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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

DH wants to try for DC5 in case it's a girl.

334 replies

wonder1ng · 30/11/2017 09:35

I'm 37, DH is 42 and we have 4 boys (7, 5 and non-identical twins just turned 3). So two in school now and the twins go to a nursery playgroup 9 - 12.15 on 3 mornings a week.

My AIBU is that I know DH would love a girl and he's now talking about going for DC5 as "you only live once." Obviously, he knows there are no guarantees, but he claims he would be happy with another boy anyway.

I feel conflicted about it because I'm just starting to get some time back now the twins are in playgroup. I worry if a fifth child would mean I'm spreading myself too thinly - e.g. when we go on holiday, I'd like to be able to do things with the boys we have rather than always being in the sideline "holding the baby." Also I worry about added financial pressure on DH with the school fees and everything else (though he claims it won't make much difference) and while I know some families who have 4 DC, I don't know any who have 5!

AIBU to say 5 DC might be a step too far and DH should just accept that he has 2 nieces and focus on them?!

OP posts:
PasstheStarmix · 30/11/2017 21:16

What if it's a nother boy? Only have a fifth child if you want a fifth and not for a particular gender

ReanimatedSGB · 30/11/2017 21:18

I strongly advise you to make sure you are using a contraceptive method this man can't tamper with (implant or coil, or pill). It's pretty clear that he doesn't actually think women are people - a girl child is a doll he can dress up and train to adore him, an adult woman is a breeding machine.
For now, sit him down, say 'I am not going to have another baby and there is nothing more to discuss' - and every time he brings it up again, just walk away from him, turn the radio on, start singing, etc. Then, if you do change your mind of your own free will, you will have trained him into understanding that he is not the one in charge and his word is not law.

Butterymuffin · 30/11/2017 21:22

He even said if we have a girl, he wants her to have his mother's name as her middle name!

I'd be more impressed if he was saying 'If you agree to have another and it's a girl, I'll be so happy you can call her whatever you want!'

Seriously, I wouldn't do it. He has no idea of the restrictions and work it will involve.

Pannacott · 30/11/2017 21:56

Yes he does need a sharp tap on the nose! He really doesn't sound very nice. The burden placed on any daughter he has, to live up to his expectations, sounds intolerable. He sounds like he would withhold affection or dominate her thinking processes (as he does with you, sadly), if she varied from his expectations.

This is really about his narcissistic wish that a daughter would make him feel special. That is an abhorrent role reversal of how parenting should be.

queenofthesheds · 30/11/2017 22:19

Keeping you pregnant and tied to the cooker/Home? NiceHmm

LoniceraJaponica · 30/11/2017 22:29

"but I couldn’t imagine more than one, because I’m a selfish cow, so even four seems like a lot of kids to me."

You and me both bluntness The idea of all the drudgery that comes with having 4 children makes me want to lie down in a darkened room. I don't judge parents of 4, it just isn't for me. I like my me time too much.

Original poster
wonder1ng · 30/11/2017 22:43

I don't think he's doing it to keep me at home because I'm a SAHM anyway with the 4 DSs we have and that's fine. I wouldn't want anyone else doing it. The post about giving him a tap on the nose made me laugh. He tends to see things in quite binary terms and he'll say I over-worry. I know it's up to me ultimately, but it's hard when I know how he feels. He's out tonight. I'm going to tell him not to mention it for a few weeks because I'm feeling quite pressured if the truth be known.

OP posts:
Msqueen33 · 30/11/2017 22:56

Maybe give him a week at home with the kids doing what you do on your own and see how he likes it. I’d be very worried your boys would get side lined for “daddy’s special girl”.

Butterymuffin · 30/11/2017 23:12

How often has he been bringing it up lately, then?

midnightmisssuki · 30/11/2017 23:16

Actually - you can have boy-girl identical twins , it’s called turner syndrome I believe.

OP - 5 is a lot but I have a sil who has 5 and she copes brilliantly, she has a mixture 3b 2g. Just make sure it’s what you want too, not just husband.

Clitoria · 30/11/2017 23:36

It’s non identical twins that you’re generically predisposed to because identicals are caused by the egg spontaneously splitting isn’t it?
Making four new people exist for 90-ra on a fucked planet is huge, making even more just to pander to the whims of this egotistical dude who does less than the bare minimum? Nah.

