The Fact: You are allowed to choose the gender of you child if you already have a child or children of the opposite gender. (If you have a girl, you can request a boy.) Some adoption agencies could be more restrictive.

Personally, I have just recently gotten to the point where the mention of a second child doesn’t make me hyperventilate. I love my son, but I was seriously considering having just one. So, now that I’m fairly sure I would like a second child, I have another decision. Do I choose a little girl or leave it up to the powers that be?

For a long time, I didn’t think that I wanted a girl at all. I was a tomboy as a child and I turned away from Barbie in favor a battery powered trucks. As a teenager, I preferred to babysit for little boys who wanted to play ball and commando in the backyard. The whole idea of tea parties and ballet classes gave me hives (ballet classes still do). So, it should be pretty cut and dry – but it isn’t.

My friends have little girls and I’ve found myself wondering more and more what it would be like to have a little girl of my own. To make it more complicated, I also get to see my son’s plane-mates once or twice a year – two little girls. It’s been a treat to see them grow from babies into little people. To my shock, I’ve enjoyed haunting the girl’s section of the department store and buying realistic looking doll beds with accessories. Of course, it’s entirely possible that any girl raised by me and my sports loving husband will turn out to be just like me as a child – climbing trees and playing detective in the neighbors yard.

I realize that a lot of people are against having a choice. If you had a biological child, you don’t get to choose a boy or a girl, so why should you choose when you’re adopting? It’s a valid argument.

However, I think it’s a mistake to put too much emphasis on making adoption and pregnancy a parallel process. Though the final result is the same, the process is really very different. I adopted my son. My friends had biological children. They only thing we shared in common was the wait. It’s similar to the debate about whether you should find out the gender of your biological child in the doctor’s office. It’s right for some people and not for others.

So, what will we do? I don’t have a clue. I’d love another little boy, but I think I’d love a little girl too.

If you do not want to comment on the site, you are always welcome to e-mail me at adoptkoreablog@adoptionmail.com.