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

[Needtomoveon12]

Hi all

NC for this. I have two boys, 5 and 1. Me and partner been together 12 years, happy and always said we wanted two children.
Emotionally and financially I feel two children is the max I can have, it’s a nice number to have and it’s what I have wanted all my life..... but I don’t have a daughter.
Now I know before people start saying, be grateful you have two healthy children, I am beyond grateful, I count my blessings everyday and wouldn’t change my boys for the world!! I know people can’t even have one and I’m expecting people to say that, I know, I just can’t get rid of this heartache deep down that I will never have a girl.

I have always wanted to replicate the relationship that me and my mum have, and I know that isn’t guaranteed! It’s living with the what ifs.......

I know how precious any baby is!! I lost a baby boy half way through pregnancy in 2016 so this does and did make me stop this thinking of a girl, but slowly it’s crept back again.....

I’m not going to have another baby or try, because that’s unfair to baby if it was a boy, knowing deep down I desperately crave a girl. I just need to know how to move forward with my life and leave this behind. My partner went to go for the snip and I stopped him because of these silly feelings.

Please be gentle it’s took me ages to get the guts to write this, I just wanna stop being so jealous of people with daughters.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Growing up my parents house was in a terrace. We lived between a family of 6 girls on one side and 6 boys on the other. Do not become one of those families 😀

What chance do they have to grow to full, compassionate human beings when they are labelled uncaring as soon as they sex is known

So you think men do more of the caring work in the world than women? Really? Have you ever been on mumsnet before? Or met any man?

I understand - I have 3 boys, 8, 6 and 3. I was desperate for a girl third time, especially as I grew up with 2 sisters so have always been in a female-heavy family. When I found out number 3 was a boy at 20 weeks I was really, really disappointed. It's perfectly understandable, you're giving something up you had hoped for. HOWEVER, I bloody love my boys and now 3 years on I honestly wouldn't have it any other way. They are loving, affectionate, admittedly very high energy, but just brilliant company. Plenty of women have strained relationships with their mothers, having a girl is no guarantee you'll get that close mother-daughter bond. Try and focus on what lovely little guys you have, rather than what you haven't got, because it's unlikely the counterfactual would have been as rosy as you imagine.

I think you have to help yourself stop thinking about this. Whenever you find yourself wishing for a daughter you need to consciously put those thoughts aside and focus on something else. Have a plan for what that something else will be. Sooner than you think, this will become normal for you and your sense of disappointment will diminish. Dwelling on it is what makes it worse.

Thanks all, I’m still here reading all your advice and taking it on board, I’m so glad I wrote this and wish I had done sooner, I wasn’t expecting such supportive messages so thank you..... I feel as well that while I’m still young and at the age where most are having family’s I feel like I still have time to get pregnant whereas if I felt I was past the age of having the energy or unable to have children anymore I would find this easier to overcome, I just maybe feel being at the age I imagined finishing my family is ticking away and I’m scared of looking back in regret.
I love my boys to death and we are close, my eldest is just an absolute dream son, I couldn’t ask for better, I just saw how close my mum was to my younger brother and how heartbroken she is that she never sees him, not for trying but the fact he has his own life and work etc it’s hard.
I also am aware this can happen with a daughter, an old work colleague of mine had 3 daughters and all of them emigrated, she sees them once a year, so I do sit and think there’s no guarantees.

@lania. I am so very sorry for your losses, I can’t even imagine, I remember how devastating my loss was so can’t even begin to comprehend what you have gone through. I really hope my post hasn’t caused any upset or anger, I really would hate to think I have. I will try and write down the positives in my life thank you.
I get angry with myself that I should be grateful, there’s women out there that would give an arm and a leg for what I have, and I wish more than anything I didn’t have these feelings.

I need to let go, maybe like others have said only time will bring that.

Thank you all for your comments I am reading them xx

*What chance do they have to grow to full, compassionate human beings when they are labelled uncaring as soon as they sex is known

So you think men do more of the caring work in the world than women? Really? Have you ever been on mumsnet before? Or met any man?*

Butterghost, your comment makes absolutely no sense in the context of what I said. You clearly misunderstood. I was saying the previous PP was sex stereotyping males as inherently uncaring.

I think there is a lot of stereotypes about mothers and daughters. I have never once been to a Spa day with my Mum and I never want to. We just don't have the type of relationship where I would be comfortable with that. I can chat for a while about trivial stuff but I never really feel I'm me around her, just a watered down version of who she wants me to be. I hide the parts of my personality that I know she dislikes. It's as if there's a disconnect between us that I can never repair.

I so longed for a daughter so I could be the kind of Mum I always wanted, to heal my pain by taking her for days out and to experience things I wish someone had done with me. I realise now that was sentimental, selfish bullshit and I was making my child's life a replay of what I had imagined i had needed. But she is absolutely not me and all children just need to be loved and supported unconditionally which I did do, but I feel immense guilt that I was trying to right some wrongs through her. She is a very angry teenager now and barely speaks to me so I will probably end up with the same relationship with her as I do with my Mum. Except my Mum was selfish and ignored me.

What I'm trying to say is, things turn out the way they do despite our best intentions, people are just people - not a cure for our past hurts. I know you are not wanting a daughter purely for this reason and I totally understand your yearning. Just be the best Mum you can be to your boys, love them, enjoy them. You never know which way life will take you. You may get a daughter figure in your life, you don't have to give birth for that to happen. You sound like a good person.

Not particularly relevant but it reminds in a way of my Auntie's family. Her dad wanted a boy to carry on the family name. Apparently the mother cried when daughter no.4 came along because it meant she would have to have another. She got a boy with no.5 - but he never had any children so couldn't carry on the family name anyway.

