Men and boys

Something strange happens to men when Thom tells them he is having twins.  Something even stranger happens when he tells them it's twin boys.  It seems that in the male version of the story of life, bi, manly men make boys. And therefore the manly-est must make twin boys.

I sit back and shake my head at the masculine logic, in all its base and Neanderthal-like glory.  Thom revels in it, and I guess he deserves it.  The poor guy copes with his pregnant wife like a real trooper.  It is generally all about me and my cargo (spent 3 hours on the sofa today, snoozing and watching Spartacus while he cooked curry form scratch), so it's ok that he's been able to puff his chest out a bit over this.  Even though I think his all-male cheering squad are mistaken.

Like a lot of things, this might all start with the story of Adam and the Garden of Eden.  The fellas seem hung up on the idea that being male is the stronger and preferred form of humanity.  Backed up by the Bible which tells us that God made Adam and only knocked together Eve as an afterthought, at Adam's winge that he was a bit lonely.   Excuse the heresy as I put my rough ideas together, but what if men didn't come first?  None of us were there.  History is always written by the victors, and men, having more physical strength in a dangerous world ruled through brute force.  Perhaps it is their interpretation of creation we now have.  So how can we be sure?  Maybe men and women arrived in the garden at once, or even, what if woman came first!

If woman did come first, the story makes just as much sense.  It might have been more likely for a woman to ask for a companion to share the Garden of Eden with, and someone not as good looking as her, as well.  Someone to talk to.  What disappointment when the companion happily sat in silence and loathed to be asked what he was thinking.  Especially if he when did answer, it turned out he wasn't thinking about her!  Oh well, either way, we come in two types and its debatable if one is stronger or preferred. 

To counter the male banter, sex is determined from fertilisation.  Pure chance.  There are sperm that make females and sperm that make males.  Although the male sperm swims faster, the female sperm is reputed to be stronger and longer-living.  So much for the big and tough argument.  Click here for handy answers from the web on how sex is determined

I will now have to reign myself in and resist all this man-woman power struggle stuff.  Maybe I'm feeling just a little worried about how to cope with being completely out-numbered when the twins arrive.  Is it wrong to hope for at least one mummy's boy?  I think I will be able to be reasonable now that I've off-loaded my thoughts on all of you.  After all, Thom and I are hardly ascribing to the traditional gender roles in our household.  I have just ploughed my way through a huge plate of curry; yet another meal cooked by the man of the house.  And now I am sat nursing by huge belly and letting out some very unfeminine burbs as they arise.  From the sounds of this, I should hope for the twins to be just like their dad.  

Science vs Folklore: Stealing the fun

Up until the last few weeks, my local hospital had a policy not to tell the sex of babies to anyone.  Not some kind of politically correct plan to save babies from parents who might favour boys.  No, that might be acceptable.  It was actually a reaction to be sued years ago when a family kitted out their nursery at great expense for a little girl before getting a little boy.  Ooops.  But not really a reason for a lawsuit.

In any case, the hospital decided to cover its butt more in future.  Thom and I got used to the idea and even looked forward to the uncertainty and surprise that awaited us on the big day.  Besides, there were all the old wives tales about how to predict the sex to keep us interested and entertained.  I found a list of them complied on The Baby Centre and I ticked most all the boxes for boys.  People at work, mostly the women who have children of their own, told me they thought I was going to have boys.  They couldn't lay their fingers on why, exactly.

My mother-in-law said she also thought I was the type to have boys.  My brother-in-law, whose daughter just turned 1 years old this month, was told that he was the type to have girls.  I puzzle over how a person can look 'the type' to have girls or boys, but in his case it proved correct.

We have all come to rely on medical science so much.  Pokes and prods and biopsies offer up irrefutable answers.  And irrefutable answers are the most desirable kind of answers to us uncertainty-hating humans.  But all this folklore has come from somewhere.  Wise old women, traditionally the ones people had to rely on for midwifery and birth, must have taken note through the centuries of differences between boy-pregnancies and girl-pregnancies.  Their knowledge, not seen as scientific in today's world, must have been based on correlations and large numbers of test cases.

For me the folklore as been proved correct again.  Since the hospital's policy change, we found out for certain that we are having boys.  Despite the excitement of looking forward to finding out when they arrived, we were also sucked in by the promised calm of medical, scientific certainty.  The ultrasound operator asked if we wanted to know.  I looked at Thom, his eyes lit up and nodding away like an idiot.  It was all the permission I needed and we said 'yes, tell us'.

I feel a mixture of satisfaction and regret.  Satisfaction that I know what's coming.  Regret that I've traded some of impending excitement for a rock solid certainty.  Science gave me an answer, but kinda stole the fun.  I'd bet the women across the centuries would have done the same, given the choice.  It was just that those who would have wanted to know were left to the best they could rely on - the observations of the wise old women - which, as it turns out, were pretty damn good.