It's very difficult when you have a strong sense of who you're going to meet. I can't explain why it happens but I know what you mean. Your feelings sound intense but they're recognisable. I am also surprised your therapist hasn't explored the possibility that you might have a son. Have you spoken about this with them now?
I expected to have a girl first time round, I felt sure I'd have a girl all my life, never really considered what it would be like to have a boy. I do come from a hyper-masculine background, it was all football and punching people and war stories and Westerns. Men were certainly my major influences growing up. To cap it all, my mum was a tomboy, with loads of brothers, is a super-practical woman (matter-of-fact, doesn't wear makeup or shave her legs or any of that) I also didn't have an easy childhood.
At 21 weeks I was told by an NHS consultant scanning for a different purpose that I was having a girl. I bought a little ladybird suit and girly bedding and had a name picked out and ...yup, you guesssd it.
When my son was born I felt shocked. Immediately afterwards it felt surreal, like he'd been swapped and wasn't really my baby. I didn't feel I 'knew' him. He was clearly lovely and I knew I was fortunate but I felt somehow disconnected from him. I had a bad birth and also suffer from anxiety, I don't know if it's all related but I ended up with PND.
I never articulated it to anyone but I always felt like there was something missing. Like, my parenthood didn't go 'deep' enough. I suspect we didn't bond as we should have done in the weeks after birth. I didn't ever say what I felt because I knew everyone would say 'but you have a healthy baby, get a grip.' I also felt like I wasn't doing a good job for years, and I do mean years.
The baby is now a giant 16 y.o. I miss him when I don't see him for a whole day and when there is nothing going on we can sit and talk for hours. He is super easy-going and calm to the point you'd think he was stoned lol. I recently drove him the length of the country and the journey flew past like it would it you were with an old friend. We must have spoken about every subject under the sun. He is into politics. art and film, and I'd say he is of a fairly sensitive nature, not your typical 'man's man' at all.
When he was about four years old he took to talking about God and Heaven (in the way an infant would, simple stuff, but you could see there was a lot going on inside his head. I do remember he was interested in where he 'came' from, almost like he'd been here before). It was strange because we're not religious. That wore off when he went to school and he was your typical wee boy, football, dinosaurs, he went through every phase.
On a recent holiday we spent two hours going round a cathedral and pondering about what it all represents. We went for coffee and spoke about what he wants to do when he's an adult. He's agnostic now but has remained a philosophical chap, fascinated by belief, social mores, and always wanting to know 'why.' Perhaps there is a connection between what happened when he was born and who he is now - I don't know. What I do know is most of who he is has little to do with what he js, if that makes sense.
I feel blessed to know him and lucky he's my son. Which is not to say he doesn't drive me mental eighty times a week with the wandering around looking at his phone, all the vagueness and disorganisation - and where are all our fucking teaspoons!
I then had a little girl. I was much more at ease parenting a little lass and found the whole thing felt somehow natural in a way it didn't first time round. Possibly I was also more relaxed because she was No. 2. She was a textbook baby girl just as you'd imagine, all curls and pushing a little pram about, albeit an incorrigible piss-ripper from about six months old. She was apparently an exceptionally strong newborn, had full neck control from birth and daring and fearless as soon as she could move alone. My hard-to-impress brother used to sit and marvel because she was so 'herself' for someone so small. She could also always be relied upon to locate the cellotape from about the age of two and I doubt my son could find his arse with his hand most days.
My little baby girl is now a 5ft 3 pocket rocket, sport-mad, six-pack, not at all girly girl, totally matter-of-fact, isn't interested in abstract chat. If you ask her a question that isn't wholly practical you can see she's being polite but she really wants to say WHO CARES. She's one of the people the school always asks to do things despite not being overly into academia. They know she'll get stuff done, I suppose.
She also walks into rooms like she knows everyone in there, is super-secure, would rather run a lap than read a book. As to conventional femininity, she makes faces at every item of clothing I suggest, thinks makeup is madness and apart from the fact we love each other and still hold hands in public I have to admit we have basically bugger all in common hahaha.
Some of this will likely be to do with parenting, but I think most of it is that simply, they are who they are.
I hope you take this novella as meant to comfort you rather than contradict or belittle your feelings. I think it's the case that what you have dreamt of, what you hope will happen, will have very little effect on who they are as people, regardless of their sex. Or at least, it should.
A PP said you live for them, not them for you. I wonder if perhaps that sense that you were the perfect you was lacking in your own childhood?
It would be a shame for both of you to let past feelings and imagination overwhelm your actual experience of something so wonderful. I do know it's easier to write it than feel it, I can speak from experience there. I do wish I had spoken to someone at the time.
I hope you can come to terms with with what you feel you've lost. It'll be wonderful, honestly, if you just try and live in the moment and wait and see who comes - whoever they are it'll be amazing.