Gender disappointment

[HanB7]

I know this is going to sound awful but would really appreciate other people’s opinions. I have wanted a baby for as long as I can remember. My partner and I weren’t trying but knew I couldn’t get pregnant. We decided to see a fertility specialist where I was told I didn’t ovulate. I was put on tablets which she said could take between a year-2years to work. Great lots of time to move and sort out any money problems. I became pregnant on the first go. I felt shocked but extremely lucky. My partner already has a 7yo Daughter and was adamant he didn’t want a boy. It never bothered me But after his constant talking of wanting a girl it made me want one. I felt like I was having a girl. Looked at nothing but girls clothes and names. So when I was told yesterday that it was a boy I felt devastated. I was sure it was a girl so being told it wasn’t felt as if someone had taking a baby from me that I didn’t even have. I felt like I had let my partner down as he told me
He was disappointed and wanted nothing to do with naming the baby buying clothes etc. I assured him
He would love it and his disappointment would soon fade which he agreed with. I felt selfish for being upset as so many people can’t have children and would do anything hing for any baby. He’s healthy and a little wriggler. I look at boys clothes and names and become instantly saddened by all the girl things i’ll Never have. I don’t know what to do with a boy and can find no names I even slightly like. I’m worried I won’t be a good mum because of how I feel even with people telling me as soon as he arrives all of those feelings will disappear which I do believe. Has anyone else gone through this and how did it feel after he/she was born? Would really appreciate any advice.

Not sure why Im tagged in this Ive never commented on this thread.

Gender disappointment is not an illness. It may prompt depression in the way that bereavement, divorce or life changing illness does. I am sure that society has to take some of the blame for promoting one sex above another as it has traditionally done in China and India.
I always come back to the children whose mothers are so disappointed in them. Christopher Robin Milne's (Winnie the Pooh) mother desperately wanted a daughter, she dressed him in dresses for much of his early life, then in smocks. He never forgave her for her lack of interest and ended up cutting all contact (though to be fair there was never any evidence that she had any interest in him as an adult). Anne of Green Gables author had only sons and she wrote Anne as the daughter she wanted all her life.
It is a dangerous mind set and is unhealthy for both parent and child (because fathers too suffer from disappointment), but most of all for the child.

@surreygirl

That's very true. Personal guilt and guilt placed upon the parent by society are huge factors within GD.

In cases where there has been difficulty to conceive, or much worse, someone they know has.

Dare they put their head above the parapet, they battering of "you ungrateful excuse of a mother", "how dare you say such things, Mary next door can't even have children" is overwhelming.

It's like yelling at someone with a broken leg for needing pain relief, because, don't you know, Mary next door only has one leg, you ungrateful woman.

The amount of time it takes for the penny to drop is sad indeed. Sometimes it never does.

This whole thread resonates of people who in the fifties, told gay people they were confused and should go to church more to "get rid of the gay", of people who in the eighties, told trans people, "you don't want to change gender, you just like putting dresses on, stop looking for attention"

They are incapable of understanding, irrespective of how simple the explanation is. And they fire out their dangerous and uninformed opinions out like they are valid fact. When they go against medical professionals, they think their opinion is equal.

It's that level of bang your head on the wall.

An illness? I had a touch of gd but now my baby is here I adore them. It just is what it is. Are there people out there who don’t have their feelings resolved once the baby is born solely based on GD? Isn’t it more likely that you’re suffering pnd and have attached gd as a reasoning for the fact that you didn’t bond with baby straight away?

Nut kins. Read the thread.

The "I had a bit of disappointment but it all went as soon as I saw DC" has already been addressed.

Are there people out there who don’t have their feelings resolved once the baby is born solely based on GD?

Yes. Hello.

GD is as separate from PND as a broken arm is from a dislocated shoulder. Although if you have no knowledge about that, you could describe them both as sore arms. Once you know the difference, you understand the how treatment of each is different too. I understand how people make the connection. Absolutely it is possible to suffer with both. And equally possible to suffer with one independently.

Happy to answer any questions you may have.

I think people are struggling with gender disappointment here because of context. I totally get what you're saying @Courtney555.
And maybe someone needs to try and make it more well known, I can see that you are trying to.
But there's so many people recently who I don't believe have GD similar or even close to yours.
"I wanted a girl because of pretty dresses. Boo hoo." Is seen a lot on here, and with so many people being disappointed, not because of any mental illness or condition, but are just genuinely a bit shit and selfish.
So while I 100% think you should discuss your experiences and share your knowledge, this thread and similar with parents who are being a bit rubbish (sorry OP, but a father wanting nothing to do with naming or buying for the baby is a but rubbish) because the gender of baby they are getting is not the one they preferred.
Your story and what you went through is very much different to a lot of the other stories we've heard recently.
And I know you have acknowledged the differences in several different ways. But on threads where people have already made up opinions and your sharing a story that is actually quite different to the OP, things might be getting a bit lost in translation.
I'm not trying to be offensive, and I'm definitely not minimising what you've been through. I'm just trying to say a lot of the "gender disappointment" threads are not people with your condition.
They are normally people that just didn't really fancy having a boy and are now gutted about it. And most of us things that's pretty crappy because of struggling to conceive, miscarriages, or mainly just thinking it's not fair on the baby because they didn't choose to be born or what sex they would be.
I don't know if I'm explaining myself well at all.
But basically you should discuss all mental health issues, nothing should be taboo. What some people have said to you isn't right as it's your life and your experiences and they were not there. But when threads are not really about your experiences (I really don't think I can compare someone's DH wanting a girl to your description of your feelings at the time as it does sound horrendous) then people are just getting confused.
I still don't know if I explained it right without sounding like an arsehole.

