Feel like my life isn’t complete without a daughter, please slap some sense into me.....

OP your feelings are real and therefore completely valid. I know you understand how fortunate you are but also understand it must feel disappointing. We can’t simply ‘make’ ourselves feel a certain way if we don’t. If we could everyone would be happy and skipping about the place all the time. Part of moving beyond feeling this is to express it and I think you’ve been brave to post with honesty.

I’m really sorry for the loss of your baby, it is a unique pain that cannot quite be described. It isn’t that long ago really and I do think it will be playing a part in how you view things now.

I don’t know if this will help but maybe try to think of this as relative. I’ve lost three sons due to stillbirth \ neonatal death and would give anything to have them back. It’s also unlikely I will ever have a child so I am grieving both the death of my boys and the death of my hopes. One of the ways I’m trying to come to terms with it is to practice gratitude for what I do have and it has been helping. Writing down all the things you are grateful for each day can’t be a powerful way to readjust how you feel.

Have you tried counselling? It might really help you come to terms with things.

My mum lost her own mum when she was quite young and they had been very close. It's taken us until my adulthood to have a really good relationship as I think the burden of expectation was too high.

My DM had a wonderful relationship with her DM. They were extremely close. As a consequence my DM expected the same from me.

Sadly, I wasn't the right sort of girl. I lived in my head, always had my glasses held together with tape and was fascinated by politics and ideas in general. Not the little lady she had in mind.

We fought throughout my teens. Our relationship only sorted itself out once I was married with DC in my 30s. But a lot of our issues were caused by her fantasy of the perfect mother daughter relationship.

Just a thought.

Not going to try to make you feel better, because I think you probably can't help how you feel.

I wanted boys, and I got boys, I don't know why I wanted boys but I just did. I do think about when they're older, how I might be one the dreaded mil.

It's a huge pressure to put on a daughter though isn't it? The expectation that she'll provide you with this friend for life. I've thought about it too.

I think you've just got to be practical, you have a family, look after your children the best you can and what will be will be.

Genuinely, I don’t need any clarification from you @IamtheMistressofmyFate. I’m very well educated and work in the field of psychology. I have a daughter who is very active and plays football and a son who is so sensitive the school called me in because they felt he was too old to be crying in year 4. He still cries now and I encourage it.

Whatever the op was imagining and I was guessing, telling her she can have the same or a better relationship with a son won’t make the feeling of not having a girl go away. I imagine she already knows that.

My experience of older boys is that they are each different and that your relationship with each differs. The two children I find it easiest to talk to are DD1 and DS2. I have more than one of each.

Awwww you’re grieving 😘. I can imagine you wanted to dress her up and take her to the spa, go on shopping sprees, do girly things and as much as you can be close to a boy in this way, it’s not the same

Do we have to reduce girls to dolls?

I would give anything to have a daughter. Yes she might hate me, but I feel there is at least a 1/4 chance she might care about me. With a son it's a 1/1000 chance.

I find this comment really sexist and really sad. What chance do boys have with mothers who write them off like this at their 20 week scan? What chance do they have to grow to full, compassionate human beings when they are labelled uncaring as soon as they sex is known?

I get it completely, I desperately wanted a daughter and only had boys. However, I'm really lucky, I've had a stepdaughter for the last 20 years and I couldn't love her any more than I do.

Allow yourself to feel the pain you do. But limit it. I have previously said to myself, I will feel like this for the next 10 mins then I will think about something else. Doing that repeatedly helped me gradually move on.

There is no reason why you can't have a close relationship with your sons. Have conversations with them about emotions so they become emotional literate, empathetic individuals. There is a nice supportive facebook page called mums with sons.

You also have no idea what a relationship with a daughter may have been like. She might have just not been into what you are into. You may have just been very different.

Don't waste your life grieving over a fantasy person who has never existed.

I completely understand OP! I always knew I wanted a daughter and while I wouldn't love my children less based on their gender and felt incredibly blessed to be a mother, I just knew I didn't want to go through life with only sons. Of course you can't control these things and I do have a couple friends with 4 boys and many friends with 3 boys. They are wonderful families, great kids, but there is an ache for many of my friends and some either went on to try again and/or live happy lives but are able to own the fact they do (secretly) wish they'd of been able to have a girl.

How you feel is okay, maybe it would be helpful to remind yourself of your choices:
Have another if you are okay with it being another boy or girl. There are no guarantees.
Wait a few years until your sons are much older and maybe set out to adopt a girl. You'd need to understand trauma children in care have faced and want to adopt, not just have a daughter etc. Children who are adopted typically have extra needs.
Go through the feelings and come to accept that this is your family and probably always quietly wish you'd of had a girl but have acceptance it doesn't.

And please don't feel guilt! You are obviously a loving Mum and have a lovely family. Feelings are feelings and when given the space and not suffocated we typically adapt and adjust and get to a better place.

I have grown up sons and a daughter, and I have to say my sons are far kinder and patient with me than DD! She gets very exasperated and tetchy with me, never sure why!

And I must say, I never do spa days or lunches out with my own mum, or go shopping with her. We have a good relationship but it’s not the sort of thing that interests me. I always find it odd when people want a daughter for those reasons- just as likely you will have a girl yet never experience any of that.

I feel the same. Our son is 3. He was an ivf baby so very much wanted but we both wanted a girl. Bit gutted when we found out it was a boy and I felt awful admitting that. He is absolutely gorgeous and pretty loving.But like others on the thread, I had dreamed of shopping trips, and lunches out etc with a daughter. I still look at the pretty girls clothes in shops. We are not having any more children so I will pour everything into my adorable boy.

