Today is a brighter day

I'm recovering from the surprise news I received yesterday. I admit that I was so sure that I was having a girl that I really didn't allot much of my brain cells to contemplating parenting a boy. To be sure, I'm over-simplifying parenting a daughter as well, imagining days of brushing hair, holding her hand and taking her shopping, delighting in pretty clothes and colorful trifles. Is it that simple? Of course not. I'm sure being the parent of a girl will also be challenging in ways that I've yet to imagine.

But I suppose part of my reluctance of even contemplating being mother to a boy stems from my fundamental ignorance of this entire half of the human race. Boys, men, young and old, continue to befuddle me. I can understand on an abstract level that we are all fundamentally human, more alike than different. Yet there are clear differences in how men and women see the world, see themselves, and how they think. I understand it to be partly a result of cultural indoctrinations, socialization, as well as some biological components. Teasing out what specifically results in the various differences is beyond the scope of this post, but suffice to say, I know it's a complicated amalgam of various factors.

Yet, today, I'm feeling better and more adjusted to the idea of mothering a boy. Little boys are of course adorable, and I know I will fall in love with my son as fervently as I would have with a daughter. And I went on amazon and started researching the market for books to gather more information. It turns out there's a vast supply of literature written on the subject of mothering and raising sons. I'm significantly heartened to see that, because I realize I wasn't alone in my feeling of insecurities about raising a child of the opposite gender. As the good little nerd I've always been, I'm always reassured when I see a stack of books chock full of information, just waiting to be plucked, imbibed and nourish my hitherto narrow universe of a brain.

The somewhat less complicated problem now is deciding which book to read. It's funny, just a few months back I gave nary a thought to actually being a parent. My focus was on the pregnancy and the delivery. I didn't even bother reading anything else. But now that I've hit my 20th week, the ever looming reality is that after D-day, it's just the beginning. Then it's worrying about how to be a good parent to a newborn, then a toddler, then before you know it, you'd have to worry about all sorts of things, as the child become more and more alert, receptive and aware of the world around him. That's when you really have to be careful, faithfully keeping in mind your wishes and desires in how you want to nurture your child and how you want to guide him/her into adulthood. Sigh....it's gonna to a long haul folks.

But wait! I said today is a brighter day! I really ought to have a mechanical slapper that literally smacks me out of my melancholic moods which I have a tendency to spiral into with very low threshold. It's true though. The flip side to all my worrying and insecurities is that I'm getting excited about having a little boy. I was musing to myself John Lennon's song tribute to his son, Sean, "Beautiful boy." It's truly a wondrous song and I picture myself singing that song (horribly off-key) to my precious boy as well, because I believe that song captures brilliantly the emotions a parent feels when looking at his progeny.

Not to mention, I fully intend to be that cool parent who's up for rough and tumble play with my baby boy if he's so inclined, at all times loving and emotionally grounded. I take from my inspiration, Frances, from Death Be Not Proud, she seems to have been a superb mother to her son, Johnny, in his tragically short life of 17 years. I feel that she did it by simply treating her son with respect, love and gentle guidance, and related to him as a friend and confidante, especially in his later years. It is also humbling to know that despite what I feel was an excellent example of good mothering, she nonetheless expressed some regrets in an essay in the book, wondering if she could have done things differently in some respects. We women can be very hard on ourselves and we will always feel like we could do "better."

Thus, I will try to keep that other principle in mind. If I do my best, I may be "good enough."

Boy oh boy!

Today was a big day! I found out that I am expecting a little boy, courtesy of a very insistent pecker on the ultrasound. Oh the happiness! Oh the fear! The blessed mixed emotions that I felt.

I had been so sure, you see, that I was having a girl, that I had gone ahead to pick out a girl name for my baby. It's not that I thought it inconceivable for me to have a boy, but I had not really come across a boy's name that I liked and so, with part wishful thinking, part willfulness, I decided to pre-emptively decide on my baby's gender. So much for that!

Still the bigger questions still remain, and loom ever so large in my mind. Will I be a good mother? How will I guide and raise my child to become a good kid, a good teen, a good man fundamentally? I picture so many scenarios in my head (it's really very taxing on the brain, and basically amounts to idle worrying) of how my child will turn out. But first, let's focus on the good news!

According to the very fastidious U/S tech who looked at my baby today, he has ten fingers, ten toes, nicely formed humerus, tibia, fibula. All his heart valves are intact and performing as it should be. He has his requisite two veins and an artery supplying nutrients and removing waste. My two uterine arteries are also pulsing very gamely and responsibily. He has well formed upper lips (no cleft), he has nice buttocks, knees, shoulders. He doesn't have extra padding at the back of his neck, head is of perfect size, well formed vertebrae (no spina bifida - despite this mom's sporadic use of folic acid, yay!) So far so good, my little one!

I think I shall post more musings as the days go on, mostly for my own amusement, and hopefully for some of yours.

Cheers, my friends.