So I've been keeping my posts about my life to a semi-private blog that is "friends-only" on another site. But lately I've also been thinking, some of you out there must be mamas (or papas) too or you may be curious and just want to live vicariously! (though it's usually the other way around nowadays).

One thing that's been noted amongst Asians and Asian Americans is that it's the year of the Golden Pig, which comes around every 60 years, or even 600 (depending on who you ask). It's supposed to be a lucky year to have a baby.

So there's supposed to be like a semi-crisis in Asian nations because of the baby boom, which has been framed in some media as increased competition for schools, jobs, etc. - so basically, how does that make the poor babies lucky?!

I wonder also if there will be a boom of Asian Americans this year. I know it's one of those, if it happens to you you think it's happening to everyone else kind of things, but I have noticed that a lot of people had or are having babies this year, and yes, they are Asian American. But again, it could just be because I'm noticing it more because I just had a baby!

But one of my aunts also thinks it's true - she's noticed a lot of pregnant women this year. I don't know, but it would be interesting if it's true. And what does that mean for Asian America. It could also be because most of my friends and I are getting "to that age" where our biological clocks are telling us, yep, it's time, so naturally there's gonna be more people I know having babies, and it just so happens to be that most of the people I know are Asian American.

Reading Neela's post, and a similar article in ColorLines (only in the print version), about gender selection just made me really sad. My mom said in China that they don't do ultrasounds for this reason, because of the high rate of aborted girls.

I know that when I found out I was pregnant, I was just so excited - mixed with a bunch of other emotions - that I didn't care whether the baby was a boy or girl. We would've been delighted either way. We did do an ultrasound around that 22nd week and found out it's a boy, but only so we could be more prepared to combat gender stereotypes and the onslaught on baby blue clothes.

The funny thing is, I noticed that amongst some of the older generation Chinese and other Asian Americans (my parents' generation), they were really excited that I was having a boy. Like one person even said, "Wow, on the first try!" Reactions like that really shocked me, and I wonder if they would've been equally excited if I said I was having a girl.

Anyway, this isn't really how I imagined my first "mama" post for Hyphen was gonna be, but I was thinking about it too much and taking too long, so I figured I should just get started already. Procrastinating isn't exactly the right word, since it's not like I'm sitting around idly.

(This is more like how I imagined the first post would be: "OMG, T finally had his BIG POO after eating solids. I should've taken a whiff of the pre-solids poo before because now I'm missing those good ole poo days..." or something along those lines.). :)

Hopefully you'll find this somewhat interesting to read. And I know it's not very newsy and is very personal, different in style from most of our entries. But yeah, maybe this'll turn into a semi-regular post about being a new mom. I'd love to hear from anyone out there, but especially the mamas!!