When I was pregnant with Ben 6 years ago now, I was utterly floored to find out that he was indeed a he, so floored that it was a miracle I had been laying down for the sonogram because if I hadn’t been, I’d have fallen over from the shock of it. My intuition is terrible, almost as bad as my ability to sing on key, which is pretty horrifying. I’ll admit it now, I was pretty upset by it as I had really, truly, madly, deeply wanted to have a daughter (let’s be honest here so that I can tell you that it was a damn good thing that I found out then and not later in the delivery room. I’m sure the doctor and nurses would have been a little freaked out by the sight of me crying over the privates of my perfect little boy, as apparently I had been judged to be an unfit mother. I guess I must have a poker face when it comes to OB appointments, because my ancient little doctor who barely said a word to me in the nine months that I saw him, kept coming into my postpartum room and saying “Wow, you REALLY love that baby!” which shocked me. Of COURSE I loved my ickle baby!)

When I got pregnant with Alexander, I was much more laid back about it, likely because it had taken quite a long time to get pregnant, as long as It was healthy, I genuinely didn’t care if It was a She or a He. I found out before Dave did, as the sonographer refused to let him come into the room until she had completed her assessment of the fetus, which I wasn’t so happy about, I mean, what if something had been wrong? Did I really need a stranger to tell me some bad news alone?

Anyhow, she asked me if I wanted to know what flavor baby I was having without Dave’s hulking presence (hahaha) and of course, I’m impatient so I found out. I can still hear her in my mind, “It’s a little boy and he’s perfect.” Ah, sweet sweet relief, the baby I had wanted so much was well (to be fair here, having had the misfortune to rotate through the NICU at a major children’s hospital, I took nothing about the health of my unborn child as an assumption of the best. I saw many, many horrifying things there, most of which will never leave me and STILL haunt me even now), and now I could gloat: I had won the bet.

Instead of having to wear a “Chicks Dig Linux” shirt, Dave was going to have to wear a Britney Spears one. In public. Without covering it up. Which reminds me…I need to make him DO that and THEN I’ll post them on the internet for him! I’m such a nice wife.

The discussion of having another baby has recently come up, as my initial intent was to not go back on birth control and just wait-n-see what happened, get the newborn/baby thing done with and get Dave’s nuts snipped (again: aren’t I a SWEET wife?), and while our other friends were dealing with midnight feedings and diaper rash, we’d be sipping Pina Colada’s by the beach somewhere, laughing knowingly. Unfortch, Lake Michigan doesn’t exactly count as a beach in my book, AND I think if I were to have an Oops! Baby! now Dave’s head might explode and Alex might try to strangle me in my sleep.

So no babies for awhile (besides you need to actually ovulate to have babies, and the one benefit that I can see to Alex’s need to wake up at all hours of the night and eat is that I haven’t had my period since last July.) for us. A long while, actually, because the prospect of physically being pregnant again freaks me the hell out. I’m a TERRIBLE pregnant woman, a fat, obsessive, unhappy, and sick as hell.

But (isn’t there always one with me?), I have a new problem. Suddenly, I really, really, really want to have a daughter with every fiber of my being, in order to balance out all of the testosterone raging rampantly throughout my house. I want to play house and dolls and put her in cute ickle dresses and OOOHHH PATENT LEATHER MARY JANES! I want to choose a name that I really, really like for her and not have to worry about it being too trendy or frilly or not manly enough (plus, between the two boys and their 209 middle names, I’m clean out of good boys names), I want to not have to cut off her hair because it’s “too long” and “too girly looking”. I want someone who maybe just maybe looks somewhat like me and have it not be an insult to them later in life, because what boy do you know WANTS to look like his mother? I don’t want to have to train yet another young boy how to pee standing up WITHOUT losing aim because Oh! Look! A Mirror!

It’s okay to have wants, although I am highly afraid of what I would feel if/when we have another baby and it turns out to have yet another penis. Because frankly, I have enough of them to worry about.