This is a Story of a Girl

"A girl," the ultrasound technician says. "A girl?" John's and my eyes get big. "Yes, a girl." Neither one of us were expecting a girl. I don't know where or how we got the notion that it was a boy, but we did.

Can I properly raise a girl? I have mother/daughter issues. I know John is thinking along those same lines- he was a teenage boy not so long ago. Already this little one is full of surprises. Don't get me wrong, when I think of babies, I think of girl babies. Girl clothes are so much better, and bows, and ribbons for her hair. What mom or woman doesn't want a little girl? It's not the "little" part I'm apprehensive about. It's those pesky teenage years, and sometimes way past the teenage years. I haven't been shy about admitting the fact that my mom and I did not see eye to eye on everything, or sometimes anything. From about the time I was 12, my hormones were raging, and her cancer was diagnosed. A more unhappy combination could not be found. Just ask my dad. You name it, we fought about it, clothes, boys, cleanliness of rooms, driving, whatever. I was the typical obnoxious, gangly, sex-crazed, know-it-all 16 year old, and my mom was the exact opposite (except maybe for the know-it-all part...and maybe the sex, but let's not go there)

Boys are easier, right? Boys don't carry around all those emotions, sulking for hours in their room, talking for even more hours on the phone, and god knows what else.

I looked at John in the waiting room, and said, "at least I might have 12 good years with her before she hates me."

The only thing that keeps me from dwelling on all this so much is the good examples that go before me, mostly my sister, Christy and her daughter, Abbey, and the Sutters; Sue, Sally and Jill. I imagine they have their spats, but they seem to get along and like to be around one another, and that is encouraging. History does not have to repeat itself. I know this. I am banking on this.