3 + 1

Ever since I had my fourth child and first girl, I have gotten many comments about our family.  First off, I think four children is seen as "a lot" by most people.  In my experience, three was certainly pushing it.  But, since I had three boys people would ask if we were going to try again for a girl.  I think since I didn't have "one of each" it was acceptable to keep trying for that ideal family dynamic that includes both boys and girls.  I mean, poor me for being the only female in the family, right?

Except it wasn't exactly that way for me.  I always knew I wanted more than three kids, regardless of their gender.  And an important point that everyone always seemed to forget when asking me if I was ever going to have a girl, or tsk-ing in sympathy for all my boys, is that I had no say in the matter at all.  Short of some pretty invasive scientific procedures, I couldn't anymore produce a girl child at my whim than I could, say, produce a child with a specific eye color.  I know everyone knows this, but it just seemed to pop up in conversation quite a bit

So it has been over a year since I had Eleanor and the amount of times I have heard, "So you finally got your girl!" has been astounding.  Or something like, "Just had to keep trying, huh?" or, "So now you have a girl, you can stop."  The comments, intentional or not, often come off like I was shuffling the card deck and hoping for a different outcome each time.  The honest truth is that I thought I would have a fourth boy and I was okay with that, and even excited about it.   I never know how to respond to them without sounding defensive, so I would just smile and say, "they are all so great!" or something equally lame.  But the comments, oy!

There is, however, one group of people who consistently made me feel amazing with their off-hand comments about my family.  I learned, after having Eleanor, in Asian cultures it is considered extremely auspicious to have three children of one gender and then one of the other gender.  Three and then one is considered very lucky.  And I am told this by almost every Asian person I have occasion to talk to.  Which is quite a few given we live in California, and I go to the commissary weekly where the baggers are almost exclusively Asian women.

What I love about the three and one idea is that it's not just the one girl that makes me fortunate.  The rest aren't discarded because I now have something new and different.  Rather, I had to have the three to make the one meaningful.  The three boys are what make the one girl special, and I have to have all four to receive the designation of "lucky".  While I don't believe in luck in the sense that these women often talk about it, the sentiment is so encouraging to me, and I hope, encouraging to my boys.  I don't want them to think that I just kept trying until I got a different flavor.  No, I am thankful for each and every one of them because they are human beings and I feel so blessed by God to have them written into my story.