How we Tried - and Failed - to stay Neutral

This post is in honor of my friend, K, who found out today that her Baby Bun is a boy!

Even though I’d always imagined having a daughter, nine months before The Girl was born, as soon as B and I watched the tell-tale second line emerge on the pee-soaked stick,  we were absolutely positively certain that the little creature inside my uterus had a penis -- in fact, we were so sure, we immediately started referring to the baby-to-be as a "he." When people would ask "do you know what you are having?" I would launch into a whole explanation of why we were proof-positive our fetus was a 'he-tus:'

After all:
1. It looked like I had a basketball under my shirt -- I was carrying low and out in front.

2. My morning sickness, while present and accounted for, was not debilitating. Smelling Chinese food and coffee made me gag, but I didn't throw up at all.

3. Miss Cleo from the Psychic Hotline promised me 'Child, dat bebe is definitely a boy.'

Still, we were eagerly anticipating our 20 week ultrasound, when Dr. Feel Very Good said we'd probably have a definitive answer. We even decided to make a party of it, and invited BFF, my Fairy Godmother-in-Law and my dad to come with us for the appointment. Along with the importance of checking on the development and the health of our baby, we also wanted carte blanche to say "Ha ha. Told ya so!" to the naysayers who thought we might be having a girl-child.

As soon as I lay down and Dr. Feel Very Good put the probe on my belly we knew that we might be in for a big disappointment: There, up on the screen, our little fetus was yawning. Yes, they can do that in utero. Brat.

As it turns out, fetuses have sleep schedules just like the rest of us, and our scan happened to fall right in the middle of Nap Time. While we could see the baby shifting gently in the amniotic fluid, it seemed unlikely that there would be any somersaults, tumbles, or changes in position.

Dr. Feel Very Good took all the necessary brain/heart/stomach/kidney measurements, and then moved the probe down to where the baby's genitals were. Access denied: Our little fetus was sound asleep and 'his' ('her?') legs were crossed in a display of modesty.

Anyway, sensing our palpable disappointment, Dr. Feel Very Good and prodded the little creature for a few moments, but the babe didn't budge. Finally, perhaps jolted by my plaintive cries of "Move your ass" and "Spread 'em!" the baby twitched, and for a split-second Dr. Feel Very Good got a peek between the legs.

"Hmm... Well, I'm pretty sure it's a girl!" he said.

What? No penis?  We were shocked.  After all, Miss Cleo is, like, never wrong!

Everyone seemed eager to jump on the "It's a Girl!" bandwagon, and we found ourselves drowning in pink onesies and ruffled dresses. As the baby girl clothes piled higher and higher in the dresser, we faced a two-part dilemma:

1. In general, I was not a fan of pink. Yes, I'll admit that the sugar and spice was ever so nice, but I had always thought of myself as one of those uber-hip mamas who would defy the male/female paradigm and dress her kid in cool, gender-neutral onesies with snarky comments like "I Just Spent the Last 9 Months in Solitary Confinement" or “Party At My Crib”

2. We were still not 100% sure that our fetus didn't have a penis. And dressing him in frills against his will might give him a little too much to bitch about with his therapist some day.

We were able to get the gender issue partially resolved before The Girl was born: Several weeks after our inconclusive ultrasound, Dr. Feel Very Good wanted to take another look at the baby just to measure the amniotic fluid because I had been freaking out about decreased fetal movement.  Well, modesty was clearly a thing of the past as this time around our little one left nothing up to the imagination. Baby legs akimbo, we could all clearly see the 'equal sign' or 'bun-burger-bun' markings of a labia.

For those keeping score - Modern Medicine: 1. Miss. Cleo: 0.

Still, I held on to my plan that our baby would wear a lot of gender neutral outfits, and so, I shopped accordingly. When The Girl was born (clearly without boy-bits) I spent her first few days dressing her in white cotton newborn T-shirts (courtesy of BFF) and green, yellow and brown onesies that practically screamed neutrality.

But all of that changed when she was less than a week old.

While carrying her back to the car after her first doctor’s appointment, a woman exclaimed "Oh! What a handsome little fellow!"  Yeah, you'd think that I'd be thrilled that the gender-neutral clothing was doing it's thing and shattering expectations vis-a-vis the male/female paradigm and blah blah kumbaya, but no. I was not amused. As soon as we got home, I tore off her 'Cute as a Bug' brown and yellow onesie with the little bumblebee on the front, and dressed her, instead, in a delicate pale pink dress with daisies on the hem. While I guess I could have glued a big sign to her stroller reading "MY DAUGHTER HAS A VAGINA," I figured that dressing her pretty in pink (and purple, and soft aqua, and pale yellow) was far more lady-like for my magical baby girl.

Flashforward a little over a year, and The Girl is clearly just that. The Girl.  Even though her elfin ears make her look like Ross Perot’s love-child, with her rosebud lips and wispy curls, she is delicate and fairy-fair, a whimsical child with dainty hands and sooty lashes.  And when I offer her a choice of clothes to wear -- shirt and pants vs. dress -- she inevitably reaches for the frills, plucking at the gauzy fabric, twirling around in circles like a ballerina as soon as she’s dressed.  But  still, even in her ribbons and lace, she plays in the mud, and loves her trucks and trains as much as she enjoys cradling her stuffed animals and dolls.  And this makes me happy.