Has anyone else experienced gender disappointment?

[Foreverexhausted]

I know you're meant to feel overwhelmed with love regardless of whether baby is a boy or girl but behind closed doors has anyone else felt disappointed?

I never found out the sex but I was convinced I was having a girl for all sorts of reasons. Once baby arrived and I was told "its a boy!" my heart sank. Within a few days I was sobbing with disappointment. I'm in a better place now but trying to work through my feelings. If I'm honest, 8 weeks later, I still feel disappointed. I've been trying to buy clothes for him and I keep looking at the variety of pretty girls clothes, boys clothes are nowhere near as nice.

I don't want to be criticised so if you haven't experienced it please don't give me a hard time. But if you have, did you have a boy or a girl and how long did it take for you to get over your feelings? And what helped change the way you felt?

Thanks

I think from talking to a lot of parents, gender disappointment is fairly common unless it affects how you feel about the child itself. If you feel disappointed that you don't have a dd but still love your ds, that's quite normal. But if you feel like you resent your dc because he isn't the sex you want him to be then you should consider counselling.

I have two girls. I don't understand why girls are seen as better or how having one of each is the "ideal".
In fact I've never encountered this in real life situations.

I think this is a lot more common than people admit in real life.

I know someone who felt like this, would joke about me being so lucky for having a DD when she had all boys and openly said she was devastated at the scan.

She did have PND so I'm not sure if that was a factor.

The DC's are all grown up now and she is the proudest DM you could meet

I do want to say it more gently than a couple of PPs above, OP, but I can't help feeling really rather sad for your wonderful little boy.

I don't think this preference for girls is just about pretty clothes or shopping, though that is a factor. Like some PPs, I think it's about what we can identify with and deeper cultural beliefs about the extent to which a daughter, as opposed to a son, will be 'ours' (the 'a son's a son till he takes a wife' nonsense). We're more ready, perhaps, to let a boy go, because that's always been the 'way things are'. We respect their difference and need to go out into the world. It might be a lot harder to respect that in a girl.
I certainly think it's social as opposed to 'natural' in any way - it's not all that long ago that Dh Lawrence could write a novel like Sons and Lovers, and you get a lot of posts on here where particularly older people report their mother or GM favouring boys.
I also think a lot of disrupted mother/daughter relationships come from that sense on the part of the mother that the daughter will be 'theirs', or identifiable with them. Or when a daughter refuses the repeat or 'repay' the sacrifices that a mother might have made.

i think what I'm saying is that 'gender disappointment' isn't necessarily vacuous, but it's still 8sorry, OP), not really OK, and threads like these worry me because they fill up with people validating one another's feelings on this.

I have two boys followed much later by a girl. If I'd been able to choose without consequence, I would, tbvh, prob have gone for a girl first. But 'disappointment' wasn't going to come into it, at any stage. I did have a strong feeling, before I found out, that the older two were boys (with dd I didn't have a sense either way). We have our kids to let them become themselves, and that's the same for boys and girls.

I have a boy now and I want a girl next. If it were to be another boy I'm not going lie but I would be heartbroken. I want a daughter bad now! As my ds bonds with dad alot more.

Lovely, I suggest you stop at one then rather than risk it. How awful to have two boys.

I have a boy now and I want a girl next. If it were to be another boy I'm not going lie but I would be heartbroken. I want a daughter bad now! As my ds bonds with dad alot more.

Heartbroken?

What a horrible, horrible thing to say.

I already feel sorry for your next baby...

A girl who from birth isunder pressure to form a bond with you and to the level you want in order to fulfill some need borne if jealousy that your son has a good bond with his dad....

Or a baby it you will heartbroken to have.

I’m genuinely upset that anyone could say they’d be heartbroken in terms of whether they get the sex of baby they want or not.

I agree that you should stick with one child rather than risk bringing an unwanted boy into this world.

Agreed StitchingMoss.

I completely agree with namechange. I love my boys and we have much in common, but we don't have the same types of body and our experiences have already diverged, both in the practicalities of those bodies and in how the world treats us because of them. I would have enjoyed having another person around who faces the same sex-dependent body issues as me (I.e. bras, periods, ovulation pain, hormone fluctuations etc). Mind you I have sometimes thought that that's unkind of me and that I should be pleased my boys get to avoid all that rubbish

This.

I wanted a girl, mostly I think because my relationship with my mum both growing up and as an adult is very good and I wanted to recreate that for my child. I just couldn't see how I could do that with a boy (not in the same way anyway)

But now I have a son, and I think of all the sex dependant bullshit I have had to put up with and I am so glad he is a boy. He has an advantage from the off just because of that, and we still have a great bond and lots of love etc

I have boys. I’d have been fine with boys or girls, no preference at all.

