The spring before I found out I was pregnant with my first child I was at a craft fair with my best friends. I came across a booth that was selling baby girls clothing. There was this lace dress. It was frilly and girly and perfect. I bought it. I wasn’t pregnant yet. We weren’t even trying. But I knew I had to have that dress for my little girl someday.
I felt somewhat ridiculous. I brought the dress home in its brown paper bag and shoved it in our guest room closet, but I didn’t forget about it. I pulled it out when I found out I was pregnant with our first child late that August, before we knew that the baby in my belly we affectionately called Sienna was actually William.
When I found out I was pregnant with our second child, I bought two onesies to tell my husband the news. One read “Little Brother” and the other “Little Sister.” When my husband opened the box, he asked if I was having twins. A few weeks later the “Little Sister” onesie joined the lace dress in the brown paper bag in the closet.
A few years later when I found out I was pregnant a third time, I started buying little girls clothing the moment I found out. I also started a private Pinterest board for our little girl’s nursery. It was frilly and lacy and girly. I imagined our little one, sitting in her perfect nursery, wearing the dress I had bought for her all those years before. However, a few months into my pregnancy, I found out that the nursery would be lions, not lace, and I gave the clothes I had bought to a friend who was due around the same time with a daughter. Our third precious little boy joined our family later that summer.
I couldn’t part with the lace dress though; I kept it tucked away.
Our fourth pregnancy was a complete surprise as we were actively trying not to get pregnant. My husband and I were both a little shocked but bounced back quickly. We had always said we wanted four kids (I had always been open to a few more, coming from a family of six myself, but four felt manageable). Surely, this was our girl. When people would ask, I would roll my eyes and say, “Oh, it’s probably a boy,” but inwardly I thought about that dress…all of the hope. Certainly God had orchestrated some kind of beautiful scheme.
When the midwife called and told us it was a healthy baby boy, I said, “Okay, I need to go think of a name,” and hung up the phone. I left the house and started walking. I screamed at God. I felt every mix of emotions—anger, sadness, disappointment, loss, grief, unworthiness, guilt. It felt like the hope of a girl had died…along with the hope of getting to reparent myself.
I am still unpacking all of the lost hope in that brown paper bag. I am still learning to hold the ambivalence of the joy my sons bring me and the sadness of not getting to experience the joy of a daughter. I am still not willing to part with the lace dress. Maybe someday…maybe not.
