My father-in-law wanted us to have a boy. There. I said it. To be fair, he hasn’t said anything to us. I just heard from someone else that he “wasn’t as happy” when he found out that we were having a girl.
Yes, boys are still preferred to girls in Korea. Only a man can hold the ancestral rites although it is usually the women who prepare all the food. This long-held belief related to the Korean traditional ancestral rites has not disappeared just yet. Surprisingly, quite a few people even in my generation, women included, still share that belief.
The ob/gyn had initially told us that we might be having a boy. He must have been fooled by the blurred sonogram. When I first heard, I wasn’t too thrilled about that. I knew that this baby would likely be our only child, and I was somewhat disappointed that I was having a boy. I had a strange feeling that I shouldn’t let other people—i.e. my in-laws—know about the sex of the child just yet, but Hubby had told my father-in-law. I later heard that he was so excited to have another grandson, especially from his son.
I felt exactly the opposite. They say that a daughter is a mom’s best friend. This may be due to our individual differences and unrelated to our gender, but I seem to be much closer to my parents than Hubby is to his. It’s not like I desperately needed a friend, but I wanted to have a child with whom I could share and relate more. That isn’t to say that a son would have been a bad thing, but still, I would have liked a daughter better.
Imagine my pleasant surprise a couple of weeks later, after my test results came out. It was on a weekend night, and we were having dimsum with friends. I got a call from the clinic saying that they had mistaken and that we were having a girl. I jumped up and down and let out a yelp at the news. I was elated.
I was worried how my father-in-law would react. His exact words after receiving the news was “Oh, congratulations. A princess is great, too.” That “too” part spoke volumes, but I let it go. I decided to cut him some slack.
Now, the naming of the child could have become an issue. In Korean society, the father’s family, especially the father of the father, tend to get a lot of say in naming the new-born child. I for one didn’t want that, but I knew that my father-in-law wanted to name the baby. It was a delicate matter, and Hubby, despite his many good qualities, is not known for his diplomatic maneuvers.
There were other complicated family issues at the time, and I did not know how my father-in-law would react if he didn’t get to name the baby. The father and son (Hubby) talked about the candidates for the name. I tried to stay out of their conversation as much as possible, which was not easy because my father-in-law called me often, when Hubby didn’t pick up his phone. (Hubby is not the most reachable guy in the world.)
Luckily, we had decided on the middle name days before, and we had my father-in-law’s blessing. The name was Stella, like the nickname of Mother Mary. We had paid a visit in May to the Mission Maria Stella Maris Catholic Church, and we decided that it would be a good Christian name for Sia, should she decide to stay in the Catholic faith. My father-in-law liked that, being a devout Catholic himself.
So back to the birth. My water broke one week before the expected due date, and we weren’t fully decided. We rushed to the hospital, and I gave birth to Star (Sia’s baby name or womb name as Koreans call it) after 9 hours of labor. I was exhausted and couldn’t think straight. I don’t quite remember whether it was the same day or the next, but people came to give Sia the vaccine. They told us that they needed to log that into the state system, so they needed a name. Boom! OK. In less than thirty seconds, the newborn became Sia.
My father-in-law didn’t make a big thing out of it. Although he tried not to show it, he still seemed a little disappointed. So we let him choose the Chinese characters that go with Sia. The characters he chose was “For the first time, beautiful.” At least that is how I remember it, although I am not a hundred percent sure.
So there it is. I now love the name Sia, and for what is worth, Sia does too. Sometimes I call her “Byul-i” as in Star in Korean, but she hates it. She is not too fond of Stella either. So Sia she is, and Sia she will remain.