What I did experience though, was other people expressing disappointment. That really surprised me, and it pissed me off. Comments like:

Oh what a shame,
Oh no another boy
You can try for a girl next
Are you disappointed?

I’d genuinely never even thought that a significant number of people think like this. It was a shock.

I do wonder how people who were desperate for a girl to dress like a doll and bond with over shopping and nails react when that girl is a tomboy who wants to climb trees and play with chemistry sets. Or how they treat that boy they had who ‘should’ have been a girl.

I'm not sure it is just a girl to dress in pretty clothes or boys to play football with, it coudl be more the childhood circumstances of the DM to be. Say the boys got pandered to and girls ignored in their own childhood, or DM was an eveil narcissist and DF the bestest Dad, it will colour what sex of child you want I would think. But even if disappointed, once Dbaby grows and shows its own personality and love no one will care.

@Fabaunt

@QueenofmyPrinces this was a thread about people being completely honest not for people like you to come judging. Yes if I were to find out I had another boy I would feel a little bit disappointed. I love my son with everything that I have and I'm not at all jeaslpus of his bond with his father but I'd love a daughter too. I'm being honest. If you don't like it then don't go reading into threads like this. You don't need to feel bad for my children. Dh and Have great careers, make good money, are very loving and very caring to our son. So please don't make me out to be a horrible person because of my honesty.

Hi,

I can relate to you. I was absolutely devastated to find out the gender of my baby. I hate myself for even saying it now. But at the time I was genuinely devastated. I paid for a private gender scan afterwards to double check that the nhs one was correct. I couldn't even think about names or buying clothes etc for several weeks after finding out.

I know that the reasons I felt like this were linked to issues I had with a previous pregnancy and that i was really trying to 'replicate' the previous pregnancy and wanted everything to be exactly the same, including the gender, so that I could replace the previous bad memories with good.

All sounds very ridiculous and strange I know.

Anyway, I recall people telling me I'd not care once the baby was here and me really thinking that wouldn't be the case, but thankfully everything was fine.

I struggled with pre-natal depression but once the baby arrived everything fell into place and I couldn't imagine my baby as anything other than the gender he is now.

Yes I had it after 20 week scan, I was convinced it was another girl and I was wrong. I think lots more people have this feeling than admit it. Although I do think mostly it passes once baby is born. Keep an eye on your feelings and seek help if yo think you are feeling generally low or struggling to bond. My want for two girls was totally material if I’m honest. I wanted to reuse all the same lovely stuff. I noticed you mention clothes. I still get a nag of sadness when I think about getting rid of all the girls stuff but that’s not what’s important in life. No one is going to be thinking about which clothes their kids wore when their on their death bed. Your son will soon become the most wonderful little person and your life will be far richer for it than all the lovely girls clothes on the planet. I do sympathise though op. Just be kind to yourself and I hope your feelings pass.

If I'm being completely honest, I think I would have been a little disappointed, as I did have a preference, but the sex of the babies were what I would have liked them to be, and it wasn't a strong preference, and I found out before the births, so I have no idea how I would have felt after the birth.

And I had fertility issues, which just goes to show that it's not as simple as someone telling you to 'be grateful that you have a baby'.
That just compounds the guilt imo.

It's a very vulnerable time OP.
Be kind to yourself and reach out and speak to GP, family etc.

lovely36
You didn't say "A little bit disappointed" though. You said you "would be heartbroken". If a child has a 50% chance of making you feel that way then you can understand why people are saying maybe it's better you don't take that risk.

Also, you said you want a girl because your DS bonds with his dad, do you think that's down to personality or because children bond more with parents who are the same sex? If it's the latter there are loads of families around that disprove that* and if it's the former then why does their sex matter?

• though it's probably less likely to happen in families that force their children into strict gender roles, treat children differently depending on their sex and make assumptions about who will bond with who based on what's between their legs.

FWIW I'm not trying to judge, just to encourage you to unpack some of your ideas, which might help you deal with having another son if that happens (though again if the thought of it makes you feel really sad it's probably best not to take the chance).

I hate posts like this. I know you are just being honest about how you feel, but I can’t understand the mentality. Me and my partner both wanted a girl, we thought out boy was a girl. He wanted to know the sex and were told a boy. It was cute, especially having a little pic of our sons genitals was a pic of his legs and scrotum in between. So funny. And when he was born we were overwhelmed with love. I can’t imagibe having a girl and can’t imagine ever being disappointed. When I got pregnant again- I thought it’d be great to have a girl to balance it out but then at the same time great to have a brother. I lost the baby at 13 1/2 weeks- it was a boy.