I have two girls and I wouldn’t change that for anything. Now that I’m pregnant, I get asked often if we were trying for a boy. Honestly, I don’t understand that question.
I think it’s important to acknowledge that I have no control over whether or not my baby is a boy and neither does my husband. We got pregnant because we wanted another baby, and probably because I finally talked Scott into it. I had to promise that three was it, but I feel like I have time to change his mind (and mine) in the future — ha! (I promise Scott’s heart skipped a beat when he read that sentence; I like to give him a hard time.) But we didn’t get pregnant because we needed/wanted that boy; we got pregnant because we agreed we wanted one more baby – no gender expectations applied.
I also get asked if I have a feeling about what we are having, and I don’t. And I was wrong about both my girls. The adoption agency told us to expect a boy and I thought Maggie was a boy, though I don’t remember why – wrong on both accounts. Elise, on the other hand, told me she was having a little sister two days before I found out I was pregnant with Maggie, and she called this baby a he in a video. I am curious to see if she is right again. All I can tell you is that this baby feels bigger, but my husband is six and a half feet tall so big babies can happen no matter the gender.
I am not sure how the expectation to keep trying until you have whatever gender you are missing originated, but I feel like it gets connected to the labels moms use to identify themselves — boy moms, girl moms, adoptive moms, stay at home moms, working moms, etc., and I am sure there are more categories that I am unaware of. So if we have a third girl, then I am just a “girl” mom, but I don’t think I have ever identified myself as a “girl” mom because I don’t feel like I’m making parenting choices because of my child’s gender. (I do identify myself as an adoptive mom because it influences my worldview and changes how I parent.) And I don’t think my parents made different choices between my sister, my brothers, and me. They tried to be fair, have the same expectations of us, and give us opportunities to try things whether we were a boy or a girl.
And growing up I tried everything – cross stitch, craft classes, softball, summer camp, band, cheerleading, track, dove hunting, and sign language. I’m not an athlete and I don’t have the patience to do cross stitch or crafts correctly. So by high school, band, summer camp, and dove hunting were what I chose, and in college I learned sign language. I have great memories of all those experiences and I’m grateful that my dad invited me on that first hunting trip where I was the only girl. I want my girls to have the same wide variety of opportunities that I did regardless of their gender. I want them to know they can be the CEO that all the boys report to. Well maybe just Elise will do that, Maggie would like the world to just sit in a comfy chair, watch tv, suck their thumbs, nap, and eat peanut butter sandwiches all day. And if we have a boy, he gets choices, too because the gender of my child won’t change that I am mom.
All the labels – girl mom, boy mom, stay at home mom, working mom, adoptive mom, etc. – don’t change who we are. We are all moms, and that’s really the only label I want — mom.