It's A ....

It’s a boy. Another son. On one hand, I am so set for another boy! Clothes, toys, the works, I’ve already got boy stuff. Lots of it. And I know how to be a mother to a son. But now my apprehension grows even higher. I’m 20 weeks along with another son. I’ve been here before, and the sense of having the other shoe hanging over my head is ominous.

Our Level II ultrasound last week went well. Stick-It looked fine, and then the inevitable question: “Do you want to know what it is?”

Of course I did. DH was, as always, on the fence. But I don’t like surprises. At all. Period. And trust me, losing Jimmy, losing the next pregnancy a year later, and all that we’ve gone through at the IF clinic were enough “surprises” to last me a lifetime, thanks.

The tech moved the wand around my stomach because Stick-It once again wasn’t giving up any secrets. And then, there it was. Even I know what those were. Those were boy parts. The doc confirmed it.

As many of us have written, knowing that you will most likely never have a child of the other sex brings forward a range of emotions. Yes, we are infinitely grateful to be having a child at all. But there is something in knowing that I will never have a daughter to dress up, to braid the hair of, to take to Girl Scouts. Please don’t mistake my feelings; I love my sons with all my heart and soul. But this will be my last pregnancy, my last chance at having a child of the other sex in my house. I also know very well that mothers and sons have a very different relationship, particularly when the sons are grown, than mothers and daughters do.

I shouldn’t have even thought on an outside chance that this one would be a girl. Vegas wouldn’t have taken a chance on our odds. First, my DH is the youngest of 8 boys. That’s right. Eight in 12 years. My brother has two boys. The cousins on my dad’s side? All boys (the cousins on my mom's side, all two of them, have one boy and two girls between the two of them. And the boy and one of the girls were twins.) Out of my pregnancies, five now in all, I’m averaging 80% in the boy area. My two oldest, then Jimmy, now Stick-It (the miscarriage was too early to tell).

I also had one other major reason for wanting this child to be a girl. Having a boy after losing a perfectly healthy 28-week-old pregnancy with another son to a cord accident just makes me feel like I’m reliving so much of it. DH has similar feelings. I know the odds are in our favor that nothing like that will happen again, but I don’t like to gamble. Knowing this is another boy will just help my apprehension will grow until this child is delivered alive and is safely in my arms.