Our fruitful loins
So, as the post below makes (relatively[1]) clear, another baby is on the way. “Just this one more, and then THAT’S IT”, says Magda, so my hopes of fielding our own World Cup team c. 2030 are officially dashed. In the ultrasound it’s difficult to tell if we’re growing a boy or a girl in there, and as I write we estimate the size of Adam’s new sibling as approximately that of a Gummi Bear. So it may be a while before we know one way or the other.
Back in my pre-procreating days, I always assumed that I’d be of the “Want to be surprised in the delivery room” school of ultrasound analysis, also known as the “If you see a penis, doc, keep it to yourself” school. When Magda was pregnant with Adam, both of us were entirely convinced that he was a girl. The feeling was so primally intense that we were positive it was true, and that therefore we could be 100% wrong about it. We decided that it would be too big a mental adjustment to make upon meeting the child if we were wrong, so finally we changed our position to “So is there a penis or isn’t there?”
From then on, of course, Adam refused to give the ultrasound wand a crotch-shot, so his sex remained tantalizingly unknown until sometime late in the second trimester[2]. And it turned out that we were right; it took us some time to get used to the idea of a son after such strong (wrong) intuition. It’s hard to believe now, but to be perfectly honest we were a bit disappointed[3] for a day or two. We congratulated ourselves on avoiding such feelings in our first meeting with the boy.
With this pregnancy neither of us has a strong feeling either way in terms of who’s growing in there. There is a certain amount of bias in terms of preference, however. Magda firmly hopes for another boy, for a variety of reasons: Adam would have a brother, they could play stereotypically gender-specific boy-games together, we already own the blue clothes, etc. One reason for her preference surprised me, though. “I wouldn’t know what to do with a girl.” There’s also a certain phobia about pink, and an abhorrence of girly-toys and froufrouery in general. Before anyone goes pointing out that we can raise a girl without the dated, stereotypical expectations of our over-gendered patriarchal society etc, let me say that our experience with Adam has shown us that no amount of judicious parenting seems able to divert the chromosomally hard-wired monster-truck or frilly-pink preferences that would appear to slide right down the birth canal with the slippery little creatures. We don’t know where he gets it from, but he is more ur-masculine than his father.
It’s a strange and altogether new feeling to have such a binary mystery going on in one of our bellies. With Adam we were gut-sure of one thing until we suddenly learned[4] the opposite. We accept that it’s a 50-50 chance. So it’s a certain amount of comfort to know about the Barbie Liberation Organization and their work.
[1] I say ‘relatively’ because a friend wrote, “…saw your wonderful news. The pictures are a fun surprise, but I had to read the scan-o-baby pic over twice! Yay!”
[2] If memory serves; pity this blogging project wasn’t started sooner…
[3] Adam, don’t get the wrong idea. By the time you’re reading this via some futuriffic Way Back Machine internet reconstructor on your cold-fusion-powered TurboBook, I’m confident you will have disappointed us in other ways. We’ll get over them all.
[4] Via some science that is pretty damn kick-ass when it’s applied to you and your tiny growing massive responsibility and infinite joy.
Aw, two is only enough for a beach volley team, or a double scull. Or agility, if one of the pair has four legs. Wouldn’t you really like to field a family rugby team? Fifteen players.
Comment by Jean — Thursday 15 June 06 @ 18.07 MDT+2.00
Hey, here’s a thought–can you be absolutely sure at this stage you haven’t for TWO (or more) gummy bears in there?
Comment by Jean — Thursday 15 June 06 @ 18.08 MDT+2.00
“got” not “for”. Typo. Two typos actually.
Comment by Jean — Thursday 15 June 06 @ 18.09 MDT+2.00
Life is full of surprises, most of them not necessarily of the pleasant type.
This surprise (boy/girl) is guaranteed to be one of the most pleasant types! You know you’ll be smiling and ecstatic whichever way that Y-chromosome (or is it X?) dominates. Hold out for the answer until the very end!
Comment by DarkoV — Thursday 15 June 06 @ 21.27 MDT+2.00
I know exactly what Magda means. I keep thinking we had better have another little boy, too, although I also keep thinking I want three little boys. I see myself in the den mother role.
Also, I just wrote you a long, long letter, and in it I asked you if Adam was displaying super-masculine tendencies already. Apparently he is. Soryu is, too. He’s all about giant trucks and checking out the ladies–he likes the two-year-olds. Where does this come from? I can’t imagine. We didn’t set out to purposely subvert the traditional male/female toy paradigm, but we also didn’t set out to purposely encourage him to shoot things up and then run over them with his wooden tank. But he does. And in the presence of the two-year-old hotties, he’s been known to strut and holler. What the hell, we keep thinking? I never doubted that masculinity could be inborn (duh), but how does ‘masculinity’ equate to ‘monster truck fiend’ on a Y chromosome? It simply can’t be, because back when these chromosome deals got started, there were no monster trucks. Anyway, it’s a bit creepy. I keep expecting him to start begging for NASCAR tickets.
Comment by jdog — Friday 16 June 06 @ 06.52 MDT+2.00
Congratulations!! I can’t wait to see another cutie pie made by you two.
Comment by Victoria Winters — Friday 23 June 06 @ 17.27 MDT+2.00