As if sensing that the tension had eased, Courtney reappeared on the porch. She extended the sonogram picture to Seth. “Is that…?” He looked from me to Courtney to the grainy picture. Then he released my hand to lay his palm gently on my tummy. “That’s our little Peanut?” He grinned from ear to ear, making Court and I both chuckle.

“Our Peanut.” I love it, Court beamed at both of us.

“Peanut it is then, until it comes out, anyway,” I agreed.

The three of us shared a comfortable moment, and then Seth’s questions started to arise. He asked them faster than we could possibly answer them. “When is Peanut due? Is it a boy or a girl? How are you feeling? Have you started the nursery? Do you have everything you need?”

Courtney and I just stared at him, uncertain where to start. Court finally broke the silence, “Dude, breathe.” She smiled to let him know she understood his excitement.

I started answering his questions. “Peanut will make his or her arrival in early spring. I’ve been feeling queasy 24/7, but thankfully that is starting to ease up a little. We haven’t started the nursery, other than to clean some extra junk out of the spare bedroom, and yes, it looks like we have everything we need, and then some.” I smiled at him warmly, in complete amazement that he was so open to all of this.

Courtney nodded in agreement, and then answered the question I had neglected. “We can’t find out Peanut’s gender yet. It’s still too early to tell.”

Seth groaned, “How long? I’m dying to know now.”

I looked back and forth between the two of them, shocked by their presumptiveness. “We are not finding out Peanut’s gender until he or she enters this world.” I said the words adamantly.

They both looked at me as if I had sprouted two heads. “What do you mean?” Courtney seemed truly perplexed. “We can’t get the nursery ready and buy all of the appropriate stuff, if we don’t know if the baby’s a boy or girl.”

“Of course we can, and we will. We’ll just do everything gender-neutral,” I retorted.

“You really want your infant dressed in only yellow and green for the first weeks of its life?” Courtney tried.

“We can buy a cute pink outfit and an adorable blue outfit, so Peanut can come home from the hospital in the socially-approved, gender-appropriate color, if you like, but I doubt that the baby will be too worried about its fashion statement at that point. Besides, who says that a boy has to wear ‘boy colors’ or that a girl needs to be in pink or purple?”

Courtney shook her head, exasperated with me, so Seth tried a different angle. “If we know Peanut’s gender, we can mentally prepare better, and we’ll be able to have a name picked out.”