I've been having such vivid dreams these last couple of weeks, sometimes two or three a night, some of them fierce and terrifying nightmares.
Last night I dreamed that I was at a doctor's appointment and had just had an ultrasound. The doctor left me alone in the room and I happened to see the top of my ultrasound chart and realized that, it said that the baby is a girl. I couldn't see it that well at first and, even though Greg and I have firmly decided not to find out, I couldn't help leaning forward to confirm that it really said GIRL, which it did.
In the dream the emotion I felt upon seeing that word -- GIRL -- was relief. Intense relief.
Telling of what my preference is, huh?
The truth is that I'd love to have one of each, a boy and a girl. Or even two boys and a girl or two girls and a boys or three girls. In any case, there just has to be a girl. And I hope that it happens with this pregnancy so that I don't have to wonder with each subsequent one; I can just have my girl and get it over with.
I've thought about this a lot -- why it is that I want a girl so badly -- and it's partly because the idea of having a boy makes me nervous because I fear I won't be able to relate to it as well. BUT, before you get your fingers poised to comment on that, let me say that I know that fear is irrelevant given the fact that I've never had a child before and I know, I just know, that no matter what I have it will be perfect and it will be exactly what I was meant to have, be it a boy or a girl or a child with disabilities, and I will love it and relate to it perfectly.
The conclusion I've really come to about why I want to have a girl so badly has to do with my mother. Simply that it's now been 12 years since I've had a mother-daughter relationship -- and I had such a good one -- that I deeply yearn to have that again. As complicated as those relationships can be, between a mother and her daughter, I want so badly to have that in my life again. My mother was such a vibrant, beautiful woman, and our relationship was so wonderfully complex and layered and influential. And her absence has left me to sort through so many things about what means to be a woman...that I would truly love to share a bond like that again, with a daughter.
That said, because I've gone and written about it, and because I want it so badly, it's sure to be a boy. And that said, if it is a boy, it will most likely prove to teach me even deeper lessons than a girl somehow would -- I think that sometimes what we fear the most is exactly what we need to propel us forward into new realms of life.
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If you live in Chicago, be sure to look for the inaugural issue of The Printed Blog tomorrow morning, being passed out at el stops in Lincoln Park and Wicker Park.
