Defying the Odds: I Have Two Boys and a Girl
I lay there on my back with protruding stomach as the ultrasound tech zoomed over the lumps in my belly. “It’s a girl,” he said. “Are you sure?” I asked, knowing that sometimes when they predict a girl it is because of what they don’t see as opposed to what they do see. “There’s the vulva,” he answered. And my husband, the father of two boys went a little pale.
When my husband and I chose to have a third baby, we just assumed it was going to be a boy. We had two boys already and we were pretty sure that he was shooting all X chromosomes at that point. But we had a girl.
We didn’t do anything special, I didn’t take supplements, eat sweet food or count the days before and after ovulation. I have to admit that I did check out the Shettles and Whelan strategies for having a girl, but since they are diametrically opposed I figured there was nothing I could do.
So armed with the knowledge of our upcoming bundle of pinkness, we went home in shock and didn’t tell anyone. Anyone who knows me knows that I can not keep a secret but this was fun. Every time someone looked at me they would guess I was having a boy. No matter what old wives' tale they were employing they all came up with boy.
These included:
- I was carrying low
- I still liked salty or sweet food (I like all food)
- I ate the heel of the bread, I didn’t eat the heel of the bread
- My skin looked great and since being pregnant with a girl steals your looks, it must be a boy
- My wedding ring circled clockwise over my stomach
- My wedding ring circled counterclockwise over my stomach
- They could just tell
Only two people guessed it was a girl – my sister because the only predictor that she believes in is: of you have no idea when you got pregnant, then it was going to be a girl. And a friend who had two girls and boy who is extremely rational; she said if your butt gets bigger it’s a girl, sadly, my husband on hearing this burst out laughing.
My mother got a little depressed every time someone told me I was carrying a boy. Although, I think she secretly believes in the theory you have a baby of the same sex as the parent you have the most issues with, I finally let in her in on our secret when I was 36 weeks. She was so happy that it was a girl that she cried. I’m not going to lie I was happy too, having both sexes seemed almost too good to be true.
But I didn’t like how people were so convinced that we had a third child just to have a girl. I thought that it denigrated the boys and made them feel second-rate. And after my daughter was born I hated how people would say to me: Oh, you finally had your girl. No, I had a girl.
An amazing, intelligent girl who plays with trucks, who can build incredible towers, who wears crazy outfits, clomps around in my high heels and puts her dolls to bed every night. In fact, she’s not so different than her brothers. She just has a vulva.
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