Worried about having a daughter

[lazylion]

I am 9 weeks away from having my first daughter and I'm getting terrified. I have 2 DS and if I'm honest I was hoping for a third. I have superficially polite relationships with my mother and sister but in reality they both make me feel terrible whenever I see them and I'm bitter and resentful. I'm scared I will carry this over to my own daughter, I can't imagine myself loving a girl. Does anyone know of any books that might help me to sort my head out? Any advice gratefully received.

Can't advise re any books, but I do have two daughters. They are both very different personalities but both totally adorable, but interact in different ways to each other. I can understand your female family relationships have not been what you would like, but I think you are likely to be worrying over nothing having a daughter and once she is here you will find your concerns evaporate. My first DD is a really girly girl - quite not what I had intended for her to be having been a tomboy myself. She is however her own person, full of pink and princesses and all the stuff I swore would not happen, and I found that I learned a lot from her and I will freely admit I actually love all that stuff now! You have the chance here to learn with her and adapt with her and I'm sure you will find it lovely in the long term whoever she turns out to be.
Hope it all goes well.

I have 3 girls each of which is so different from the one before

I cannot imagine being without them, although I fully understand this is common for all parents

DD1 is just a lovely girl who enjoys all things including sports, dancing, painting her nails, playing rugby with her dad, getting her hair done, watching Shrek you get my drift

DD2 is always the prince never the princess and swears blind she is going to be the king when she grows up. will not have her hair brushed for love nor money and yet plays with baby dolls and treats them like precious cargo - is unbelievably protective of her big sister and is furious with us if we give DD1 a row

DD3 is rather bemused by it all and at only 10months old is still finding her way - so far though I think she is somewhere inbetween

you will adore her, your DS' will be wonderful big brothers and no doubt beatup vet every potential bf in future years to come !!

I have two boys and then a dd, she is in many ways a little tomboy because she plays with her brothers who always choose "boy" games, but she always has to make her mark on it by having something sparkly or girly...
My relationship with my sister isn't good either, my mum is very close in quite a dependent way - she's in her seventies and has always been a 'needy' character. However, this has made me more clued up in many ways as to how i really think about my relationship with my little girl. She's only 3.6 but we have a lovely fun relationship, and I can guarantee you that you will love her just because she's your baby. Try not to panic so much - the pressure will do more to your head than just taking her as another little addition to your family

I have two boys and then a dd, she is in many ways a little tomboy because she plays with her brothers who always choose "boy" games, but she always has to make her mark on it by having something sparkly or girly...
My relationship with my sister isn't good either, my mum is very close in quite a dependent way - she's in her seventies and has always been a 'needy' character. However, this has made me more clued up in many ways as to how i really think about my relationship with my little girl. She's only 3.6 but we have a lovely fun relationship, and I can guarantee you that you will love her just because she's your baby. Try not to panic so much - the pressure will do more to your head than just taking her as another little addition to your family

(sorry no idea why that appeared twice )

It is SO hard to imagine what it's like to live with the baby that hasn't arrived yet isn't it?

I have an odd relationship with my mother and had always imagined myself being a mother to boys. I now have a dd and a dsd and am pregnant again and am quite hoping its another girl

I think its just what you're used to. My dd and dsd are totally different - but both lovely and I see this as my opportunity to have a "proper" relationship with them in the future.

this thread is so relevant to me at the mo!!
I have a terrible relationship with my mother and we had our first ever frank discussion about it last night til 4am!!!!
Nothing got resolved but hey ho I tried!!

I only have one DC a beautiful DD just turned 3!!
I find that I'm so protective of our relationship as I desperately don't want us to end up like me & my mother.
She too is a girly girl pink princesses and all the other things I didn't expect but its bloody great, with a bit of thomas the tank thrown in for good measure! You'll be fine it'll all work out!

Oh another thing, she is obsessed with her grandad (DH Dad) and by DH has a great relationship with her there;s def something about fathers and their daughters!

My dp is one of several boys (all of whom only have sons), and his father had only brothers, so I was fully expecting to only ever have boys. I also went to an all girls' school for part of my education, so have had enough of living around women to last me a lifetime!

Anyway, what I thought would be ds2 turned out to be a dd at the 20 week scan... I was totally terrified before birth and didn't know what to do with her at first, but she has turned out to be so fantastic I don't know where to start - unlike ds she is totally mummy obsessed now (at 4), which is great. Honestly, just relax and take it as it comes. How you get on with them depends more on their personality than their sex. Though beware that girls are more socially aware from a young age and don't miss a trick...

Oh I know how you feel! My relationship with my mum was shit and to be honest i've never been one of those girls that has loads of girly mates either. I was also a complete horror through most of my teens.

When my DD (now 5) was born I sobbed when I realised she was a girl. Just couldn't work out how I was going to raise her without adding all my emotional baggage to her load.

I really strongly agree with Beautifulgirls above where she says that she learned a lot from her daughter. My little girl has totally put into perspective my whole life. She has suprised and delighted me every day since she was born. She's so godamm cool and socially easy with everyone she meets and i've had to learn how to make that possible for her. I'm in my late 20's and for the first time trying to form friendships with other women, other mums from school.

