to feel so desperately sad because I will never have a daugher?

[fullofregrets]

I know I should be grateful for DS and I am. Really. My longing for a daughter doesn't mean I don't love ny DS. They are two separate things.

My friend has just had a gorgeous little girl and I cannot shake off this desperately desperately sad feeling. I feel like I've lost something which is stupid because I never had it. I suppose what I'm having to say goodbye to is the dream of having a little girl which I've always had.

And I know it can't be anything as feeling as sad as people who can't have any children. I do know that logically, but my heart still hurts.

I'm not desperately sad that I had my son.
I'm desperately sad that I'll never have a daughter. And I know it sounds ridiculous and I'm not comparing it to the way someone has lost a child feels. But I think I will always feel as though something is missing and yes that makes me very very sad.

I also find it hard when people say grief and bereavment on this topic. Lost dreams/hopes..yes maybe. Grief? Sorry but after 2 stillborns and 2 miscarriages that word seems so so wrong inthis discussion.

So what are you going to do about it?

Just stay sad?

so if you'd had a daughter instead of a son, would you be desperately sad that you'd never have a son?

I guess so. I feel a bit pathetic going to my gp and asking for counselling because of how I feel.
It's not something I really talk about IRL.

No vessel I wouldn't. But that doesn't mean that I'm sad I have a boy. Because he's my boy and I absolutely love him.

well, that's good to hear.

It is about your son though. If something is missing because you have one child and its not a girl, thats about your son. If you had had a girl and not the feeling that something was missing, then it is about your son.
You can't artfully separate these feelings from the reality. And maybe facing up to what this means for you son is the jolt you need to get over it.

I agree jellybeans, I have been handed a warm and wriggling healthy baby boy both times.

Both times I could have gotten down on my knees and thanked the universe.

Are you very young OP? Have you experienced real grief? The sort that makes you throw up and feel like there is no point in continuing with anything?

As I said, a pang I get, but this 'very very sad' business I don't.

If I'd had a girl first and then got pregnant again I wouldnt have minded what the second one was. I probably would have even quite liked a boy but I wouldn't have been sad to end up with two girls.
But it is academic anyway because I am only having one child and that child is a boy.

Also, I hope the sons of the women who are desperately sad that they don't have girls instead of boys never pick up on it.

I'm not suggesting it is grief in the way of losing a child. Of course I'm not.

I feel for your son, you need help before you inadvertently transmit any of your feelings to him and make him feel second best. You need to get over this and stop being so self indulgent and wallowing in self pity. Your behaviour has crossed the boundary of normal.

The language you are using implies a pretty profound level of emotion.

You need to get over it or your boy is going to know he wasn't 'right'.

amother my son is fine. He is very well loved, I do a lot with him and I will never tell him about how I feel regarding my desire for a girl.
Honestly, he is absolutely adored and I highly doubt anyone IRL has any idea of how I feel regarding my disappointment at never having a daughter.

I would love a houseful of kids, but it is not to be. I can either waste my time feeling sad about it or I can shake it off, get over it and enjoy what I do have.

Personally I believe you can control your emotions to a certain extent.

To be disappointed with your child simply because he is a boy must be a horrible feeling.

'I think a woman's yearning for a daughter is simply anthropology'

Do you have evidence for this? I disagree and am not sure what you mean by anthropology in that context as it is based on looking at different cultures and not soley biology. It isn't universal. In many cultures women are desperate for sons suggesting that it is linked with cultural expectations rather than a fixed universal biological desire for daughters. Furthermore there are women on this thread who were desperate for sons so even within cultures it varies. I do think, though, that in our society many people are neatative about boys and this rubs off. That is why I was negative about boys myself (till I had some!). All my friends with just boys moaned about them and said how lucky I was (with DDs) and so did my mother.

But I'm not disappointed with him. I can't really explain it but it isn't him I'm disappointed in.

If you could go back in time and choose to have a girl instead, would you?

But it is isn't it? You said upthread you would have not felt the same sadness and yearning if he had been a girl.

Would you swap him? For the same personality, the same genetics the same everything except his reproductive organs were on the inside?

Thats a distinction you are making to make yourself feel better. You are disappointed that he was not a girl. You are disappointed in him, fundamentally.

Have you been to Ingender.com? They have a 'gender disappointment' board where they commiserate with each other if they get the 'wrong' gender at the scan. They even have an 'extreme gender disappointment' board where they discuss termination if they have the same wrong gender (usually a boy). It was mentioned on a programme about a women 'devastated' by having 5DSs (including crying in front of her 4th DS) and another one comparing only having boys with infertility .

that's fucking vile. Terminating a baby because of that, they should be fucking sterilized.