Dear Daughters

Dear Daughters

When I was a young teen, I ruined Christmas. I pre-opened every single present that I could find in our house. I was sneaky too. I’d use a razor blade to slice the tape and then I'd reseal it with perfect precision. I not only opened mine, but everyone else’s too. I ruined Christmas. And I only made that mistake once.

It’s hard to have patience. If it was easy, everyone would do it. Patience is wisdom in waiting. I hate being patient. It has NEVER been my strong suit, however, ruining Christmas ’cured’ me of being impatient. I can wait now.  I waited for my husband to marry me. I waited to have babies.  Waiting is easy. Having the patience to wait for a surprise is hard, but the surprise is usually worth the wait. Especially when you're pregnant.

My grandmother always told me that learning the gender of your baby was the biggest surprise that life will give you. She encouraged me to wait until my labour day to find out if a son or daughter would be our blessing. She died before Miss B was born, but I listened to her. We went the whole pregnancy answering people that asked if we knew what we were having. ’A Baby’ was my tongue-in-cheek reply. My mom generously offered to pay for a 3D ultrasound, but the idea of seeing our baby before his or her birthday was not for us. I spent my pregnancy thinking of boy and girls names, and decorating the nursery with greys and yellows with hints of green. I was good with that. The only thing I knew FOR SURE was that I wanted my husband to tell me gender. It just wouldn’t be the same hearing it from our doctor or a nurse.  Hubby had to tell me.

Flash forward until I was 15 hours through a late night labour, 8 hours on the epidural and 4 hours into pushing, that moment happened. And my mind went blank. When the pain was over (I had a high epidural, so I felt all the tearing, crowning, ring of fire etc.  Fun eh?) and that purplish, grey goopy baby was put on my chest, I had nothing. The only thing that was going through my head was ‘its over’ as I looked at this mass of black goopy hair. I heard nothing, time stopped. Then my husband broke through my shock with ‘ it’s a girl!’ “It’s a girl!!???”  

That was the biggest moment in my life. I still get goose bumps when I tell the story.

We did it again two years later.

I expected a boy this time based on having a totally different pregnancy, but ultimately I teetered between imagining what our life would be like having two daughters versus a daughter and a son. Not so secretly, I was happy imagining two girls, because, well, I know girl stuff . I was terrified of having a son. They scare the hell out of me. But I knew I would get over it as soon as he was born because love is unconditional.  I can pretend to like worms and trucks and baseball.   We can buy all new baby boy stuff cause putting a boy in a pink excersizer or sleeper is socially unacceptable. I can figure out how to change a poopy blow out diaper when there's a penis to work around.  No problem.....  Flash forward, 4 hours later, with 20 minutes of pushing....

“It’s a girl!!!”

*Shout out to my fellow mommies out there that find out gender ~ all the love and respect!  I LOVE when my friends find out the gender of their babies (& tell me!).   This is our story