My point is- things don't always go the way you think they will go. I hope you can find away to get past these feelings.

I desperately wanted a girl, to right the wrongs of my childhood. I had a little girl, but she died. I have two boys who are the most loving, caring, affectionate individuals you could ever wish to meet. If my daughter had lived, I wouldn't have had my boys, so wouldn't have had the love I now receive from them. I love them, and given the choice, wouldn't swap them for the chance of having my girl back.

Aprilsinparis.. . Thinking of you and all who go through this. X

It’s such a bummer to feel this way OP
Not slating your honesty just feel bad for you

No advice And hope someone else has

Even when I was deep in the pain of infertility I could understand this. It’s the same sense of loss for something you never had. The same pangs of unreasonable jealousy. A lot of people don’t understand that gender disappointment is not about the child you have, but everything about the child you ‘lost’. Yanbu.

OP, I understand. Your feelings are valid. In the real world you can adore your sons, share some interests with them and see them regularly into adulthood, yet still miss close female-female companionship. On these types of post there are always lots of comments suggesting your chances are not very high of getting on well with any daughter you had. I disagree and think the women I know who are close to their mums generally go on to have very good and fulfilling, if not always perfect, relationships with their own daughters. I think you would be a great mum to a girl. Don't try to push away your feelings by telling yourself you might have failed at the mother- daughter bond. That will just lead you down a path of feeling you somehow didn't 'deserve' a daughter, when really it was just the roll of the dice.
I think you're doing the right thing to acknowledge your feelings. I think having only sons is a different experience to having a daughter and of course there will be negatives to that, but I suggest you try to focus less on the things you'll miss out on and instead think of the reasons why having sons is particularly special. Every combination of genders in a family gives something different. Try to think that you'll never be a mum of 4 sons, or 4 daughters, or 1 of each, or but that mum of 4 daughters might envy you some aspects of having 2 sons. It's a lot to do with the numbers of children you have and their age gaps too. You have your own family based on those factors too and it's uniquely yours.

I've three boys & I've never had any particular desire to have a girl. So I can't pretend I understand how OP feels. But what I can say is that my sons are in their 20s now & we are still very close. They are wonderful, kind, loving & affectionate young men & I can't imagine that I'd have been any closer to a daughter.

I have 2 boys
Now 13 and 5. I lost 6 babies in 2nd trimester but they were all boys. I felt the ache u feel. I missed a daughter I didn't have. I loved my boys to bits but when I stayed awake at night ad feel my heart ache for that little girl I had never met. Like the wait for a soul mate before u meet the love of ur life. My 2nd son( 8th preg) was very hard and I had a heart attack after having him. Recovery took years followed by intense birth trauma healing.. I didn't even want to hear of the word pregnancy again.
Then came the day I puked at the hospital following a visit to my sister in law baby birth. She jokingly said take a test and I did. I was pregnant..oops.
I cried and cried and almost terminated! There's no way am going through he ache of another pregnancy loss.. the race to the birth. The sickness and the fulltime bedrest..besides the doctor said my heart can't take it and would liked not make it.tears followed by acceptance of a fate that I can't control but I have to accept. Weeks of depression, medication and letter writing to my kids as they will grow up without me. Days spent finalising my affairs knowing I won't survive either the pregnancy or the birth. Then came the 31 week and severe prodormal labour started. Contractions every half an hour for weeks. Intense labor pains all day. Hang in there..the doctors said. Give the baby one more day to cook.!! I listened to that sentence over and over again as I writhed in pain for days. Heavily medicated I thought I was gonna die and all my kids would remember is how much pain I was in. The one Saturday evening at exactly 37weeks my waters broke. Doctors in a frenzy! Call the cardiologists, anaesthists.. call the c section team. Get the fentanyl...get everything...I was in the labor room with my husband and one midwife while everybody rushed around to prep the theatre and me. My midwife was halfway through prepping the fentanyl syringe when I shouted ' baby is coming!!'
'No! Wait! The doctors are coming!'
' too late!' I shout. 'Catch the baby.. hubby help me turn and squat....SOMEBODY CATCH THE BABY!' I scream when I feel the head crowning! Am ripping apart, my heart is about to burst, I see stars and my vision tunnels as darkness sets...
I feel a gush and out comes baby into the hands of the midwife as the doors burst open and the trolleys and myriad of doctors in blues and white rush in.
'My princess is here...' i say before I pass out.
' it's a girl!' I hear the midwife say as black overtakes me

18yrs from when I first tried for my first my baby my princess made it to earth. A tiny bundle who came unplanned and unannounced into our life. A little girl who I thought I would never meet and would survive her birth came.the joy that filled my heart was like nothing else! The peace that i felt was like a reunion of my other half. My heart miraculously survived and when I woke up acted like it was never the problem.
3 months ago my dream came true. Now we wake up every grateful day and behold our severely colicky and refluxy princess pushing through. I comb her curls every morning and night and imagine the journey this little soul took to reach us. I see the love In her brothers eyes and the adoration In her fathers hands. She is beautiful beyond measure and the final peice of our puzzle. She filled the space we didn't know we had. I don't miss her anymore because she is here now

You might get granddaughters one day?

You don't know uou would have got shopping trips and luches out with a daughter.
There are lovely clothes around for boys too.

I think this is probably quite common. I suspect that lots of people who have three children of the same sex only went for number 3 to see if they would have a girl/ boy this time.

I hope that you are able to rationalise your feelings at some point. But you feel how you feel and there is nothing wrong with that. You are not the first, you won't be the last