Are you hoping for a girl?

This is a question I have been asked a lot. A lot.

Do you secretly want a girl?

I’ll cross my fingers for you that it’s a girl.

Will you find out to prepare yourself in case you’re in for another boy?

They are questions and statements put to me without malice. People are not trying to be offensive. Most are just curious, or picturing (the very real) chaos of raising all boys. And if we had two girls the question would no doubt be the same, the general consensus seeming to be, it’s good to have a little of both.

But we didn’t get a little of both, we got two boys. Two boys who walk around like their arm’s been chopped off if ever the other is missing. Two boys who annoy the heck out of each other but still gravitate to touching-distance at just about every opportunity. Even when I physically remove one of them for being too rough, the other reattaches himself without grudge. Will they always be like this? I don’t know. I’m assuming they’ll go through a phase of strongly disliking each other, as I did with my own siblings, but hopefully they’ll come out the other side as allies, if not best friends, for life.

It is, of course, completely true that boys are a bit nuts. The energy, volume and physicality they bring to a room is like a sudden change in weather. Sometimes you dance in the rain, and sometimes you just want to take cover. But what they bring to you in exasperation, they double in genuine, palpable love. They are not one-dimensional mess machines, but complex, sensitive, funny, loving little humans. Labrador puppies are their spirit animal, and after 4.5 years I feel like I’m just starting to get the hang of them.

I will forever be grateful that we got two little boys – as I would’ve been forever grateful for two girls, or a pigeon pair. Healthy babies are not a promise, and it is not lost on me just how lucky we are.

I appreciate that gender-disappointment is a real thing and I don’t want to diminish anyone’s feelings. I believe feelings come whether you want them to or not, as with envy and anger, it’s how you process them that matters. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t curious about what a little girl of ours would look like, or how I’ll cope when our boys grow older and no one wants to go shopping or talk female topics with me. But I have a husband who adores his parents and speaks to them just about every day, so with a role model like that I hope our boys will never forget their old mother. And in the absence of sisters and daughters, my mum and girlfriends will become even more cherished to me.

So!

We are not finding out the gender of this baby. We have never found out the gender of any of our babies and see no reason to start now. Hand me a warm crying baby at the end of this fanny-swelling experience and it matters little to me what genitalia is attached.

Bring on February.

Eliza xx