EGD...

Tonight I was surfing Facebook, looking for competitions (yes, my favourite past-time besides eBay-ing!) and I came across a post on Babyhintsandtips. The post was regarding Gender Selection, and asked for people’s views…and stated very firmly that it was a ‘discussion’ and not a ‘debate’.

I read the comments because I was genuinely interested on how the ‘world’ views Gender Selection. I, personally, am against it…but until I walk in those particular shoes, who am I to judge? If I was in a different situation to what I am, perhaps I would consider it. But going off my current situation I am firmly against it. I recently created (with the help of my Husband and the Lord) a beautiful human being. She is perfect and wonderful, and yes, she cries and makes me a little crazy at times, but I made her! And even though I am SO GLAD she’s a she, I would have learned to be okay with her being a he too.

Having babies was never on my ‘to-do’ list. I didn’t want to have babies, and we were told repeatedly (by several experts) that it just wasn’t going to be on the cards for us unless we had extreme intervention and paid many, many dollars for the privilege, and even then there were no guarantees.

After suffering from incredibly B-A-D morning (read: all-flipin’-day) sickness from the day of conception, and then being tortured for hours during the labour, I had a little trouble bonding with our Princess. Her Daddy understood, and to be honest, he more than made up for my lack of enthusiasm…he is the proudest Daddy EVER!

It took me a couple of days before I realised that I even liked my Beb-beh, and several weeks before I grew to love her. But now that I do, there is nothing that will get between us. I feel overwhelmed by the sweetness of her, the purity of her. I cannot even comprehend that she chose us to be her parents. She wakes up with a smile. She recognises me…not just me as a chow-chow factory, but ME. She stares at Peppie and Peppie stares back (they have reached a level of mutual tolerance…and are working on the ‘love’ part! LOL!). She adores her Daddy! I might spend an hour feeding her each time, but her Daddy burps her, often changes her, wraps her (because I suck at swaddling!), and holds her through the long, dark hours of the night until she goes to sleep. We are a family. We have *finally* bonded. And although it took a while (for me at least), I still wouldn’t have swapped those sleep-deprived weeks for anything!

And so the post on Babyhintsandtips made me so sad. Plenty of the commenters said that they were against Gender Selection *pats them on the back*, but some commenters were for it. One even made the comment that ‘Until you have lived with EGD you have no idea how hard it is’. This made me curious. What is EGD?

…and so I asked. An admin for Babyhintsandtips replied with ‘Extreme Gender Disappointment’. So I googled it. Man! That was the WRONG thing to do!! I cannot even express how sad these posts made me. Everything from the mother self-harming to the mother wanting late-term abortion, simply because the baby was the ‘wrong’ gender. My heart broke. I’m trying so hard to have empathy for these women who feel this way…but the fact is: I just don’t understand it. Why cant they just be grateful for the ‘miracle of life’? Why?

Why? Why? Why?

Why does it matter?

My best friend is one of 8 girls. EIGHT! Do you think her Dad would have liked a son? I reckon. But I’m equally certain that he would NOT have resorted to Gender Selection, and I know her mother didn’t suffer from EGD. EVERY life is precious. Every. Single. One.

I cringe at the thought of waking her, but I’m going to go and hug my baby now. I am grateful she’s in our lives, and I am grateful for pink! But it wouldn’t have mattered if she was a boy, she’s a part of our family and I wouldn’t trade her for anything. :)