And so…it is a boy. With a boy came a rush of surprise, a concern, a curiosity…in my head since the beginning it was always a girl. Because I’m a girl? Because of the cute little dresses I adored as a girl? Because I had planned to take up the feminist crusade? At any rate, I will have to transfer all that energy to an upcoming boy instead. Confession time: Thinking about a boy in the doctor’s office spurned a sudden panic. My kid will be crazy. My son will be bonkers, hyper, unable to sit still at the grocery store. My boy will lash out and be aggressive and want to stab things with sticks. He’ll be a bully, a vandal, a kid destined for juvy. Every bad boy stereotype I could possible come up with flashed before my eyes as I stared vaguely at the ultrasound.

Two nights ago I had a dream that the ultrasound technician said, “It’s actually a girl,” and I thought, “Of course it is…now I know my intuition is correct.” But my dream was wrong along with a lot of other things: I’m carrying low not high. I didn’t crave junk food in the beginning the way you’re suppose to if you’re carrying a boy. I also didn’t crave sour things or have insightful dreams. So, I’m throwing out all the superstitions and assumptions. Perhaps I should be going off other people’s inklings: the girl in Detroit who said, “it’s a boy” and the oncologist mother of one of my students who said just yesterday, “I’m getting a boy vibe from you.” They were right…I was wrong.

I’m sorry I sound so morose…it’s not bad news at all, just different then what I had expected. Part of the news was realizing that ‘it’ is really a boy…not a blob or a tiny mystery. I am half way done with this pregnancy and learning the gender has kicked open the realization that the baby is real and, yes, he’s coming…

When I was a heartbroken mess at twenty, thrashed out and angry at all the mean guys jerking me around, I used to console myself by writing down all the nice men I had in my life. There were a couple of guys I had platonic friendships with who resided firmly in the theater department I would always think of, a handful of really excellent gay men, my brother (which is kind of cheating since he’s family), and, well, Josh. It’s true…even back when we barely new each other I would think: now there is a nice guy. There ARE decent, non-cheating, non-heartbreaking men out there…look at this little list I’ve made. I suppose this is what helped keep me relatively balanced and boy-crazy at the time (although, now it sounds a little dorky and immature).

No surprise that I immediately start cataloging all the cool little boys I’ve known. (Like Evan, age 2, who recently drew a really great picture of me and then cried on the last day of dance class). I realize that many of my most memorable students have been boys. I understand that boys typically have an easier adolescence, will earn higher salaries as men, and are typically nicer to their mothers then girls. It’s going to be entirely different when the kid comes out and becomes a person–gender probably won’t factor much. It’s just right now the kid is still an unknown, part of my imagination, almost like a theory I came up with, but now…now he’s a boy.