It has 100% improved my relationship with my own mother too. It's wonderful to be able to see her now as a grandmother able to relax and enjoy her grandchild. I'm able to see how she was always working so hard and stuck in a joyless life that she missed out on all the wonderful things that I can do with my daughter. I can hand on heart forgive and forget because I appreciate that I got the best possible lesson in how NOT to raise a girl!!

Don't feel guilty about your fears lazylion, I think they're completely nnatural. But prepare to be completely blown away by your daughter.

Best of luck xx x

I have 2dds, and was really worried about having a ds. He is now 12 weeks old, and I adore him with every bone in my body. I'm sure you'll feel the same way. In a way I wish I'd never have found out that I was pg with a boy because then I would never have worried about it. I have fallen in love with HIM as a person, and his gender is completely irrelevent.

See it as a gift, an amazing opportunity to learn with her

I've got a dd after 2 ds's, and it does feel different with ref to some ishoos around my mum,

For example, though my mum is actually great in lots of ways, I really can't EVER remember her playing with me amd it's part of why I make sure I do play with dd and make sure to enjoy it too

And I DO enjoy it so much

I see a lot of myself at that age in her and her joy in living, her expectation that everyone will love and value her is so amazing and beautiful, and by her age, 5, i was starting to lose that, and to be a bit .'crushed'.I'm not going to do that to her, and I know it sounds like hippy crap, but it feels like it's healing some of that stuff for me, I'm breaking a pattern, for the better.

You are not a victim of the past, you can make your own future with her.

Saintmaybe, I totally get you. I think of it as evolution x

I could have written this post myself 6 years ago,i had a very 'polite but strained' relationship with my mother and was absolutely terrified of having a girl(i already had ds who is now 9)in fact i was heartbroken when i found out at 20wks pg that i was expecting a girl.

dd is now almost 6 and our relationship is everything i would have wanted my mother and i to have had.we are so so close and our bond grows stronger each day.im still very close to ds also but never thought id be as close to my dd.all i can hope is that this continues throughout our lives.

I cant actually give any advice as i didnt 'do' anything for this bond to happen,all i can say is that it just happened in the same way it did with ds.

Thanks so much for all your positive posts, I'm in tears here (in a good way). You are right JudyBlume, I shouldn't have found out the sex then I wouldn't be so worried. I love the idea of learning from my daughter about how to do this relationship,that seems like a great way to look at it. I will also be making a list of things not to do!
I'm not brave enough to try and sort it with my own mother like you CakeandFineWine, once I started I wouldn't be able to stop - and she would just cry. I hope it worked for you.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who has felt like this about having a girl, I thought I was being so ungrateful.

2 boys and girl sounds like a lovely family! you have lots of good advice here so i will just wish you good luck!

I was petrified of having a girl. I already had a DS and it wasn't that DD wasn't wanted but I was scared of bringing up a girl, how hard it is to be a girl these days and of course my own relationship with my mother and female relatives growing up.

As soon as she arrived everything was different. I fell in love with her immediately and I have loved having her these last few months. To be honest, she was just a baby, not specifically a girl but I think I realised all the potential there for us to carve our own relationship. I do find that I look at her differently to DS, (I really wanted a bot when he was born and felt like I had got just what I wanted) but maybe that's because of all the worry, it feels a bit more special that I love her so much.

I felt just like you about having a boy, lazylion! I didn't find out the gender at the scans, because I wanted a girl so badly. (I have two sisters, and our mum raised us alone, so I only 'knew' girls/how to deal with girls.) All the way through my pregnancy I would get sad if someone said my bump looked like a boy etc, and when other people said they were pregnant with girls I'd be wildly jealous.

When DS was born, my DH had a look and said very apologetically to me 'It's a boy'. But the moment I saw him I was so in love and he's everything I could want from a baby, and everything I'd imagined a baby would be, even though I was presumably just imagining girls before. Now I'd still like a girl, but also a brother for DS...

lazylion - it will be OK.

In my generation of my family and DH's generation, everyone is male apart from me (and none of these males are married, so no female inlaws either!). Me and DH had a baby boy and then I got pregnant again. I assumed that it would be another boy because the whole family are boys, I have 3 brothers and I had absolutely no idea what I would do with a girl!!

Anyway so DD was born a girl and it has been great! You will be fine, she'll be your baby and you'll love her - she won't be much different from a boy at the beginning anyway and you'll just learn gradually like I am.

I adore my daughters! I have a son and two daughters, and they are all bright, funny and quirky in their own way. I like you have a strained relationship with my mother, but had no trouble loving my daughters as much as my first born son. I think it may be a generational thing. I also really appreciate the relative "sortedness' and independence of my first daughter and to a slightly lesser extent (less sorted I mean), my second. It made a huge change from Mr "I can't find my socks in a drawer full of socks".

That was my mother's problem with me- she wanted to feel needed and I was too independent for her.