Petrified and disappointed at gender scan

[GenderDisappointment]

I've name changed for this and I might add a trigger warning: child abuse.

I never thought I'd be one of THOSE people who cry and are disappointed when they find out the sex of their unborn child.

We found out we're having a girl and I can't cope.

Here's why: My DH and I have unexplained infertility. It took us 2 years TTC and 2 rounds of IVF to conceive our son in 2015. Our beautiful little boy was stillborn at 32 weeks and devastated us. I miss him everyday and I'm angry and bitter that this happened to me. After all we'd been through, it wasn't simply a case of grieving and trying again. We had to self-fund more IVF to conceive. After an MMC (also IVF) at 8 weeks and more IVF I'm current pregnant where I'm carrying a girl. I should be thrilled, right?!

I don't like my mother. We have an awful relationship and live in different countries, seeing each other once a year at Christmas. Things she did included kicking me out of the house before my 21st birthday (I lived at home during university) when I came home after my curfew and slept with a boy I was dating who she didn't like. I spent my 21st birthday sleeping in my car. I never had friends over our house because she'd embarrass me and put me down in front of them, thinking she was funny but actually she was just spiteful and mean. She puts me down constantly: I'm stupid, I'm a slut, I'm fat.. I'm actually none of these things.

I don't want my daughter to grow up and hate me like I hate my mum. I don't know how to be a good mum, because I never had one.

My parents divorced when I was 13 and my father developed serious mental health issues and tried to sexually assault me in my late teens. It was the last time I ever saw or spoke to him. He later went on to commit suicide in 2009.

I look at my DH and I know he would never do anything to hurt our daughter or be so sick to have sexual thoughts about her. But it still makes me uneasy. I don't know what to expect from my DH because my own father wasn't a nice man.

I miss my son and I so desperately want him to be alive. I'm petrified about having a girl, I don't want her to have a shit life like I did.

AIBU to be upset? Anyone else experienced something similar?

[Hissy]

Fear

Obligation and Guilt

You are her victim OP, she needs to drag you back close to her to hurt you so she feels better.

The MORE she weeps and wails, the further you must go from her.

[mctat]

for you, OP. She sounds immeasurably cruel, even now.

We don't all parent as we were parented though, it can take a little work sometimes but when you know so deeply that the example you were given was wrong, you can do it.

I hope you can find some relief in counselling, maybe look into some mindful parenting resources too

[Eryri1981]

Hi,
I too am pregnant and found out early (NIPT) that it is a girl.

I also have a very poor relationship with mother, in short my mother has bullied me my whole life, undermining me at every opportunity, calling me fat, speaking to me worse than you would a dog at times when she was stressed. My grandmother was a narcissist, pure and simple, and I am confident that my mother experienced far worse at her hands than I ever did, and that this has shaped my mothers whole life (self esteem issues, anxiety), and how she raised me (only daughter, have a brother).

I have had counseling in the past, and found it really helpful.

I have always wanted a child but had a niggling doubt of whether it would be like mother like daughter all over again if I did. On getting pregnant part of me was desperate for a little girl, as I want so much to experience the mother-daughter relationship that I have never known, but I am equally terrified that I will screw it up, and therefore think maybe it would have been safer for me to have a boy.

My dad died recently (I just managed to tell him I was pregnant), so I am trying to be grown up and support my mother, for the time being, and suspending any decision to go no contact until the grief settles.

Some time ago I read "Will I Ever Be Good Enough?: Healing the Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers" by Karyl McBride, it is a fantastic book, and in the final part covers concerns about being a mother to your own daughter. I have also discussed my concerns with my two closet friends (already fantastic mothers themselves), and they are primed to point out to me if I'm getting it wrong, so OP don't keep all this locked up inside.

I have bought my mother her own copy of the book too (since my Dads death), in a final last ditch nothing to loose attempt to see if she is capable of changing at all, in the hope that we could maintain some sort of civil low contact relationship, and she could get to know her granddaughter, after all we are all ready one grandparent down :-( . She assures me that she is reading it,slowly, which is reasonable given the circumstances, and she is aware that she is reading it from two perspectives (the victim and the abuser), so I am moderately hopeful.

Good luck with your pregnancy, hope you can get over the shock of "OMG everything is soooo pink", and enjoy it all a bit. The fact that you have the level of insight into the mistakes that it is possible to make as a mother, is a good sign that you won't be the one making them (that's what my friend tells me anyhow). X