My Second Son

Words & Photography
by Caroline Snider



I cried when we found out we were having another boy. Not the happy kind that are sobbed into the cheeks of those you love, but the secret ones that come in dark rooms when no one else is watching. They were sharp and unexpected. Laced with guilt and thick with shame. They made no sense. I had spent my childhood with grazed knees, layered in dirt in the backyard of our home. I never longed for bows or tiny doll houses. I remained fearful of what felt like the complicated emotions of my fellow females. The way you could be in one day and out the next. The bodies they grew whilst I remained small and boyish. Awkward and perpetually out of place. The way they knew how to do things like make boys like them and put there hair up just right. I never belonged there. Always somewhere else.
I could barely bring myself to say it out loud, I wanted a girl.

I cried when we found out we were having another boy. Not the happy kind that are sobbed into the cheeks of those you love, but the secret ones that come in dark rooms when no one else is watching. They were sharp and unexpected. Laced with guilt and thick with shame. They made no sense.

Grief is a funny thing. The secret kind stranger still. It plays tricks on your mind and pulls things from the rafters to fuel its power. You don’t keep boys they say. There’s nothing like the bond between Mother and Daughter it laughs in the dark. And a grief like this is unwanted by all it touches, a healthy baby is all that counts they will say. And they are right. And they are wrong. But mostly they are right. Because a healthy baby, and some time, is what I needed.

As the weeks beat on, I let myself feel the sharp sting of it when I was alone. It became clear that what I was searching for was not a daughter necessarily, but instead, confirmation that it would be different this time, just as everyone had promised. That the forces that had taken me so close to the edge before would be gone. That I would be safe. Safe to take everything peacefully and confidently in my stride just as I had always hoped for. That the crying that could never be soothed would not be mine to hold again.

I had thought the past three years had taught me everything there was to know about surrender. That this time I would move with ease through all the change that is to come. But now I see it, how l will be born a Mother all over again with him. With surrender. With my second son. Exactly as I was meant to be. And it feels so very, very right.