what can make me feel this way?

vixanne asked how i felt about having a girl, if we are, and i've been thinking about it quite a bit. i admit, the first time around, although i said i didn't care what it was as long as it was healthy (ha! i didn't even get that wish!), i was stunned when the ultrasound tech pointed out hans's penis. i realized that i had always assumed it would be a girl, i think because i'm a girl, and girliness is what i know. i shifted my dreams then, and hoped hans would be a boy who likes girls' clothes. we'll never know if that dream would have come true, will we?

this time, i feel like the tadpole should be a boy, because a boy is what i've been getting ready for for a year now. and yet the only vaguely scientific thing i have so far is that my beta levels were astronomically high, indicating a higher likelihood of a girl, but not guaranteeing anything.

i feel prepared for a boy now, and not so prepared for a girl. i'm bowled over by all of the utter crap marketed to and at girls. i was raised under the radar of that sort of nonsense because my parents had limited means and because i was raised in a rather conservative religious custom that eschewed worldliness. at the time, i felt so tortured to be excluded, but in retrospect it probably saved me some grief.

raising a girl feels like a heavier responsibility than raising a boy. not that as a society we're doing such a whiz-bang job of socializing our males, but it seems like there are so many more negative messages aimed at girls than at boys that it will take much more work to raise a girl strong enough to withstand the barrage. such a responsibility feels so leaden, so adult. and so anachronistic, too, akin to the old practice of locking up your girls but letting your boys run free. the thing is, when a teenage pregnancy happens, it's the girl that has to carry it or deal with it, and until science makes it possible for men to get knocked up, that fact isn't changing. pregnancy is just one example of how girls are more vulnerable, of course, but it's the most obvious one at the moment.

so if the tadpole is a girl, i will be scared. and also, i will be thrilled. i will start looking at hot pink geometric fabrics to go with the hot pepper green walls of her room. i will start coveting girly dresses with ruffles and smocking and bows. i will be a little less worried, because girls are a little less likely to be stillborn than boys. and i will start telling everyone who will listen what her name is.