy. High fives between the boys (which is totally out of character, btw). I told her about this at work today and she told me that she actually does believe we’re having a boy.
With Lily, I was CONVINCED she would be a boy. Utterly and totally convinced. Actually shocked, in fact, that she was a girl. So, I do not really trust my “intuition” on this one. I mean, I have a 50-50 chance, but I’m not getting comfortable with anything.
To wrap up: I’m likely having a colorblind boy. At least he won’t be eligible for military service.
2 comments:
Hmm... I was positive my first was a boy, and positive my second was a girl. They were both boys.
My dad was so sure I'd be a boy that he wrote a letter to my grandmother saying "My baby boy will be here any day now."
Only the sperm knows. Well, technically, it doesn't "know"... I guess I should say "Only the sperm can decide." Wait, that's not right either...
My point. Where did it go? Oh yeah. Don't fret and you won't be unpleasantly surprised. Unless you have triplets.
Oh, Elaine, I've been meaning to reply to this but keep forgetting. Alex is color-blind and he can still see some colors - just not reds or greens. Sometimes he thinks green is brown and purple is blue. And, if it helps you feel better, he didn't even KNOW he was color blind till he was in high school (which worries me intensely about the school system and how on EARTH he graduated kindergarten w/o having this discovered) but the POINT is that it obviously isn't that terrible if he didn't even know for so long. Did that make sense or was that too long of a run-on sentence? Heh.
Post a Comment