GIRLS (the gallery)

When  I was pregnant, I just knew I was having a boy. 

Everyone agreed. EVERYONE. 'You can totally see from your bump it's a boy,' people would tell me. One time I was interviewing a clairvoyant for a magazine feature. 'You're having a boy, you know,' she blurted, mid sentence. 

We had piles of boys' names picked out. OH would talk about teaching our son football. I'd go into Baby Gap and pick out the boys' clothes I was going to buy.

One day, just before the 5-month scan, an old Greek woman came up to me in the street and rubbed my stomach. 'I have had five sons, and one daughter,' she told me. 'YOU are having a boy!'

It was settled. There was absolutely no doubt. Then we had the scan. 
'Congratulations,' the ultrasound technician announced. 'You're having a girl!'

And we were stunned, and - if I'm completely honest - a teensy bit disappointed. The son we'd spent countless hours talking about, imagining, and starting to love, had just disappeared, and I needed to wrap my head around it. 

But, by the time we'd walked out the hospital doors ten minutes later, that confused feeling had given way to something else. 

Excitement was literally bubbling in my stomach, as I now imagined holding a tiny baby girl. I could teach her all the things I'd spent a lifetime learning; everything from how to plait hair, to make daisy chains, and deal with Mean Girls at school. 

I could teach her to be kind, loving and respectful girl, then help her grow into a strong, independent, smart, confident, successful woman. 

Within an hour I couldn't even remember why I'd wanted boys in the first place. What was I thinking? I was meant to have daughters - a point proved two years later when our next scan revealed another girl. It just felt so darn right. 

OH is now hopelessly outnumbered, and we couldn't have been happier about it. It's impossible to imagine life without our wonderful, infuriating, nutty, loving, stubborn, adorable, irreplaceable girls. 

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