Gender disappointment - Page 4

[dakotablue]

Originally Posted by WifeofAnt

So... if you have a hermaphrodite the first time then you'd only 'need' one baby then?
Really that was my only fear. Girl, no big deal (although I have zero experience). Boy, no big deal. Baby of a mixed sex... my nightmare. What do you name him/her? Do you get surgery for it? How do you mark paperwork?

This is exactly what I tell people when they ask what we want with this baby. "We want one or the other." Only my grandmother asked what that meant, She agreed and laughed anything in between is honestly not what were hoping for.

[valanis]

Hi I could you anyone's HELP about now Please..
This is my story ..
I'm 27 and my husband and I have been married for some time now and we decided we wanted to start our wonderful family now.. (Clock is ticken) so we tried and right away got PG best news of our lives
We both wanted (& please don't judge me for this) our baby Girl. It was like a dream of mine to have my girl. I'm 4 months PG now and everyone is so excited for this girl. I could just feel it in my gut that it was a baby girl both my husband and I Cld.
It got to the point where we were so sure we wld call her by name as we talk to her day and night. This might sound really crazy but we would even picture her with us and act like she was. Little things like she wld do (u knw baby stuff) it was adorable.
I go to my u/s to find out its a Boy! I was devastated, and broken. The room was filled with silence, I cried so badly. My husband and mother were torn as well. Now don't get my wrong every baby is a wonderful gift from God and I feel blessed and will love this baby with all my heart but I'm having a really hard time with it right now. This was just 4 days ago and I still cannot stop crying and then I feel worse bc of it, makes me feel guilt for feeling this way .. I miss her so much even though I guess she was never there. I have a depression that I don't know how to get through. PLEASE HELP!! Any advice will help. I refused to let anyone knw the sex yet bc I don't feel ready for that.
There is only one thing that has let me get by and that's something that my husband found its called IVF/PGD where u can choose a healthy baby gender on your own. I don't want to keep trying and trying I would go have my pair at least. So after this PG I'm looking to do this. Anyone knw of anything on that. I just want to balance my family and I knw I wldnt Handel being disappointed again.
Again PLEASE.. any advice to get through this ??....

[Banana731]

I cried a lot when I found out the sex in my first. I went to the bathroom immediately after the u/s and balled for a few minutes.

I think it's okay to let yourself grieve for the daughter you imagined in your life. Let it out to make room in your heart for the baby you will be meeting. It's okay to not feel attached or excited yet. It's okay to give it time. Grieve and then focus on you. Go to a couple of counseling sessions, if you think you might like to talk to someone. Maybe someone who has experience in helping PP women might be a good place to start

There is a post on the first page of this thread by Heather B that might help. She talked about the way that grieving the loss of the baby you had in your heart isn't the same thing as not wanting the baby you have. And I think that is a nice perspective, and really encouraging.

I hope you find peace soon.

[nattery]

I am so glad to find this thread... thank you for posting!

I like reading other people's responses and knowing that others out there are going through similar things / feelings / processes that I am.

I am 19 weeks pregnant and went to our 20 week ultrasound scan today. My husband had insisted that we don't find out the gender and i wanted to honor that for him because it was so important and I don't really have a gender preference... HOWEVER

as the pregnancy progressed I realized I had built up a story in my mind that it is a boy. A little history: we were traveling in Bali last year and a medicine women told me I would be pregnant with a boy by winter. This was interesting news to us because we weren't expecting to be pregnant, or trying at the time. Then over the summer (before I was pregnant and we were not trying) I had several other similar experiences where people randomly felt the need to tell me they thought I would be pregnant soon with a boy. Because of all this history, and especially because I became pregnant at the same time the medicine women predicted (without trying) it was really easy for me to fall into this fantasy of this 'boy' we're going to have.

