You are all right on. I appreciate all the feedback. And I respect Danny's ideas and expression- I more than respect it, I celebrate the freedom to really think in many different directions about these things and have a safe place to share.
What amazes me about your (several) posts is that it IS fairly common to express things like "I wish I were a boy." Now, I am still wondering about the persistence of it for my daughter. But I'm so glad to hear from you all- and I identify So much with the Cuuute little girl who is rough and tumble, who zips and zooms in play, (she pretends to be Spiderman -he's so powerful... and so popular in culture right now... who is a comparable female figure for a strong and coordinated little girl to identify with? I WANT her to enjoy her physical gifts! I am disabled by Ehlers Danlos syndrome- as you may know- related by the deleted CYP21 gene).
So I think maybe "boy wishing" is a little under-reported in CAH. Maybe it is because all kids can wish they were the opposite sex. But then, lets just be open to hypothesizing to things about which we don't have all the answers - maybe it is under-reported for other reasons. Maybe we don't want to see or count a statistic or clinically label something of concern, something that would cause our daughters pain. Like I was saying with the bone growth thing- my daughter's androgens were on the upper limit of normal lately and her 17ohp has been way high. For her first and only x-ray almost a year ago, the Dr chose to call it "NO bone age advancement" after a radiologist had called it 6 mos advancement (a 3 yr x-ray). The endocrinologist, I am afraid, has a bias toward saying that "everything is okay," it is as if an adverse outcome would reflect negatively on her (the Dr).
It may seem I'm getting out on a limb here- but I am the mother of a child so young yet. I've got to judge what's the nature of the professionals I am working with, how to sort of do the dance with them, so to speak, and if I do see another psychologist (I've seen one just for her behavioral stuff), I will have to make sure she doesn't sense it was wrong to have her feelings.
And I've got to judge where my daughter's coming from, if she is really unhappy, or if she is just sensing a cultural advantage to being a boy. I did discuss it with her a little more because I want to keep the lines open, and I still get a mixed message. She did say "boys have cool toys" but she has said more too. But, you see, I know that early on, she picked on that she cant just share this stuff all the time, I can tell she feels secretive about it, and she was really confiding in me, like stuff she wanted to get off her chest - at 4 yrs old! That was just my sense of it.
Anyway, she loves to wear pink (but never dresses) and pigtails and barettes. And when she is being good (not kicking me, etc), she even talks in a sweet little persuasive tone, with a hoarse raspy voice. She has a few dolls that she sometimes plays with, even wraps them in blankets and gives them bottles. And she loves many of her stuffed animals, names them and puts them to bed.
She was probably a Prader 3, at least the urinary tract fusion was fairly high up, but the labial fusion, overall appearance was more like a 2 (the stupid hospital- they did absolutely nothing....nothing happened until Pediatrician showed up on routine visit when she was 30 hours old). So she was ID'd as a girl all along, from ultrasound on thru. But I had a VERY stressful pregnancy, from the beginning, from losing my job to the relationship falling apart (I was being harassed by a crazy boss as I was learning I was pregnant). So now I suspect that this stress could have been more masculinizing. I am an educated person so I tend to think about these things.
But you know- that is just my stupid mind talking, I don't even know that I have a problem. Right now I still have a happy little girl. Bless us all.
Peaches
