I don’t like this phrase.  I especially don’t like when people say this phrase to me.  Oh, I know, ‘they’re trying to be nice’, ‘they mean well’, and ‘they didn’t mean it that way’.

But what I hear when someone says this phrase is not the pop-culture definition of having one boy and one girl; what I hear, is that I must’ve been trying to have one child of each gender.  Like I would be disappointed if I wasn’t blessed that way, when that couldn’t be further from the truth.  Some people even one-up the cliche, and tell me I have a ‘Billionaire’s Family’ because I had a boy first, girl second.

Let me be very clear on this: I am extraordinarily grateful to have two beautiful, healthy, happy children.  The fact that they are different genders is completely beside the point.  In fact, if I am being truly honest, when I was pregnant with my second child (my daughter), I was thinking about how much ‘easier’ it would be if she was another boy- I already knew a bit about raising a boy, I had all the boy ‘stuff’, and I wouldn’t have to deal with teenage girl drama, which most certainly is coming my way if karma plays a role.

We chose not to find out both of our baby’s genders until they were born.  Going against my typical planned, organized, Type-A self, finding out the baby’s gender on delivery day seemed like Mother Nature’s most wonderful surprise.  Truth be told though, we didn’t find out because it just didn’t matter to us.

Just as I didn’t have my first baby to have a boy, I didn’t have my second baby to have a girl. I had my first baby to have a baby.  And I had my second baby to have another baby.

I am very lucky, very blessed, and very, very, very grateful.  But I’m not grateful for a Millionaire’s family, I’m grateful for MY family.

***This post was originally written as a Guest Blog post for Momstown.ca.