On the eve of the ultrasound (last night) I broke down to my husband and said I really need to know the gender now. Not because I have a preference for either sex (I don't) but because I've built up this story in my mind about this boy that is going to be in my world and if that is not the case, I want a chance to grieve the loss of that concept and have time to welcome and get excited about having a daughter in my world.

I think if I hadn't had this history of 'prophecy' behind my pregnancy I would have opted to not find out the sex until the birth... and a part of me feels guilty for not sticking to that decision since I (as some people have already mentioned) don't want to engender my baby by labeling it a boy or girl but rather I am happy to watch the baby's individuality and personality unfold with no preconceptions of how he or she will be based on their genitalia.

I think the important distinction for me here is to not necessarily be disapointed if the baby is a girl but to allow me to grieve the loss of the concept of a son I had developed.

anyways... the hospital where I got my ultrasound has the policy that they do not disclose gender to the patients but rather passes the information onto my midwife... so now I anxiously wait by the phone for the next few days to find out if everything is happy / healthy and if we're expecting a boy or a girl in our future.

Thank you everyone for sharing your input and emotions surrounded GD... it helped me feel not so alone, not so guilty about possibly feeling sadness over the gender and also helped me to better verbalize my feelings (grief rather than disapointment).

[amlikam]

This is an interesting thread thank you for starting it. I agree sex dissappointment might have peaked interest for a different reason :-D

We will ask the technician about the sex of the baby - though I don't think this one will meet gender "norms" and I am thankful to have such and interesting soul on its way!

[amlikam]

Originally Posted by dakotablue 

Originally Posted by WifeofAnt

So... if you have a hermaphrodite the first time then you'd only 'need' one baby then?
Really that was my only fear. Girl, no big deal (although I have zero experience). Boy, no big deal. Baby of a mixed sex... my nightmare. What do you name him/her? Do you get surgery for it? How do you mark paperwork?

This is exactly what I tell people when they ask what we want with this baby. "We want one or the other." Only my grandmother asked what that meant, She agreed and laughed anything in between is honestly not what were hoping for.

We tell people we are 80% sure it is a human but the 20% chance of it being a tree keeps us from saying until we know for sure.

[augustashley]

I think it is better to wait, personally, but each person would need to make that decision for their own situation.  I had a son felt very strongly about wanting a daughter during my second pregnancy... we didn't find out, and had another son.  From the moment of birth I was absolutely smitten and couldn't have been happier to have two boys. 

I have a relative whose spouse really wanted a boy for their first.  They found out in an u/s and he expressed his disappointment through the entire pregnancy.  His wife had hypermesis and he constantly talked about trying for another to get a boy.  I felt bad for her, and for her baby's sake. This continued up until her delivery.  Once the baby was born, he was completely over the moon and couldn't be happier with her.  I think if they had waited to find out, he wouldn't have had the negative emotions, just knowing him personally.

We didn't find out for 3 of our 4 so far (the one we found out wasn't planned, I saw the gender on the U/S), but will be finding out for this one (our fifth) hopefully tomorrow.  We let our kids vote and they all felt very strongly about wanting to find out, so we let them pick this time.  I sort of want to find out, too, but am slightly regretful, because I do have a preference just because I'd like my DD to have a sister, and if it isn't a girl, I would rather not know until the end, because with a baby in my arms I think there would be no room for any regret-for me personally.

[porcelina]

Originally Posted by valanis 

Hi I could you anyone's HELP about now Please..

There is only one thing that has let me get by and that's something that my husband found its called IVF/PGD where u can choose a healthy baby gender on your own. I don't want to keep trying and trying I would go have my pair at least. So after this PG I'm looking to do this. Anyone knw of anything on that. I just want to balance my family and I knw I wldnt Handel being disappointed again.
Again PLEASE.. any advice to get through this ??....

From what I have heard, PGD is very expensive but it does exactly that--can guarantee a girl. There is a whole website in-gender.com that is dedicated to methods to select gender, whether high tech or dietary methods. If you cant afford the sorting procedure you could try the girl diet. You might also find support there for gender disappointment.