Our 'son'

'He' was doing so well. I knew it. I felt it in my bones, in my blood, and it the f**king awful heartburn! It was a boy. A son. Our son.

With our first I honestly didn't have a preference. I was scared that a girl would be difficult (like I was) or bitchy and dramatic (like the girls at school). I was scared that a boy would be super hungry (like my brother) and more than I had milk for, or hyper and full of excess energy (like my brother's friends growing up). Either way, I was scared, and pretty clueless as to what lay ahead, so really it made no difference!

When our little girl was born we were delighted. She was beautiful and perfect. She had all of our 'good' qualities and (seemingly) none of the 'bad'. She was gentle and quiet, she slept soundly, and she was utterly gorgeous beyond words.

Perfect.


This time around I knew exactly what I wanted. I had my little girl. My oldest girl, just like me. Now I wanted a son. A younger boy, just like my brother. That was what I knew. That was what I had always grown up imagining. That was the future I had always pictured for myself; a recreation of my own happy childhood. One of each. Lovely.

But I was worried. I now knew just how difficult those first few days/ weeks could be. I remember well the rush of hormones (or sudden lack of) on day 6, when the world collapses in around you and you just crumble, wandering off upstairs to your bed half-way through attempting to make dinner, leaving a ruined, burnt lump of 'it-was-supposed-to-be-pasta' on the hob and a screaming baby in the arms of your bewildered husband, tears rolling down your face as your disappear 'forever' under the duvet.

I had no intention of throwing 'gender disappointment' into the mix as well!

So it was decided that this time we would find out. We booked a private gender scan (thanks to NHS Scotland's weird/ inconsistent policies on gender reveals) for the 21st week.

When the day came I was petrified. I was elated. I was mildly high from the much-anticipated can of Irn Bru to 'wake baby up'.

The receptionist asked us to sit, but I could barely keep still. Our Little Miss was just 'coming into her own' and was displaying all the patience of an angered Honey Badger in her demands for 'moa waisins!' We were stressed. Finally (20 minutes late) our names were called and we moved through to the little examination room. Someone (obviously someone with children who knew exactly what kind of day we were having) had set up a little play area in the corner of the room. The terrible twos were quickly placated by the discovery of 'A telescope!' (a cardboard tube) and we were free to concentrate on the matter at hand. Numero dos.

Suddenly I felt sick. What if. What if it was. What if it wasn't. What if... I hadn't even considered!?

The consultant got to work quickly and within seconds announced 'Ooo, I know what you're having...'
We squinted at the grainy image on the over-large LCD screen.
'Can you tell?'
... No I bloody can't! That's the point of you!
Wait... is that... could it be?...
I saw a 'protrusion'....
My heart skipped a beat. My breath caught in my chest. I turned to look at my husband, the word on my lips...

'It's a Girl!' she squealed gleefully.

Oh.

'Right there, those are her little girly bits!' She circled them on the screen. She even labelled them 'girly bits'. (Seriously, it's on the printed picture.)

It was the cord.
I had seen the cord.
And it was upside down.

F*ck.

My husband gentle squeezed my hand. We smiled.
She obviously was obviously more adept at reading the room in this moment than we'd given her credit for. She went quiet (small miracles) and began busying herself getting photos for us to take away.

We kept smiling. We told our daughter ('Mummy look at the telescope!) still smiling. We smiled as we accepted our gift pack and baby photos, as we passed reception, as we nodded to all the other mummies and daddies waiting patiently, all the way out to the car.

As we drove away the smiles faded. I was quiet.
He had always said he didn't mind. Boy or girl, he was just happy with a second child.
He was also quiet.

'Are you disappointed?' I already knew his answer.
'I didn't think I would be...'
'Me too.'

We managed all the way home before the crying. He tried to cheer me up with a quick detour to Tesco for a 'cute little girly outfit'. They were cute I suppose, but I was blind to them. I only had eyes for the beautiful blue romper, complete with tiny shirt and bow tie. Suffice to say we didn't buy anything. I was whisked away before I completely lost control. He took the toddler downstairs to be babysat by CBeebies ('Uncle Andy!'), while I trudged up the stairs to our room. I was uncomfortable in my too-small jeans. I'd feel better once I got changed.

By the time he came to investigate I was sitting on the floor, half naked, head in hands, sobbing like a fool.

I felt awful. I was an awful person; an awful Mother. Our baby was happy and healthy and had survived despite all earlier signs pointing to miscarriage. And yet here I was, crying because 'it wasn't the one I wanted'. I was a monster.

I found reassurance online in the form of another blog. A normal mum, like me (though rather more famous), had felt disappointed after having not 2 but 3 boys. I realised it was ok for me to feel that initial pang of regret, perhaps even to try again some day. As long as I didn't let it colour how I treated our new bundle, and I knew that would never happen.

So while I still find it hard to picture myself as a mother of two girls (funnily enough 2 boys doesn't seem so strange!) I know I will love our second daughter just as much as I have adored our first. And I am still glad we found out when we did. I definitely would have felt 100000 times worse to have been disappointed whilst staring into the innocent, blue eyes of our newborn!. I still feel when I see the blue wall at Tesco, and I spent far too much last week on our friends' new baby boy (I got carried away with all the cute!), but our eldest is going to be an amazing big sister and I can't wait to see them playing together and laughing and running around and doing all the things that prompted us to have a second child in the first place. Yes, there will be tantrums and screaming matches, and yes I do worry what mothering 2 teenage girls is going to entail (*help*), but I can honestly say I'm looking forward to meeting her, whomever she turns out to be.

Now...

What on earth do we call her when we've already used that name!?