Clitoria · 30/11/2017 23:36

*90 odd years

Chrys2017 · 01/12/2017 00:05

Identical boy/girl twins are rare!

Hmm, there's going to be a lot of posters with egg on their face on this thread! Identical male/female twins are very rare, but not impossible.

On extremely rare occasions. an original XXY zygote may form monozygotic boy/girl twins by dropping the Y chromosome for one twin and the extra X chromosome for the other.

laudanum · 01/12/2017 00:17

I rather think you’ve got your hands full already, without adding to it on the offchance you might have a girl.

PippaPiper · 01/12/2017 00:41

Op has boy identical twin boys, no egg on faces, irrelevant to this thread Wink

FireCracker2 · 01/12/2017 01:30

getting 4 boys purely by chance was 1 in 16.therefore unlikely it was just chance- you are boy breeders!

sycamore54321 · 01/12/2017 01:37

What was the motivation for trying again after the second child? Did you ever at that point imagine yourself with at least three more children? Did either of you ever want a large family? It doesn't sound from what you've said that even the present size of your family was envisioned, and of course twins can't be predicted but the leap from where you were after the second baby to now is quite something.

I think he is behaving very disrespectfully towards you. I also think he has worrying gender expectations. And like others have said, a fifth child will have a hard time being parented by a man who either idolises her or resents him, and either way it will knock on to the older siblings too.

liminality · 01/12/2017 01:41

He's going to get a least a couple of daughter in laws at some point, and no doubt a few granddaughters sometime. Tell him to wait for that.

PippaPiper · 01/12/2017 03:37

I agree that you are boy breeders, like I only had girls. Look at your dh!

QueenAravisOfArchenland · 01/12/2017 07:42

Also, DH can be quite persuasive and it's hard to separate out how I feel sometimes.

That isn't "persuasive". Persuasive is presenting arguments, letting you evaluate them, and you yourself decide that you agree and that your feelings have changed. You're describing a relentless man who just keeps on at you until you give up out of overwhelm and sheer exhaustion.

Seriously, I'm sure he has good qualities and I don't want you to end up feeling like this is a husband pile-on. But his utter lack of interest in anything other than what HE wants, including how it might affect you, or the four children he already has, is pretty chilling. I don't know you from Adam, but I would worry about you tying yourself down even more because he's browbeaten you into feeling like you have no other option, because he won't accept that your feelings on the matter might have any relevance and because he waaaaaaaants it so much.

I suspect strongly he already gets more than enough of what he wants.

NameChange30 · 01/12/2017 08:12

What Queen said.
I worry about your relationship tbh.
I bet he gets his own way all the time.
Your wants and needs have already become very low on your own priority list, let alone his (where they don’t even feature).
Sad

LoniceraJaponica · 01/12/2017 08:13

"Your wants and needs have already become very low on your own priority list, "

I agree. You aren't a baby making machine, and you will get lumbered with all the hard work with very little support. I can't see any positives in having another baby.

IceBearRocks · 01/12/2017 08:24

You do realise that kids become harder work the older they get! !! Babies and toddlers are easy. Also I feel like ...what would the girl get from a family of 4 boys, they have very little in common.
Little big selfish in DH behalf I think !!!

LoniceraJaponica · 01/12/2017 08:26

"You do realise that kids become harder work the older they get!"

This ^^
And much, much more expensive.
I only have a daughter and have found the teenage years very difficult. Friends with both have said that the teenage boys were easier than the girls.

musicposy · 01/12/2017 08:28

I have a friend who was EXACTLY in your position, OP, and ended up having a fifth because her DH was so desperate for a girl.

They now have 5 boys.

She has put her foot down and said no more, it's too exhausting. And though she adores the youngest she says she wouldn't have done it in retrospect.

When we meet up (I have two DDs) my elder DD is quiet and makes conversation but my younger DD is in the fray with the boys. You wouldn't know she was a girl by anything but appearance. There's certainly nothing "girly" in her character.

My advice would be to enjoy what you gave. Your DH is hamkering after something that may never happen, and probably won't be what he envisioned if it does.