Gonna Try For A Girl???

Why is it that when you are walking through a crowded public place like the mall with all of your children and its all you can do to make sure one isn’t left behind, or snatched up by a stranger, and you’ve stopped because one of your children lost his shoe 4 stores back, it is at that very moment that perfect strangers decide they are your best friends and feel comfortable coming up to you to ask “So, are you gonna try for a girl?”

I’ve heard them all and quite frankly they used to hurt.  They would make me feel like I was an anomaly, like I was a person with three eyes, rather than just a mom with three boys.  That it is just UNHEARD of to have a family with all boys in it and no *GASP* girls!!!  Then, for my own sanity I learned to look at the comments differently.  And do you know what?  It’s actually worked.  Here are some that I hear almost every single time I head out with all my children in tow.  There’s the “HOLY COW you are a busy mom” which is really starting to get old.  Moms in general are busy, but thank you for wasting my time and pointing out the obvious.  There’s the “OH MY, how do you manage?”  A general question that is asked with complete lack of tact or decorum so I have since decided to use that opportunity to explain how I, Superwoman manage three boys all while leaping tall buildings in a single bound and still being able to change diapers when needed and feed them three square meals a day.  Then there’s the “I have one boy at home, I don’t know HOW you handle three!”  To which I think to myself, it sounds like the problem is with you and not your son…but what I actually say is something more along the lines of “it sounds like you have an active boy on your hands.” 

Then there are the comments that dive into the realm of complete stupidity and tastelessness.  For example, I’ve heard this one on more than one occasion “WOW!  Were you trying for a girl and just didn’t get one?”  Yes, that’s it Einstein, my husband and I set up a class for the X and Y chromosomes with strict instructions to ONLY let the X chromosomes reach the egg, and some silly Y failed the class miserably.  THAT is how we ended up with three boys.  Finally, I’ve heard the passive aggressive comment that is “Good luck with that”.  Why thank you very much I do consider myself extremely lucky and how kind of you to notice.

But for some reason, the comment “Are you going to try for a girl?” gets under my skin more than the others.  As if to imply that my life isn’t complete if I don’t have a little girl, or that it is missing an important element. Would I have liked to have a little girl.  Absolutely.  For two main reasons:  1) I have a great relationship with my mother and it would have been wonderful to experience being on the mother side of that kind of relationship and 2) After raising a boy, it would have been nice to experience the difference in raising a girl.   I understand the desire to have both, I really do.  BUT that doesn’t make me ungrateful for the three, gorgeous, kind, intelligent, loving boys that I have been blessed with.  I quite frankly wouldn’t have it any other way.

So let me just put this out there once and for all, for everyone to hear: this baby factory is closed for business forever!!  We are very happy, content and blessed with the family we have created.  So if a perfect stranger asks me “are you gonna try for a girl” my response is simply “are you going to make her, and carry her for me?  Because I’ve perfected the art of making gorgeous boys and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”