Disclaimer: I don't own Hetalia.
Amekraine: Sonar
Alfred held onto Katyusha's hand, watching the doctor spread some sort of gel all over Katyusha's bump. He fought every instinct to tear the man away from his wife and unborn child, the urge to protect them very strong. But he had to remind himself that the doctor was supposed to confirm that the baby was still safe and healthy. That would require him to be touching the baby bump.
"Well, everything seems alright," the doctor said at last. "Nice, healthy size. And the heart is beating, so that's a good sign."
Alfred had to listen closely, but then he realised that he could indeed hear the heartbeat. He smiled in relief, and Katyusha squeezed his hand with a smile of her own.
"Would you like to know the baby's sex?" the doctor asked.
Alfred's eyes widened, and he looked at Katyusha. She smiled and nodded.
"Y-yes," Alfred said.
His mind flashed to his time as a child, and all of the trouble he got into. And he sincerely hoped that the doctor would say…
"It's a girl," the doctor announced.
Alfred's mind ground to a halt. A girl. A little girl. A princess that Alfred would need to protect. A girl that would not have the same inclinations for the kind of trouble that Alfred got into as a little boy.
He hoped.
"That's great," Katyusha said. "And I know that Ivan and Natalia are going to be happy too. Ivan told me this morning that he hopes it's a girl. He says he doesn't want to have to deal with a younger version of you. He said that he could imagine a little boy being a general nightmare, especially with your genes."
"This is one of the rare times I agree with your brother," Alfred said. "I wouldn't want to deal with a younger version of me either."
One of my colleagues is pregnant, and recently they found out that she's expecting a girl. Her husband is ecstatic that it's a girl. In my experience, men who were troublemakers as boys tend to hope they get daughters. I think it's at that moment when they realise how much grief they gave their parents and want to avoid that grief.
Of course, I think it has more to do with nurture than nature. My dad's expressed his frustration on more than one instance over the difference in the way people tend to raise boys and girls, with parents being stricter with girls than with boys. Little girls aren't allowed to roughhouse, but boys are almost required to do so. Note: this might also be a cultural thing.
And in Afrikaans we refer to an ultrasound as a sonar.
Also, this week in South Africa, a lot of places experienced snow. Johannesburg, for example, experienced its first snowfall since about 2007. But no snow in my town. Disappointing. It hasn't snowed here since 2001.