I have something I need to get off my chest.  It’s something I feel terribly guilty about, but I reckon lots of people have felt the same way and can possibly relate.

So here goes…

I was gutted when I found out I was having a boy.

There, I said it.  What has been said can never be unsaid and it’s out there now for the entire world to read.  I feel able to share that now that he is here because (and this is very very important) I don’t feel like that anymore.  I stopped feeling like that the minute he was born, the first time I saw his little scrunched up newborn face.  Let it be known, I adore my little son.

But when we went for our anomaly scan and the first thing the sonographer picked up was his little boy parts, I can’t deny that my heart sank like a lead balloon.  You see, I was convinced I was having another little girl.  God knows why.  Perhaps because I’d read somewhere that if you have one girl, it’s more likely you’ll have another (dumb).   Perhaps because I have a sister and not a brother (so what? Who is to say if my parents hadn’t split up there wouldn’t have been more of us?).  Perhaps because I wanted Ruby to have what I have – a really amazing relationship with a sister of her very own.

We had a name for her, this new baby girl I was convinced we were having, we had clothes for her, nursery sets for her, all girly and pink (hand-me-downs from firstborn).  We had lots of things not at all suitable for a boy.  I knew little baby girls, how to look after them, how to change their nappies and such.  But little boys? Pfft! They have willies, don’t you know? Boys pee everywhere, boys are scary, unchartered territory.

I cried for a week, at least.  I went through all Ruby’s clothes and cried, I looked at our pink and green cot bumper and cried, I thought about the name we’d picked out for a girl and cried because I won’t get to use it and I thought about what we were going to call our son and cried at that, too.  And then after a week or so I pulled myself together, stopped feeling sad about something I never had in the first place and began to look on the bright side.  I told myself off for being such a huge ungrateful twat and remembered how lucky I am to be able to conceive easily and naturally.  And then I began to get excited.  We chose a name, sorted out all the unisex clothes we had, bought a few boyish things and then he came along, and any remnants of disappointment I may have had evaporated in an instant.

And now he’s coming up three months old, and his own little personality is beginning to show, I’ve realised that having a baby boy really isn’t as scary as I thought it might be.  It’s been a bit of a learning curve but I wouldn’t change it.  I’ve discovered that being part of the One Of Each Smug Club is really pretty excellent.

But most important of all, I’ve learnt to always always have a cloth handy at nappy changes because that little hose pipe of his has a mind of it’s own.