It’s a girl!!

So the baby in my belly is a girl. The ultrasound tech said she was totally sure, but my cousin recently had a baby boy – after 3 ultrasounds throughout the pregnancy had confirmed with 100% certainty he was a girl!

So I’m not going to paint everything pink and buy huge piles of dresses YET. We can always get her girly stuff after she’s born.

But MOST LIKELY she is a girl! So I’m definitely comfortable using girly pronouns from here on out.

And getting a FEW frilly, girly, pink things certainly wouldn’t hurt. There’s always Goodwill and friends with girls if she turns out a boy after all.

Especially this outfit:

http://www.etsy.com/listing/58235787/cupcake-one-z-with-matching-leg-warmers

No name yet, so don’t ask!

Fear

This is difficult to admit, but I actually have a fear of doing this:

http://www.sunherald.com/2010/09/14/2480892/toddler-left-in-car-dies.html

I’m not stupid. I’m not even careless or scatterbrained very often. But I CAN be. I’m sure I’d need more than one hand to count the number of errands I’ve been on in the last year where I forgot something or forgot to do some task.

And while I’m sure that a lot of these parents that allow this to happen ARE idiots, I believe many of them are not. I don’t know for a fact, but I have a feeling that many of these, possibly the mother in the story above, are completely normal, decent parents with stressful, hectic lives, who just happened to make one terrible, terrible, TERRIBLE mistake.

Please don’t think I am excusing her neglect or forgiving her. What she did was wrong, whether she did it intentionally or not. But is it strange that I feel more sympathy for her, not only for having lost her child, but for the guilt she is enduring from having been COMPLETELY at fault, than I do anger?

I am not a parent yet. Well, I guess I am, sort of. (Don’t take that as an anti-abortion statement. I’m pro-choice, but I’ve already chosen this fetus as my child, so I have no problems personifying it in cute & annoying ways.) But I can’t exactly forget Squishy in the car at this time.

Other parents I know, with kids who’ve already been born, have reacted to this story (& the thousands like it that sadly exist) with rage. How could this woman POSSIBLY just forget about her child?! What an idiot! Asshole!! A friend of mine with a daughter of about the same age was talking (ranting actually) about it earlier today, saying there’s NO WAY this should happen, because as a mother, she is constantly thinking of her daughter, & worrying she’s OK. Couldn’t this woman have the same thought process regarding her children though? If she were so scatterbrained, that she truly thought she’d already dropped off the girl at daycare or whatever, then her thoughts of her daughter throughout the day would not have necessarily led her to remember she was in the car. I also wonder if there was a daycare or a babysitter expecting her, would they not call when she didn’t show up for SEVEN HOURS? Or do busy daycares not have time to check up on no-shows? (Understandable.)

Again, PLEASE don’t make the mistake of thinking I think any part of what she did was OK. I am just trying to understand her…so I can never make the same mistake.

I suppose this is a good fear to have.