Miss Kate, Why Don’t You Have Any Girls?

Recently, while leaving the park, my best friend’s 4-year old daughter turned to me and asked, “Miss Kate, why don’t you have any girls?” Such an innocently loaded question.

How do I answer that without dumping some deep emotions on this little girl?

I quickly mulled that question over in my mind, trying to come up with a simple answer for her. I couldn’t go into the birds and the bees and tell her how she actually needed to ask my husband. I didn’t want to divulge the truth that I secretly prayed that each of my pregnancies would give me a daughter, and I also couldn’t discredit the fact that I am so grateful for the three boys I do have.

“Great question, Elle. I guess God thought I needed boys,” was how I replied and she skipped away, pigtails bouncing as she went, satisfied with my answer. 

It was as simple as that for her, but for me, it took me back.

My husband and I talked about the kids we would have even before we were married. We would have a boy and a girl. Her name changed over the years from Giada to Dillinger then Pepper, but she was real to me. She was always destined to exist.

When we found out at our 12 week ultrasound that my first baby was a boy, we were excited. I knew my husband wanted a boy and I wasn’t worried because we were planning on having another child so the next one would be my girl. 

He was born in April of 2014 and I entered the world of boys. Having been raised with just a sister, I felt like a foreigner to this space. Boys have a different energy and humor. It took some time, but I started to adjust and eventually adapt to boydom, but I still believed that I would be rescued by a daughter. One day, I would play tea party with her, help her buy her prom dress, and watch her walk down the aisle and get married. She would become my best friend when I got older.

Three years after my first son was born, we decided we were ready for our second child. In November of 2016, we found out that we were pregnant. I was sick and putting on weight at speeds that quite exceeded my first boy pregnancy. “This is it,” I thought! “My girl.” I felt it in my bones. Right before our 20-week ultrasound, I dreamed about how I was going to reveal the gender. Pink balloons? Pink confetti? Pink “Little Lady” sign?

At the ultrasound the only words I could hear were, “It’s a boy.” 

“Can you double check?” I asked as I fought back tears. “How silly am I? No one cries at an ultrasound. Pull it together.” I thought. I think I insulted the technician, but I asked her to show it to me no less than three times just to be sure. 

I went home, told my mom, then hurried to the bathroom to cry in private. 

No pink balloons, no pink confetti, no pink “Little Lady” sign. 

Instead of a Pinterest-worthy gender reveal, I grabbed my son’s blue Crayola marker and a piece of printer paper. I scribbled the words, “It’s a boy,” sat my son on our swing outside, commanded him to smile and snapped a picture. I didn’t care that he had a cold and his nose was all red or that his jeans had holes in both the knees. I sent the gender reveal picture via text to eager friends and family members then shut my phone off. I didn’t want to hear congratulations from my friends who were also pregnant but having girls. I didn’t want to hear, “Brothers are the best,” or “Now you don’t have to buy new baby clothes. You will save money” I wanted to shop. I wanted to spend excessive amounts of money on bows and pink dresses. 

My husband came home later that night, and much like he is with everything in life, he calmly proceeded to reassure me that everything would be great. We talked about boy names and although he was in love with one, I wasn’t ready to accept a boy name quite yet. I simply didn’t want to even look at names.

I let myself wallow in this lonely feeling for a few weeks. I put on a smile when people would say, “Oh two boys, you will have your hands full.” The more he kicked and moved around in my belly though, the more my heart began to soften. 

My second son was born in August. It was a long labor but when he arrived, I reached out and held him close to my chest, boy parts and all, grateful for this new little life that I had given birth to.  

In the following year, I slowly watched as my two boys turned into brothers and friends. They loved like brothers and fought like brothers. A friend had given me a “Boy Mom” hat shortly after the birth and I eventually started to accept the truth that I was, in fact, a mom of only boys. Occasionally, I would still do a double take when a little girl in a cute dress walked by or when I saw a sign for ballet lessons, but it didn’t seem to hurt as much. 

As my middle son moved through the baby stages, I held on to all of our baby gear. My husband would show me the box of newborn clothes or the baby bouncer and ask, “Donate?” I would just look at him and smile and he knew to store them in the garage. 

To my surprise, that feeling of being “done” did not come over me. Instead, a pit in my stomach kept nagging at me to add another child to our family. Maybe it was my desire to get my girl or just the vision I had of our family dinners in 20 years surrounded by people, but something kept telling me that our family wasn’t complete yet. 

We eventually decided to try for a third child. We both agreed that boy or girl, we wanted another baby no matter what the gender. Yes, I did want a girl and everyone knew it, but the past five years had taught me about the rare sweetness of boys and the bond that is special between a mother her son. 

So we did it. We got pregnant for the third time. With this pregnancy, I decided not to find out the gender of our baby. People around me thought it was crazy, including my husband, but to be honest, I was protecting my heart. I hated the way I felt when I heard I was having a second boy. I felt guilty for being upset. I feared my unborn child would feel my sorrow as he grew inside me. I worried that my feelings were totally unjustified when thousands of women around the world struggle to conceive or have healthy babies. 

I held onto the hope that if I went through hours of hard labor and heard the news, “It’s a boy,” that maybe the sheer relief that labor was over would be enough for me to accept the fact that I was not destined to have my daughter. 

I knew it though. Deep down in my soul or I guess you could say my womb, I knew that we were having a boy. It was still unknown through ultrasound but I had a dream about a baby boy and I slipped and called my baby, “he,” throughout the whole pregnancy.. 

A week past my due date, after days of preterm labor and eventually being induced, I was the first to see it and announce, “It’s a boy.” He came out perfect and healthy, my third son. 

*****

They are my trifecta. All three boys are different in their own way, yet each has made me more and more complete.

So the answer to that little girl’s question, “Miss Kate, why don’t you have any girls?” 

Somewhere deep in the universe, someone knew I wanted a girl but needed these boys.  They have taught me things only boys can teach, like how to be strong yet have a gentle side, how to be brave but still show emotions, and how to look the world straight in the eye and defy it. I needed them as much as they need me. 

Ultimately, I think I wanted a girl because I was afraid of failing with a boy. I’m a woman, I was raised with a sister. Having a daughter would have been easy for me. These boys of mine have shown me though, that despite all the mistakes I have made, I do have the patience, creativity, energy and love that only a boy deserves. 

I have grieved my daughter, the girl I hoped would become my best friend. I have said goodbye to those dreams, and in doing so, I found something more; the undeniable love for three boys.