The shit blog of Paul Chris Jones

Dear Diary. It's been almost four years since I've been to a hospital. That's good. Hospitals are places you want to avoid. People die there.

But now I've broken my four-year spree by coming to Hospital Doctor Josep Trueta in Girona.

But I'm not dying today. At least, I hope not. To tell you the truth, I don't ever plan to die.

Girlfriend's not dying either. At least, not unless she's keeping a big secret from me, like fourth-stage inoperable cancer.

No, we're here for a pregnancy scan. The 16-week scan. I'm already a pro at this. I've done all this before, with 3-year-old.

The receptionist gives us a ticket with a number on. We then have to show the ticket to a man so we can go inside. It's a bit like going into a nightclub except it's daytime and a hospital.

We sit down and wait. Eventually the doctor comes out the echography room and says, "Girlfriend?"

Girlfriend and I both get up.

"Just the mother," says the doctor.

I sit back down. I have wait outside while Girlfriend gets the scan.

This is sexism, I think. The woman gets to go in but the man has to wait outside? It's sexism against men.

But a few minutes later, the doctor opens the door again. "You can come in now," she says.

So I go into the room and there's a big screen right there with my unborn child on it. Big, black and white grainy footage. It's the first time I've seen it moving around. I can see its head, back and legs.

"Do you want to know what the gender is?" says the radiographer.

"Yes," says Girlfriend.

I offer my opinion: "I think it's going to be a boy," I say.

"You're right," says the radiographer. "It's a boy."

And just like that, in one moment, our next eighteen years are set out for us: Lego, superheroes, robots, testosterone, stiff socks.

I feel a sense of peace. Joy, even. I'll have two sons. It's easier to raise two sons than it is to raise one son and one daughter, I think to myself, perhaps naively. We won't need to buy clothes for one thing because we've still got all the boy clothes 3-year-old wore when he was a baby. And we can have big Lego train sets running around the living room.

The radiographer prints out some photos of the fetus and hands them to us. It's like when you go on a ride at Alton Towers and you get a photo to keep at the end of it.

I look down at the photos. There's my son.

But I don't really want any photos. It's just another thing to have to keep, isn't it? Besides, all pregnancy scan photos look the same.

"Thanks," I say.