Since You Asked

I am not the first person to have 2 boys and 1 girl.

And I certainly won't be the last.

So, why is it then, when I'm out and about with all of my children - say at the beach, or at Target, or heck, anywhere - do people (total strangers) always seem to find a spare moment to approach me and declare, Oh, I see you got your girl!

Why?

I went to elementary school with a boy who had 2 older brothers and 2 younger brothers, making 5 boys total. I recall people talking about poor Mrs. Smith, with all her boys. Not necessarily in a bad sort of way, more in an exhausted sort of way. She must be so tired with all those boys! Years later, after her boys were nearly grown, she had a little girl. Finally. But was Mrs. Smith trying for a girl? Maybe. Did she finally get her girl? Maybe. Is it any of my business? No!

I'm not Mrs. Smith. I only have three children.

What about my family composition is so riveting? I wonder.

It's not as if I'm walking down the sidewalk with seven boys and one girl. I'm not OCTOMOM.

But so what if I was?

I remember very clearly the day we had an ultrasound to find out the gender of our third baby. We never knew with the boys, and I wasn't one of those women who just knows, deep down, whether she's carrying a boy or a girl. All of my pregnancies were crapshoots, on the gender front. They could have gone either way.

So when the technician declared that she saw "two little lines" indicating the presence of a female in my womb, I didn't really believe her.

Those technicians don't know what they're talking about, I thought. How can they really tell if it's a boy or a girl?

I'd already convinced myself that I would be the mother of 3 boys. My Three Sons. That was going to be my destiny. Although I yearned for a girl, one of my own, filled with estrogen and frill, instead of trucks and bugs and dirt, I really, truly thought I'd just have boys. I didn't feel it, I knew it. And I certainly wasn't having a third baby just to get my girl, because I knew in my soul that I was having all boys.

It just was.

My mom got a tiny pink teddy bear for her unborn granddaughter, which we placed on the changing table in her room. Whenever I'd walk by the lavender and pale green nursery, with the pink bear just sitting there, staring at me, I'd laugh to myself. It seemed so funny to have something pink in the house that didn't belong to me. It seemed even more absurd to believe that I was actually having a girl baby. A girl! To think!

I would rub my giant orb of a stomach, feeling the gentle little kicks coming from within and wonder, is this what a girl feels like? Gentle, soft and easy?

(If only her life outside of the womb would have remained as calm)

The night Katie was born was chaos. Pure and simple. I had no idea when I went to my appointment earlier that day that I'd be having another c-section that night. Under the bright lights, the blue drapes, and the beeping of countless monitors, my daughter was pulled from me and I saw her for the first time.

A girl. I thought. She's really here.

And then someone whisked her away, her daddy closely in tow, as I remained in the operating room, getting put back together.

So, to answer your question, yes, in a way I guess I finally did get my girl. And I'm so glad that I did - because not only does she fill the void that we didn't even know was missing in our lives but I don't think she'd make a very good boy, even if she tried.

But please, next time you see me and my kids and you wonder - please don't say it out loud. Please. Because first and foremost, I'm a mom. I will hunt you down, choke all the air from your lungs and bury you deep in a black pit of snakes if you hurt my children's feelings. Because they are my kids, and just because there are three of them (gasp!) does not mean that I'm starting a circus or taking them on the road a la The Partridge Family.

They're just kids. Get used to it. Someday they will be running the country.