Yeah you can’t have any expectations really as no one knows. One of the reasons I changed my tune about wanting a boy is seeing close family friend with her 7 year old. He’s so cuddly, sensitive, polite and loving and I thought awww nothing like a Mum and son bond.

You just don’t know, I’m going to just take each day as it comes. In all honesty I need my daughter to be independent, tough and unspoiled because I’m a single mum. I just won’t know though. Can’t predict anything they’re their own people and won’t turn out how we think they should. Like I’m not who my mum imagined I’d be.

Sometimes I think the women who will get real ‘gender disappointment’ are the ones who DO end up with the daughter/daughters they crave but then don’t live up to the ideals/expectations they had in their head.

My great-aunt had a longed-for daughter after 2 boys. Her sons grew up and stayed pretty close, had their own kids and she was a very involved grandmother. Her daughter went off and travelled, was bad at staying in touch and never settled down or had kids (like many women choose nowadays). There was never a real ‘mother-daughter’ bond there like she’d dreamed.

Another auntie had 2 daughters as she’d wanted, thinking they would be close sisters and they’d all have a lovely relationship. The girls never had anything in common and fought. Now as adults in their 20s they have a strained relationship and barely speak. Both live in the towns where they went to uni, ages away from my aunt so she hardly sees either of them.

Those are just 2 examples out of many that I can think of. I just think sometimes women have a picture in their head and it’s not always the reality.

I have 2 boys.

I have lots of nieces and absolutely treasure that relationship, however I'd say it was the daughters of my friends that I tend to have the sort of relationship I would love to have had with my own daughter.

I'd never really hankered for a baby girl, it's now they're growing into fabulous young women that I feel it would have been great.

We (the Mums/my friends and some of the daughters) go to the cinema, or they sometimes join us in the pub (small village, so maybe just popping in rather than going out with us as such).

Some of them babysit and I love the chats we have and to hear about their lives.

I have a great relationship with my 19YO son, but we have different interests so we don't do shared activities so much or read the same books etc.

It's all fine, it's just something I get wistful about now and again.

I would have thought this if i didn't have a daughter but she much prefers her Dad and not all girls are hte same. I think you're over thinking it you might be disappointed if youdid have a girl.

My Mum is far closer to my brothers than she is to me. We just have absolutely nothing in common, they see her more often than I do and their children are closer to her than my daughter.

Same with DH, he loves his Mum and enjoys spending time with her. There’s no reason why you can’t do lunches/ spa days with your sons or daughters in law!

I actually worry that I won’t have a close relationship with my daughter, as I don’t have a good example to go by. I’ll try everything I can do make her feel loved, cared for and I hope we’ll be close. Although there really is no guarantee.

I have all boys and whilst I can’t know how you feel as I’ve never been bothered about having a daughter, I just want to reassure you that you can still have a fabulous close relationship with your sons. My boys are so different in their personalities, they like different things but all are affectionate, sensitive and great fun to be with. The older they get, the more I have in common with them and they confide in me way more than they do my husband. They are all sporty and I spend a fair chunk of time watching them do this, but we also snuggle up together every weekend to watch Strictly together, bake cakes and loads of other “girly” things (have put girly in brackets before I get jumped on for stereotyping )

My advice is to try and stop imagining what you’d get from a mythical daughter and focus on developing those bonds with your boys.

I would give anything to have a daughter. Yes she might hate me, but I feel there is at least a 1/4 chance she might care about me. With a son it's a 1/1000 chance.

I know how you feel OP, I'm in the same situation. I've read quite a few threads along these lines and people always rush on to say how they hate their mums, whilst their brothers and husbands are super super close and so are all the men they know. But that's honestly bs, sorry! Read the whole rest of this forum, every other thread is about how men don't give a crap about their families!

Also women do usually have more in common with other women, which is why this forum is mostly women. If there's absolutely no difference why isn't this forum 50% men, and cars.com or whatever 50% women.

And you just can't say that men do more of the caring work in this world than women.

Oh and in my experience when a son doesn't keep in touch with his mum, the DIL is blamed but actually it's the son himself who just can't be arsed. A fact the mum doesn't want to face.

I think my DH best represents this situation, he gets on fine with his mum but when I suggested he call her, he replied "Why? I called her 2 months ago."

Anyway what can we do about it? Nothing. Make sure to have hobbies to fill our retirement I guess, and try to put money aside for care (as our sons sure won't be involved).

Awwww you’re grieving 😘. I can imagine you wanted to dress her up and take her to the spa, go on shopping sprees, do girly things and as much as you can be close to a boy in this way, it’s not the same.

I guess acceptance of that loss is the only way forward and then to focus on your reality.

Ps I thought yay I won’t have to stand on the football sidelines anymore when I had a girl, got that wrong. She plays too 💐

Understand how you feel OP. From another point of view I secretly wanted a daughter and told no one, if anyone asked what I thought I said I think I’m having a boy. Anyway I’ve had two scans and they’re saying girl. My feelings have totally changed now, I’d have loved a boy. I coo over all th boys clothes and hope one day to have a son. Sometimes you get what you secretly want but don’t feel exactly the same about it. I will love her whether she’s a girlie girl or tomboy or however she is, I have no expectations anymore.

Love my mum to bits but we fight a lot and clash my sister does with my mum too and actually my brother does. We’re a loud shouty family and I hate that. I just want a calm relationship with my child boy or girl.

Ahh I get it I was secretly a bit gutted when i found out I was expecting a boy. I have a girl already but wanted a 2nd girl as I had a name I wanted to use which I didn't use for my dd because mil was really nasty about it it's always been a huge point of contention. Im almost 30 weeks now and I'm totally over it and excited to be getting a little boy I know iwbu to feel the way I did it was just a mixture off stuff. I've been coming to terms this will probably be my last baby and I won't ever get to use the name I love so much.