I’ve kept it for 17 years and five months of pregnancy. But I think it’s time to tell it.
At four months pregnant, I heard the rapid whoosh of our baby’s heartbeat while the ultrasound technician painted blue goop over my belly and used her magic sex-revealing wand.
Like any first time mom with her loving partner holding her hand, this was THE moment we had been waiting for since we saw two lines on the pregnancy test. Would we be choosing purples and pinks to decorate her room?? Or blues and grey for his?
“Do you want to know the sex of your baby?”
We looked at each other briefly and turned back to the tech – “yes, very much so!”
The tech zoomed in on the miniature life form and announced “you’re having a girl.”
My husband was elated. In fact, I believe he pumped his fist in the air and called out “YES!” as that was his hope.
He kissed my cheek while I continued to look at the grainy image on the monitor.
Girl? huh. I thought I was carrying a boy.
It’s not that I was hoping for a boy, but in my mind it was a boy I was having, weeks before seeing that fateful image.
Donovan or Cameron. One of those was his name.
The gel was wiped off my belly and the black and white images of our girl were printed off in a receipt-like fashion. Minutes later we were in our car and my husband immediately started listing girl names.
I can’t even remember what they were because I rejected all of them instantly.
Don’t get me wrong. A baby is a baby. And I was happy to be having a girl. I just couldn’t get over this nagging feeling that the tech told me the wrong gender.
Sex and gender.
Those are the same things right?
Boy was I wrong.
Quest for a name.
It took us another three months of looking in baby books at Barnes & Noble, the social security records of popular baby names online, and asking friends and family for ideas…when I saw it.
Her name would be Camryn.
I called my husband from my weekend job as a news reporter (it was a slow day), told him I was looking online and found this spectacular name. It was Cameron (which we both loved) but spelled in a “feminine” way.
He agreed straightaway and I breathed a sigh of relief knowing we would have a strong name for what would need to be a very strong girl.
Camryn was born with bright wondering eyes, a large amount of brown hair and the cutest round face I’d ever seen just a few weeks later.
Life with Cam was happy. A joyful child who played, imagined and laughed more than most.
Gender reveal.
I kept that secret mama intuition sonogram moment to myself until a few months ago, when our child came out to us as transgender.
A card left for me on our kitchen table read: “As a kid you always tell me ‘make sure to marry someone who treats you like dad treats us’ and I always thought to myself sure but recently I realized that I want to be the man that brings his partner ice cream when they want it, who is the perfect dad, a great husband, and the absolute gentleman, but most importantly I want to be the perfect son.”
After school I hugged him and told him that I loved him no matter what.
Yet, I cried privately for weeks and I’m positive that I said the wrong things at least 1 million times.
Then one day and a lifetime later, I had a moment with my new son and told him about my secret. I told him of my experience with the sonogram that day, oh so long ago. His eyes smiled, as he listened to this new revelation.
I spoke of a moment of confusion because I sure I was carrying a boy and not a girl even in his earliest moments of life.
He kissed my cheek. And in what could only be described as a reluctant acceptance, I stopped crying for the daughter I lost and started loving my son.
TransMama 