What will it be?

I've been reading a book recently called "Great With Child: Reflections on Faith, Fullness, and Becoming a Mother." It's basically the journaling of an English professor who is expecting her third child. She's a great writer, and she's a Christian, though I doubt I agree with her on some of the finer points of theology. As we're getting closer to finding out the sex of this baby, I found that I really identified with one of her journal entries. I'll type in some of it for you to read.

"We did want to know the baby's sex, mostly for practical reasons. I wanted to sort out all my boxed up baby clothes ahead of time. And I admitted to myself that I liked the idea of having another girl, so it would probably be better to know ahead of time if the baby was not going to wear all those darling little dresses I had saved. But I thought I would be truly happy with a normal baby either way. Then the sonographer said, "It's a boy." Well, well. How full of pretense our little maternal pieties can be. Yes, I was relieved that all the parts were in the right place. Yes, it was wonderful to see the actual baby moving about on the screen...But it was his hand and his mouth. And my relief was eclipsed by disappointment. This is a very unattractive confession. But it's true. I suddenly realized how much I had planned on a girl. I had imagined holding a little girl's hand, I had thought of my daughter with a little sister...But this is not to be. Period. This baby is a boy, and that changes everything."

Of course, Debra Rienstra goes on to say that she begins to fall in love with the idea of having another son. Of course, she loves her new son deeply. But I did think her total honesty about the big shock was really great. I sometimes feel an unspoken expectation on me as a first time mom to say when others ask if I want a girl or a boy that I really don't care as long as it's healthy. But how many people truly have no preference? From the beginning, I've honestly hoped for a little girl. I'm sure I don't have good or rational reasons for this. I'm a girl, so the idea of raising someone who has girl parts and a girl mind feels a little more comfortable to me. I don't understand guys nearly as well as I'd like to. But I have worked with little boys as a preschool teacher, and a lot of them are such cuddlers, and I have a darling nephew that I adore, so the idea of having a boy sounds better all the time, too, even if it does feel more like uncharted territory. I guess I wonder how many people out there didn't think of their baby as one sex or the other before they knew what it was. From early days, I've been imagining this baby as a girl. It doesn't hurt that my mom, my mother-in-law, my brother, etc., are all sure this baby is a girl too. Won't God have a good laugh on us if we're wrong? But I wonder if most moms do put some sort of sex on their baby imaginings just because it's natural to do that. We don't like to think of Baby as an "it," maybe? One of the reasons I want to know the sex of this baby soon is because I don't want to be thinking of the baby as the wrong sex until it comes out, and be totally shocked if all my imaginings are wrong. I want to get my thinking adjusted ahead of time. Will I be disappointed if the ultrasound tech says, "It's a boy."? I honestly don't know. Maybe Isaac's sweet face will come to my mind, and I'll smile and think that I've been silly to indulge my vivid imagination with girl fantasies. Maybe I'll start dreaming right away of little boy hugs. I don't know; I'm caring a little less every day whether I have a girl or a boy. But I am grateful to Debra Rienstra for being brave enough to say the things I've been thinking were possibly motherly inappropriate and making them seem a little more normal. She's helped me to smile and cut myself a little slack in this area.