I woke up screaming again this morning at around 3:30. I really feel bad for my husband at this point, as this is the third time in the last couple of weeks he has been awakened by my shrieking “You f&%ing a$$h#le” or words to that effect. I hope he’s not getting a complex. I also hope this isn’t going to complicate matters on our trip to the UK. We are supposed to be staying at a Bed and Breakfast in London and I really don’t want to be screaming down the place in the middle of the night.
It reminded me of one of my favorite 90’s movie comedies, “Flirting With Disaster,” in which the little old lady bed and breakfast owner admonishes Ben Stiller “You are not good B & B people!” I do want to be good B & B people. I don’t like chewing out random people in my dreams either, in this case for accidentally running over one of the multiple pieces of luggage that I seem to always carry with me in my dreams. Either luggage or furniture. I guess that’s not hard to analyze. Yeah, I have a lot of baggage.
I was initially scared of having a daughter because I was afraid of screwing her up and passing on all my neuroses and baggage to her. I thought it would be easier somehow to be a boy’s mother, less fraught and emotional. Better boundaries. I didn’t realize how much Max wanted a girl until we went for the amnioscentesis and the technician remarked that from the ultrasound she was pretty much positive Sarah was a girl. Max was so happy. I said “Wow, I didn’t know how much you wanted a girl.” And he said “I grew up with four brothers, I’ve had enough of boys.” It’s true there are a lot of boys in his extended family and relatively few girls whereas my family tends to produce one child of each gender.
The OB who did the test later called and confirmed Sarah had girl XX chromosomes and said “You are going to have so much fun with her.” I realize he probably said that about all kids to parents when confirming good test results, but this comment really got me on the Girl Train for some reason. I began picturing endless seasons of fun for us with our girl, sort of a Meet Me In St. Louis scenario, and thinking less of how I was possibly going to ruin her life.
And the OB was right. We did have so much fun with Sarah. We had private family rituals and jokes and little traditions just for our family. She was fun and funny and so loveable. I never worried about ruining her or imposing my neuroses on her. She was her own person. I did worry constantly about many things, but that wasn’t one of them. And I was so happy to have a girl. My girly-whirl. My Sarah.
The First Year Without Sarah 