Sorry @tillyfloss... I was referring to @tillyfloss1 !

@mrshopey

No, I think you said that pretty perfectly.

As another poster said, there's a difference between, say, suffering with depression, and feeling a bit depressed.

I know what you are referring to, with the "I didn't really fancy a boy/ I really want a boy because I can't dress a girl in football kits brigade"...

They say they have GD, because they think that's what it is. And perhaps you could categorise it really really really minorly as GD. At a push.

I don't think they are trying to offend, they just hear a phrase banding about on the Internet, and being unaware, apply it to themselves. Often, they mean, "I had a gender preference, and I'm upset I'm not going to be able to have the gender I wished for".

There's nothing wrong with that either. This mentality of, you must never admit to having a leaning towards a gender, you may only ever admit that you want a healthy baby, is just naive. It's like forbidding people from wishing DC gets DHs lovely blue eyes. It's OK to feel a bit down after something purely down to chance, didn't fall the way you would have preferred, again, shoving "you should be grateful because you aren't like these categories of people who have it much worse" helps no one. But, this is not full blown GD by a country mile.

@mrshopey

I forgot to say. The other problem is people trying to play down their situation, so it sounds like a little petty selfish parent, pissed that they can't shop in the frilly pink socks section.

I did that. Inside I was screaming, but i timidly offered up to my best friend, "Um, do you ever feel a bit sad that you have a girl? I feel a bit like I'm not supposed to have a boy"

I may as well have told her I'd run over her puppy and thought I was funny.

I got so many comments from my best friend like those on this thread, that I apologised profusely for being so stupid and ungrateful, and shuffled off hanging my head in shame, agreeing that she was right, I just needed "to grow up, and probably get a good night's sleep". Someone else told me I was an unfit mother and needed my child putting into care. Although prior to me opening up, this same woman had always commented on how I made motherhood look effortless and how she wished she could be more like me. Suddenly my child was "better off in care".

I spent the four years suffering because, if that's the reaction being "lol, ummmm, hey, ummmm, can I talk to you about feeling, u mm, a bit funny about having a boy", can you imagine what I thought was coming my way if I said it how it really was.

There are a lot of people who have gender preference. And get miffed for a couple of months about it, mainly for aesthetic reasons. But hidden in amongst those, are a select few, like me, who are putting out the tiniest feeler for help but darent admit anything like the severity of the GD they know they are suffering with.

So please don't batter them. Be kind. Suggest a quick trip to the GP, or a phonecall to an anonymous helpline as it's often too hard to say this face to face to your family doctor. You don't know which camp they fall in to. And it's so dangerous.

If it's gender preference, they'll be over it themselves in a brief moment. If it's GD, it's debilitating, and horrific, and they need to be pointed in the right direction.

So glad you understand what I was saying.
I was open to everyone that I wanted a daughter.
Gender scan was clearly a boy, I was a bit "oh. . . Okay" and maybe a tiny bit disappointed for a week.
I love my son more than anything else on this world, he is my world.
And I would never ever say I had GD, and it was a bit cringe telling everyone I was having a boy after telling everyone I wanted a girl.
But what I and most people describe is nearly a polar opposite to what you went through and people are minimising the effects because they don't know what they're talking about.

I hope people take your advice.

No worries

There seems to be very little, if anything, online that I’ve found suggesting GD is a diagnosis in its own right as opposed to perhaps a symptom or cause of PND. Are there any useful links anyone can suggest?

I'll see what I can dig out for you.

It's a very little discussed in the open illness (you can see why) and there is, very very little online, other than people have no knowledge or experience, but like to speak like they have any authority. This then becomes the sea of online bollocks that someone who needs treatment drowns in when they search the Internet for information. It needs to stop.

It's also, like many mental health, and gender related issues, very recently getting the recognition it deserves.

It's fantastic that you're looking and increasing awareness.

Give me a mo, I'll see what I can pull up for you. Incidentally, if you are looking for personal reasons, and feel you may need help, please pm me and I can give you some excellent numbers to call.

Thanks Courtney, no I am personally fine thank you, just interested to read a bit more so I have a bit more understanding on these threads in future