Another boy!

I think girls are more fun to dress and more fun to name, and I prefer the traditional girl toys. What I like about boys is the thought of when they’re older, and presumably kinder to me than the girls would be. Also, lower wedding costs. On the down side: smellier.

I remember when I was expecting my second, I was really hoping for a girl (our first was a boy), because I wanted a largish family and didn’t want people to think we were only having more kids because we were “trying for a girl.”

When I was pregnant with the twins, I was hoping for two girls: I wanted to dress them alike sometimes, and also I thought that made a nice balance of two boys and two girls.

This time around, I wasn’t sure what to hope for. Another girl, so Elizabeth would have a sister? Another boy, so she wouldn’t have to have a sister? Another girl, to make the boy/girl balance more even? Another boy, to let Elizabeth keep her “special only girl” status? Another girl, to save her character from the serious special treatment problem?

I didn’t really think of it only in terms of what would be best for Elizabeth. I also considered the fun of getting to re-use girl clothes (I am so sick of all our boy clothes, after seeing them three times now), the room distribution problem (easier if she can share with another girl? or easier if she can be put in the smallest room because she gets her own?), and that Rob and Will were hoping for a boy.

For me, one of the biggest reasons for wanting a girl was that I wanted the experience of a single-birth girl. I’ve had the single-birth-boy experience twice, and I’ve had the boy-girl-twins experience, but I’ve never had the experience of having a single female baby.

I think it is starting to sound as if what I wanted this time was a girl. In fact, I was unsure what I was hoping for. One reason I was hoping the ultrasound could tell us the sex of the baby is that I wanted to stop wondering what I was hoping for.