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Sometimes I look at the dirty, rowdy, brilliant, clueless, sweet, sensitive, unpredictable bundle of otherness that is my son and marvel-he truly is everything I never knew I always wanted.
It’s not that I didn’t always want to be a mom. I did, for as long as I can remember. When I played dolls, or put on little shows with my friends, I always wanted to be the mommy. One of my earliest memories is rocking “my baby” doll alongside my mom rocking my baby sister.
But when I pictured me rocking my baby someday, I always pictured a girl. Lucky for me I’ve got nieces to turn to whenever the tutu envy starts to overtake me. Being the mom of a boy has been-like most of the best things in life-one of those things I never realized how much I wanted or needed until I got it.
Baby gender selection has been in the news a lot recently. Australian fertility doctors have been rallying to try to get the government to rescind its ban on sex selection technology, which is currently legal in the U.S., where dozens of Aussies travel each year and spend thousands of dollars to choose the sex of their children. G’Day, mate.
Meanwhile, a University of Missouri study was released which found that the food that women eat during the very early stages of pregnancy can influence the sex (and health) of their unborn babies. Apparently bacon and big breakfasts are for boys while fasting favors girls-I’m sure a feminist theorist will have a field day with that one at some point.
Then MSNBC did a poll about the phenomenon of “gender disappointment,” asking whether people were disappointed when they discovered their baby’s gender. About a third of the people admitted that they were, although more than two-thirds of that group said they got over it quickly. I guess that means that one-third didn’t get over it. Time to buy little Bob a new tutu.
The random convergence of these three stories about baby gender selection-and happened to land in my inbox on the same day-inspired me to ask my friends: “If you could have chosen the sex of your child would you?”
Simply posing the question inspired vehement objections from many people, like my friend M, who said, “No way! We THOUGHT we wanted a boy, and ended up with our beautiful daughter.”
“All three of mine (two boys and one girl) are miracle babies,” said L. “I’m still amazed that they are here when by all reasoning I should be childless. I’m just grateful they are here and proud of each of them.”
“After my son was born, I was hoping for another boy and I was terrified to find out my next two were girls. I did not think I would know what to do if I ended up with a ‘girlie’ girl,” said P. “Now I am so glad to have a ‘boyish’ boy and two ‘girlie’ girls to teach me so much about life. I am so grateful not to have been able to choose-plus, three active boys would surely kill me!”
D was also glad she didn’t have to choose. “That would have made me insane for sure. I had a difficult time enough choosing a stroller, bouncer and colors for the nursery.”
Interestingly enough not only did most of my friends not want to choose the sex of their baby, a lot of them said they didn’t even want to know if it was a boy or a girl until the child was born.
“There are not many things in this world that are a true surprise. Why waste this one,” said B. “I loved hearing ‘it’s a girl’ (twice) and ‘it’s a boy’ (the third time).”
“I didn’t even peek to see what I was having before I had them,” said R. “I thought I wanted a girl and then a boy, but I’m thrilled to have my two girls. Sometimes it’s best to see what nature gives you,”
“Not only would I not choose,” said A, “but I still believe that “finding out” what you’re having takes something away from it all.” “I didn’t even find out what I was having while I was pregnant!” said S. “It’s the not knowing what you’re getting, what you’re in for that makes raising children the adventure it is-daily-no matter if they are a boy or a girl.”
For the record, I found out in advance that my son was a boy because I had to have an amniocentesis, and I figured if the doctor knew about the sex of my baby then so should I. But I do agree with S about the adventure of not knowing what you’re getting when you have a child. To this day one of the most fascinating things about being a parent is the way that you can be so close to this little person-they literally lived in your body at one point if you’re a birth mom-and yet they are separate people with ideas, preferences, vocabularies and really dirty fingernails that are all their own.