Trying for a boy?

As I sat awake holding my little 2-week-old joy throughout the night a couple nights ago, I couldn't help but stare down at her through the soft light that so gently caught all her beautifully perfect little features.  I can't imagine holding anyone different than who I have.   I experienced the same kind of overwhelmingly powerful rush of unconditional love with both of my other girls.  I simply cannot imagine my family any other way!  As I was sitting there staring at her, I started recalling the numerous times this pregnancy that I was asked, "So, what are you hoping for, dear?" or something along those lines.

Here are some of the actual things that were said to me while I was pregnant this 3rd time:

"What are you having?... Oh a girl?... Are you going to try for the boy or just give up and realize you're a girl family?"

"Oh you're having a girl?  We actually got our boy for the second one so we could stop trying at that point. Haha!  What are you going to do?"

"Oh, I bet your husband is really disappointed.  He still isn't getting his boy."

He looks pretty disappointed, huh?

Now, I fully realize that the intention behind most, if not all, of these statements was not to offend. They were not to make claims that only families with boys and girls are acceptable families.  They were not trying to say that boys are better than girls. They were simply people acknowledging that I was pregnant with #3, and already having 2 beautiful girls, they were curious about who would be joining us. They were simply making small talk.

I tried to graciously respond to all of these statements (of which I got SO many more than the few mentioned above).  I would simply respond, "We're excited to meet who God is giving us."

Zach and I prepared our girls with this undeniable truth before we even found out the gender: we are not in control of who this baby is created to be.  God is.  He is the author of life.  However, the question is always asked (And I ask it too!), "What are you hoping for?" or "What do you think you're having?"  The girls both responded that they thought it would be a girl.  So in an attempt to prepare them to love a brother if that's what God gave us, we simply explained to them that we don't get to decide the gender.  God does.  If it was a boy, He wanted to give them a special gift of a little brother.  If it was a girl, He thought they needed a little sister.  We aren't in control.  He is.  We aren't the creators of life.  He is.  They caught on to that much stronger than I thought, so Kaylee would often speak up before I would and she would reply to those strangers in the store, "We don't get to choose and we'll just have to wait and see." Sometimes she'd quietly throw in, "But I want a sister." Once we KNEW it was a girl, she'd exclaim,"God chose a sister for us! Isn't that exciting?"  I loved hearing her say that.  I love that she knows that Natalie is a gift to our family from God.

To those who said that my husband would be disappointed, I always brought up how much he loved his 2 girls, so I was sure it wouldn't be any different this time around.  The last thing I wanted was for my 2 beautiful, sweet, innocent girls to think that they were anything less than what daddy was REALLY excited about.  He is so excited about all of his girls. Sure, it maybe took some getting used to.  He wasn't really very keen on wearing princess crowns and fake pearl necklaces until he had his girls.  Lip gloss and nail polish weren't things that he thought to spend his money on. But he still has his fun of building forts and showing off his soccer footwork, with the hope that his kids will fall in love with soccer.  He gets to still pass his appreciation of Star Wars on to the next generation. And I can't imagine that he would want anything different than a daughter who aspires to be a gymnast and then a ballerina when she's too old to be a gymnast.  Or our middle little who wants to be a gymnast and a football player.  We love our girls.

Are we done having kids? Maybe. Maybe not.  Are we trying for a boy?  No.  Would we love a boy? Yes!  Would we love another girl?  Yes!  We will love whoever ends up making up our family--all given to us by God.