'So, When Are You Going To Try For a Girl...?'

‘So, when are you guys going to try for a girl?’

The question I’m asked more times than I care to admit, and which takes me aback every time I am put on the spot.

Each time, I resist the urge to roll my eyes, bite my tongue, and smile vaguely… my response is usually something enigmatic, along the lines of ‘when it happens, it happens’, or ‘I’m trying to improve my health before getting pregnant again’.

I brush it off to avoid two very awkward lines of conversation…

Line One:

I might not be able to even have any more kids… awkward! My ovaries are a mess at the moment due to PCOS rearing its ugly head, and recently I’ve been in and out of hospital in the worst pain I have ever experienced (give me labour any day of the week). In fact, at the time of writing, I’ve literally just been discharged from a hospital stay, having narrowly avoided emergency surgery but due a laparoscopy within the next few weeks. They’ve warned me that I am at high risk of losing both ovaries due to the damage caused by the cysts and torsion (ovarian twisting).

When people ask me this question, I take it on the chin because hey, I can’t expect people to read my mind or know my life story, plus emotionally, I am quite resigned to a future with one child – I have made my peace with that. Shit happens, right? But what about ladies not in the same mental place as me? Women who haven’t got their head around their fertility issues? Who are struggling to process something that, for a woman who yearns for a family, is a pretty HUGE life event?

Ultimately, you never know someones situation, and whether your interrogation will upset them.

Line Two:

I don’t get the common & hugely irritating obsession with ‘balancing’ the family with some children of each gender. Of course, I’d be overjoyed either way, but I’d actually really love some more boys. I’m not afraid to admit that, but people look at me as if I am BARMY. Whilst I’d cherish a little girl just as equally, the idea of a house overrun by muddy, fart-joking, rough & tumble lads really appeals to me in a way that I can’t explain. Maybe knowing what a nightmare I was growing up has put me off, as I worry about my figurative daughters being just like me… It is irrational, I know! I shouldn’t let my idiosyncrasies make me dread having a daughter.

Either way, when the time comes, we won’t be actively trying for any specific gender, because a healthy baby is the number one aim for us, if it even happens at all. Come on ovaries, give us an egg!

So, to answer the burning question that many people cannot seem to resist asking me – never.

Love from Katie. Xx