The past few days, I've been over at my sister's place, visiting for the Thanksgiving weekend. She's currently very pregnant, so she can't really travel much until the baby is born. She also lives pretty far away from me and my parents. So, we decided to go visit her instead!

The other day, she asked if I wanted to go to her OB/GYN appointment. I said sure, why not? She invited my mom as well, as she wants to be involved as much as humanly possible with my sister's pregancy and eventual post-partum business.

The doctor who came in was very nice. He was also very Southern, referring to my sister as "miss" and "ma'am" and all that. He asked if my mom and I wanted to help him record the baby's heartbeat. My mom stood up quick and grabbed the machine. It was interesting, how the heart sounded very "wooshy". The doctor explained that we were listening to it's backside.

I also got the chance to feel for the heartbeat. The baby either was saying hi or was getting agitated because it kicked the doppler when I was using it. I'm still thinking about how funny and cool that was.

I'm realizing I'm writing this like it's a rough draft for a personal essay project for high school or something. But all of this just makes me really excited, if I'll be honest.

I can't wait to be an uncle. Or aunt. Or auntuncle. Or uncleaunt. Or something?

You see, I don't really want to be referred to with a prefix. I know a lot of it is because of my weird gender nonsense. But a lot of it is because I don't have the world's greatest relationships with my aunts and uncles (with the exception of one). I kinda just wanna be called by my name. No prefix needed. but I also know it would probably piss off my sister if I told her that, so I'm just going to keep my mouth shut for the time being.

Regardless, I am excited to have a baby around, even if it's mostly at a spiritual level since I won't be physically seeing it often. Considering my grandmother's illness and my family's overall depressive state, I believe it'll help restore some hope in my family members. I know it'll probably have the same effect on me, at least.