In a Name

So, I have a new theory on why I kept gravitating to girlish boy’s names throughout my pregnancy—Robin, Avery, Wesley, anyone? I now think it’s not because I harbor a secret wish to have a sissy for a son (it’s actually not a secret!) but because the human being displacing my intestines for nine-and-a-third months was a girl. Is a girl.

Yes, after nine months and ten days I am the mom of a baby girl.

A girl!

An eight pound 11 ounce baby of the female persuasion, born around 8pm last night. (Which, by the way, makes my O.B. psychic in addition to being a gifted suturer.)

This makes me inordinately happy, as the chances of a girl child liking to spend her afternoon quietly making necklaces or potholders with me in my art studio/office are, while not 100%, still far greater than if said child were a boy. Particularly a boy named Conrad or Conan or Thor. (Okay, I made that last one up.) Robin, Avery, and Wesley clearly would have been the sort of boys who love making potholders and necklaces with their mama, but if not one of them preferred basketball to basketweaving, their daddy’s heart would have been broken. And if I had endured three vomiting- and varicose-vein producing pregnancies and not produced a single girl, my heart would have been a little broken—along with my vagina. Because no matter how sweet Robin, Avery, and Wesley would have been, bringing me mugs of hot tea and a hand-embroidered hanky whenever I wept, it’s not quite the same thing as having a little girl.

Even if she turns out to be a basketball-loving, craft-hating, rambunctious little tomboy. No matter what kind of person she turns out to be, my baby is a dreamy dream come true.