Gender reveal parties, nude photoshoots have taken the privacy out of pregnancy

When I was pregnant with my first daughter, I just knew it would be a girl. It was of course possible that I wanted a girl so bad that I refused to entertain opposing thoughts. I was right. My second girl was different. One moment I would think it was a girl, the next one I would be craving mutura or roast maize and the smell of petrol, and change my mind because what girl craves that?

I may have had doubts about the gender of my second daughter, but my village women had no such qualms to deal with. Too often they would give me unsolicited gender reveal. They would look at my bulging stomach, squint at it for a few seconds, sometimes cock their heads, nod and say, 'that's a girl.' I have enough experience with village women and their unscientific predictions about stuff, their audacity to be right can be annoying, so even with the mutura and petrol cravings, I was not surprised when I popped another female.