“It’s a woman! It’s a baby woman!”

Many moons ago, the birth of Joanie Caucus’ newest child was greeted in this way in a Doonesbury strip. Our baby woman has yet to arrive, but the tech and the Ob explained the meaning of the three parallel dots/dashes – a kind of visual morse code communicating her emerging femaleness.

And unlike the feelings I had for my first born who happened to be a son, overwhelming love permeated with the sense of his vulnerability, I imagine my daughter coming out fully formed and upright, a smiling Athena without the gladiator sandals who would know how to request the things she couldn’t yet make. I reflect on this grueling first trimester, which resulted in my regular OB prescribing a migraine-preventative cup of coffee each morning, to be her request for the true mother’s milk for this would-be daughter of mine. I see her arranging her wisps of hair together with a pencil from my desk the way her mother did, a coiffure homage to Catharine Mackinnon and expediency, except she will be more accomplished and patient, less judgmental and furious.

All the things I can see for her, all that I wish for her, can’t begin to compare with what she will do once she is on her own. Still, I can’t help but think she’ll already have it done. After all, she’s a baby woman. She’ll decide what she wants, and then she’ll go get it. I wish I was like her already.