X and Y.

Another bloggers post about 'going for a girl' got me thinking.

It's such a delicate subject. You are not really supposed to say that you want a boy or a girl.
You are supposed to say you just want a healthy baby.
Why is it so taboo to state your desire when it comes to baby gender?

I know that there are so many who struggle with infertility that it is deemed insensitive.
I don't really see the correlation.
Wanting a specific gender has nothing to do with someone else's struggle.
If I say I'd really love a girl it doesn't mean that I am not heartbroken for you that you too are not able to have the luxury of that thought. Of course, it would be thoughtless of me to prattle on about it in front of you.
If you are in that position, you may want to stop reading now, I am about to prattle on.....

I DID want a girl. I had my reasons - they were very personal to me. It was not that I think girls are better or have cuter clothes.
My mother died when I was little. I had a deep longing for a mother-daughter relationship and I saw this as a chance for that.
I use the word chance intentionally. I knew that a boy was a possibility. I knew that I would have been as much in love and delighted regardless but if I was was being really honest - I hoped for a girl. In some ways it was a need.

I have had five miscarriages, two in the second trimester. I spent two years believing I would never be a mom. I know that pain. I still hoped that one day I would be mother to a girl.

Still, on sonogram day, when the sex of this much hoped for baby (now the seven year old) was revealed, I cried for the boy I was not carrying.
I sobbed for a full half hour into the, very confused, husband's chest.

It was a very spontaneous reaction. I cried for reasons I can't fully explain. The possibilities, the path not taken.
After that initial reaction - I settled into the excitement of knowing I would get to be mom to a girl and all that meant to me as a motherless daughter.
I likely would have found the healing I sought being parent to a boy too but at the time I didn't think so.
I had not experienced parenthood, so I didn't know what was coming in terms of loving my child unconditionally.

I suppose it all comes back round to the same thing. What someone else says or does should not be taken personally.
We each have reasons for our thoughts and actions and often they are deeply rooted.
My desire for a girl was not intended as a slight on anybody's religion, beliefs or fertility.
I was only talking about me.

What if I had had a boy?
I would have paid my $'s sat on the couch and worked through my mother/daughter grief that way instead.

I wonder how the seven and two year olds feel about being the provider of so much free therapy.