Groundhog Day

          Waiting in small leather chairs, Betsy and I sat at the women's imaging center making small talk and fidgeting through magazines without reading any of the words, or for that matter even knowing which title we were holding. She would point out great ideas on how to recycle wine bottles into everyday useful items, and, to her disdain, I would flip through her magazine (while she held it) if I saw a funny picture that caught my eye. My attention span has always suffered from anxiety. Typically ideas land in my mind like planes on a runway, only stopping to fill to capacity and then take off into the great wide open. Today they are buzzing the tower, doing touch and goes, and some are just circling as if there is no space to land. Today, we are finding out if our baby is going to be a boy or girl.
        
           They called for Betsy and we walked down the hallway passed the crazy pastel interpretive art that is probably a mother and child, but looks like two grapefruits square dancing. This is when I think I could be an artist. I'm wrong. She goes to change and I fight the urge to touch all the buttons on the picturemahicky they have left me with unsupervised. This is where my planes all take off at the same time and leave the runaway empty. It seems we should be lying on a hill somewhere with binoculars pressed hard against our eyes staring down at a hole holding our breath. Some time passes before we see a small fury head ease out to check if the coast is clear. Then, out comes the groundhog one wobbling limb at a time while we all watch to see if it has a penis. Hard to tell at this angle. Betsy walked out in a gown and I snapped out of my day dream realizing I had been holding my breath.

      
         She laid down and out came the belly jelly. At this point there are no planes left, no airport even, just a black and white screen and a heart beat. Little hands. Little feet. But no penis. Because we are having a little girl,  Harper Elizabeth Collum,  and that's all I can think about.