Almost There.

The last week of my pregnancy felt like a countdown , my body was tired, my back was complaining, and I was honestly just ready to meet this baby,but there was still one mystery hanging in the air.

For months, this child had refused to reveal their gender.

Every scan appointment ended the same way.

The sonographer would move the machine around my stomach, squint at the screen and say, “Hmm… the baby is not cooperating.”

“Not cooperating how?” I would ask, already laughing.

“She has… sorry, the baby has crossed the legs again.”

Crossed the legs, ass if this tiny human already understood privacy.

My friends didn’t help matters.

“So what are you having?” one of them asked me one afternoon.

“I don’t know.”

She blinked. “In this century?”

“I’m serious, the baby is hiding.”

They all had opinions. “It’s a boy.” “No, it’s definitely a girl,” “The way you are carrying it, na boy” I just nodded and smiled, but deep down I was curious too.

So when my doctor then suggested we had one final scan during my last week, I agreed like immediately

“Let’s just try one more time,” she said to me “Maybe this time we will see it.”

The day of the scan, I lay on the bed just staring at the ceiling fan as she poured the cold gel on my stomach.

“Okay baby,” I whispered under my breath, “this is your last chance o, Please behave.”

The sonographer laughed softly, “Let us see if baby listens to mummy today.”

She moved the device slowly, the room was very quiet except for the faint sound of the machine in the room, my heart was beating faster than it should for something that wasn’t even life threatening.

“Hmm…” she murmured.

That “hmm” did not help my anxiety.

“Is everything okay?” I asked quickly.

“Yes, yes, everything looks fine,” she replied calmly,“I am just checking something.”

She clicked a few buttons, printed some images, and wiped the gel off my stomach.

“You will wait outside for the report,” she said.

And just like that, I found myself in the waiting room.

Hospitals have a kind of particular silence, not complete silence, but the soft kind that's filled with distant footsteps, low conversations, and the beeping of machines somewhere far away, the chairs were plastic and slightly uncomfortable too . a small television was playing a talk show nobody was really watching.

I sat down carefully, holding my file closely to my chest.

Beside me, another pregnant woman sighed loudly, “ me I an tired of these appointments o, ” she muttered to her husband.

The husband squeezed her hand and said “Almost there.”

Almost there....

That phrase just continued to echoed in my mind, i was almost there too, almost at the end of pregnancy, almost meeting my baby, almost knowing whether I was carrying a son or a daughter.

It was then my mind started running ahead of me.

“What if the baby still didn’t show?”

“What if I am overreacting about this?”

Then I laughed quietly at myself, ater all these months, why was I suddenly so nervous?

A nurse stepped out with a file.

“Miss Treasure.” she called.

My heart jumped, I stood up immediately.

“That’s me.”

She handed me the envelope with a small smile. “Congratulations.”

Congratulations?

I looked at her face, trying to decode it, but nurses are experts at neutral expressions.

I didn’t even wait to sit down again, I opened the envelope right there in the hallway.

Female.

I blinked once and then again twice.

“A girl?” I whispered to myself.

A small smile slowly spread across my face, for months, this baby had hidden like it was playing a game, and now, just a week before arrival, the secret was finally out.

I don’t even remember walking out of that hospital properly, I just remember feeling lighter,nnot because I preferred one gender over the other, but because the waiting was over.

Sometimes the hardest part isn’t the result, It is sitting in that space between not knowing and knowing, That waiting room taught me that.

And days later, when I finally held my daughter in my arms, I smiled and said softly, “So you were the one hiding all these while."

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