Therapy for severe gender disappointment

[HL321]

Hi everyone,

please no judgement here as I appreciate im in a really fortunate position compared to many people, I acknowledge that I think I’m having a mental health challenge. I just found out we’re having our second boy, and I will preface that I adore our son, but I am absolutely devastated not to be having a girl.

i feel like it’s gone beyond gender ‘disappointment’ - I feel very disconnected from my pregnancy and I went from being so excited to absolute dread in the instant I found out :( I keep trying to convince myself that the NIPT was wrong but I know at 99.9a% accuracy that’s not true! I had my 12 week scan recently and I felt nothing…in my head I said I wouldn’t be disappointed if there was something wrong with the baby and we had to terminate which is just not me at all (and if it came down to it I know this wouldn’t be true) but I am regretting getting pregnant despite it being very much planned and wanted. everywhere I go I am comparing myself to other families with girls and feeling even worse.

i think my fear is less so about having a boy but more so about never having a girl. I worry about our future with sons and not having the same mother/daughter close relationship with them, not getting to help plan a daughters wedding, being the ‘mother in law’, not having someone to care for us when we’re old as this is typically a female role. All ridiculous I know but I’m so in my own head.

I had the same with my son, not to this extent, but I was really gutted, however I always knew we would have a second and could have a girl then. It continued even beyond birth to feeling really jealous and resentful of friends having girls, so I’m thinking I probably need to address this now before the baby is born.

has anyone had therapy relating to gender disappointment who found it helpful? Im feeling very low and lost but hoping with some professional support I can work through it. Thanks so much x

Gender disappointment is understandable and common.

This is very extreme and it's good you're addressing it.

Having two of one gender is just such an amazing prospect, theyre going to be a little team and in built best friends!! Play times when theyre 4 and older will be such a breeze.

This thread or a variation thereof has been on here a million times before. It’s not unusual and you like everyone else will get over it. Assess once your baby is here.

And if you have mental health issues have a chat with your midwife. You’ll be OK. Life with sons is still a good life.

They are from Mars and you are from Venus. From about age of 7 they are even further away than that. But at some times as teens they come and visit your planet and it is wonderful.
Stick with em kid it'l be OK.

Maybe your kids are a bit shit bur mine are great.

As for PP comment about most boy mums having a deep grief for the daughter they’ll never have it’s been a long time since I have read such tosh on here and by god is there stiff competition!

if it helps - I’m a woman, and I likely won’t have a wedding and won’t care for my mother when she’s older

I have two boys, I think it would have been nice to have a girl as well- but I know I’d have the exact same feelings if I’d had two daughters about wanting a little boy as well! It would be nice to experience both but it’s so likely you’ll only get one gender if you’re choosing to have an average size family that it’s not worth feeling sad about. Certainly a ‘deep grief’ for a non-existent child, when you already have children, is very much not normal 😳

So you want a girl who will look after you in your old age, who will be an emotional support to you throughout life, who be 'girly' and close to you, who will want to get married and who will allow you to help plan her wedding.

Poor girl.

Haha it’s like the poster saying how great it is to do crafts and baking with girls. I’m very glad my boys are older and out of that stage. I don’t miss the endless baking when they were little- it’s actually a bit frustrating and tedious with small ‘helper’ 🙈 and I definitely don’t miss clearing up paint and glitter and play doh.

Oh god not this again. Really, it's appalling. Always about an unwanted boy. Maybe don't have unprotected sex if you can't cope with the consequences. I feel really angry that our society has come to this.

It probably wouldn’t be so bad if you didn’t know the sex before birth.

Rise of Routine Ultrasounds: In the 1970s and 80s, discovering the sex of the baby prior to birth became common. This gave parents a window of time to build expectations and visualise a specific future, setting the stage for disappointment if the reality differed.

Yes OP, you need therapy.

I think therapy is a good idea as I would put good money on your feelings around having a girl over a boy are based on your family dynamics.

I married into a family with different family dynamics, have a great relationship with my MIL, who has a wonderful relationship with my son, and have no fear of the future now. It's like a different culture without insecurity or rivalry and different to my family and the families I grew up around.

If you and your partner can model healthy in law relationships (as much as is in your power), your sons will do the same when they marry.

Experience of what real grief looks like.

’real grief’ comes in many forms for many different things.
ive felt loss and didn’t make horrible comments like yours

I would have been delighted at whatever gender I got. I was glad to have had healthy children. That is it.

Oh bless, i agree with your comment about gender disappointment, but the rest? Er, no. There’s never any guarantee siblings of any combination will get on, let alone be best friends. Jeezo. Playtimes could easily be a war zone not a breeze.

Sorry what? That may be your experience but isn’t true across the board. May sons are much closer to their mums. Gender is not a precursor to the closeness of a relationship and to think otherwise is generalising and frankly based on absolutely nothing.

I’m so glad mumsnet is such a supportive place for mums 🙄

I dont think I have ever heard such nonsense in all my life.

Actually, reading the comments about horrible Mother in Laws makes any expectant mum hope for a daughter rather than a son!

Op, I get your disappointment. It’s ok to feel sad about not being pregnant with a girl. Hopefully you’ll feel more positive when you give birth.

I actually don’t think it’s nonsense. Obviously there are exceptions, but on average raising girls is a different experience than raising boys.

I also see a lot of truth in the saying “A daughter is a daughter for life, a son is a son until he marries a wife”. Sad but true in my experience.

I was the same as you @MindThePause. My thinking was very messed up when I was pregnant. It was very scary. I’ve been on the pill since I was 14. I felt my normal rational self when I stopped breastfeeding and started taking the pill again. I had to take Levothyroxine after my son was born, so I think this was a contributing factor alongside my hormones.
@HL321 please seek help before your baby is born. You have made a big step forward acknowledging your feelings.

Every single person on the planet knows what real grief is

Daughters don't always turn out to be how you imagine.

My sister has two now adult sons and no daughters. They are wonderful young men with lovely girlfriends, very close to their mother, visit her frequently, they go on holidays together and are really very close. She has genuinely never wanted a girl.

My first child was a girl, I was overjoyed. I only had sisters and knew nothing about baby boys. When I was pregnant with my second child I wanted and hoped for another girl, had the 20 week scan and they asked if I wanted to know the sex, it was a boy. At that minute when they told me he was healthy my worries disappeared, I just wanted a healthy baby.

My daughter was a lovely little girl, although she certainly didn't do the things I'd imagined, she wasn't interested in playing with dolls or dolls houses like I did as a child, didn't really like cooking or sewing or making things. She grew into quite a difficult teenager and we certainly didn't have shopping trips, coffees, lunches, spa days etc even as an adult.

My son has many personality traits which are much more aligned with mine and how I see the world. He had many interests and passions as a child and still does as an adult. His interests opened up new worlds which I would never have considered in my life but which broadened my experiences and gave me new things to enjoy. Yes I had to do all that hanging around on sports fields but I also had to do a whole lot of hanging around at dance classes and shows with my daughter.

He was not a difficult teenager and we have always been close. He is now married to a wonderful woman and we are still close, see each other often, far far closer than I am to my daughter, whose approach to life I find quite alien.

Even with sons you may be fortunate enough to have an adored granddaughter, as I have, who loves all the things I thought my daughter would.

In the end you have to accept that your children are just people, their sex is irrelevant to the nature of their relationship with you.