I’m working through an emotion. It’s difficult to express. It’s a sort of grieving. Gadget doesn’t understand it, and has no patience for it.
I might not feel this if I were a younger woman, and if I didn’t have the fertility challenges with which I’ve been faced. But I’m no spring chicken, and the road traveled has not been without its bumps and bruises. In all likelihood, there will be no more children. So this is the day in which I acknowledge that I am a mother of sons. And I love, love, love that I am a mother at all, and I am grateful beyond any human expression that I will be the mother of two. Two healthy boys. It’s beyond words. Yet there is a part of me, albeit a selfish part, that wanted a daughter – a girl to raise and nurture and fill with a sense of belonging in this world. I wanted to give her all that I lacked in my own upbringing. I dreamed we would be the best of friends.
There’s just something about a girl.
I suppose it truly boils down to ultimate selfishness. Perhaps it was a do-over, in the largest sense. I wanted to raise her with all the love in the world, so she knew she was wanted and of value. Something I never felt. I wanted to raise her to love herself and be comfortable in her body, to embrace who she was, to know that she is fully accepted, without condition. Again, something which I never felt. Yes, it does seem to be mainly a selfish wish for a do-over, to project myself forth. A dangerous undertaking with potential for much folly. It would be so much better to simply come to terms with who I am and embrace my own self as someone of inestimable worth in this world. And now that I’m in my forties, I can say that I am much more comfortable with who I am than I have ever been before. It’s a shame that it took this long, but a blessing that it happened at all.
I know that all is and will be well. What would I have done if she’d been a Barbie fanatic or a girly-girl to the most extreme? Dolls have always creeped me out. I was second of nine, so there was no need for dolls. I had real babies to play with. I liked to play with dirt and Lincoln logs. What would I have done to help her come to terms with things, if she’d ended up with the tweaked out reproductive system of her aunts? How would I have managed seeing her through the cliques and stages and social pressures that girls go through? In many ways, girls may be much more difficult to raise than boys.
I wonder if this one will be Bert to my Ernie, or Felix to my Oscar. Not that big brother is Ernie or Oscar, but he’s certainly not Bert or Felix. Another Bam-Bam. If fetal movement is any indication, he may well be Ernie to the extreme. He is so much more active than his big brother was. And big brother was extremely active. And still is.
I see a future with more monster trucks, ballgames, dirt, and Transformers. But I love all these things. I love boys. I hope that little brother doesn’t grow up daunted in the shadow of big brother. I will do all that I can to teach big brother to encourage and bolster little brother, rather than taunt, torment, and dominate him. I think, with vigilant parenting, the latter can be avoided. Certainly I witnessed sibling torment in my own childhood household, but our parenting was far from vigilant. I want my boys to grow up to be the closest of friends, each strong and confident in his own abilities. I want them to bring out the best of each other.
My traditional family name, the one that first daughters have been given for generations and generations, my middle name, my mother’s middle name, my grandmother’s middle name, my great grandmother’s middle name, and so on and so forth, and with it the heirloom paisley shawl, pristine and well over a hundred years old, will have to wait, either for my sister, should she be blessed with a daughter and choose to follow the tradition, or for another generation yet to come. It was a first daughter’s tradition, and I find this a little sad. But it’s only a tradition, and traditions are only as much value as we allow them to be.
