Ashla
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Apr 28, 2013
- Messages
- 450
- Reaction score
- 0
Hi everyone.
When I was struggling with Gender Disappointment during my PG I searched everywhere for others feeling the same thing. I wish I had known about this forum then!
Anyway, this is what I wish someone had told me when I was PG. If you are struggling with gender disappointment after finding out you are having a boy, please read! (Spoiler- it has a happy ending
)
Dear Son,
I remember the moment I knew you were a he. It was the day before my 12 week scan and I was pulling into the driveway after work when it hit me: I was having a boy. It didn't stop me crying the next day when you moved in just the right way for the technician to be absolutely certain that you were a boy. I was so angry at the world. I had waited four years for you. I had said goodbye to two unborn babies. I had been to countless fertility specialists. I felt that I had put in so much work, that I deserved you.
And the you I wanted was a girl.
Part of me wants to sugar coat the rest of the story, to say that after a few days I was happy to be having a healthy baby and that the gender no longer mattered. But I spent the rest of my pregnancy mourning the girl I wasn't having. I set strict rules around the presents that family and friends were allowed to buy you. No clothing with cars or trucks. Nothing too blue. Red was ok. Definitely no dinosaurs. My husband and I worried that I wouldn't bond with you. We stressed about the possibility of a caesarean because we felt that I needed every ounce of the hormones released after a natural birth to aid me in my motherly calling of bonding with you.
And then you were born. Red and squishy, crying loudly. Perfect. But still not a girl.
Everyone had told me that as soon as you were here, I wouldn't care whether you were a boy or a girl. But I did care. I held you. I nursed you. I loved you. I waited for it to not matter that you were a boy.
And then eventually... I noticed that when you were sad you arched you back and cried with every fibre of your being. I noticed that when you were happy you would wriggle and kick as if the joy was so great it leeched into every muscle and compelled you to move. And I came to understand how you feel everything through your body. You started to teach me what it was to inhabit a body as a male. When I look at your dad, I can see that he does the same thing. Society has taught him that he shouldn't show his emotions, but they are evident in the way his shoulders stoop when I criticise him, the way he folds into my hug after a bad day.
And slowly the love unfolded. We had moments of quiet perfection while playing and while nursing. I started to see myself in you: my need to be constantly moving, constantly achieving. I saw some of my own vulnerability in you and felt fiercely protective of you. While at a friends house, I watched some boys aged 5-10 kicking a soccer ball and I felt so scared for you. I didnt want you to have to make you way in that male world. I dont understand it. And if I dont understand it, how would I protect you from its shocks and difficulties? And then today, a tradesman came to our house. I opened the door with you, 13 months old, on my hip. And the tradesman said to you hello muscles. And my heart swelled with pride because you will inhabit a world that I never a will. A world of mate and football scores and dinosaurs and testosterone. And I am proud of your place in it already. I am proud of the part that I will play in helping you grow into that world.
If I had had a daughter, we would have gone shopping together. We would have discussed clothes, and politics and glass ceilings and boys. I would have taught her to find her own style and sass; and to put boys in their place when she needed to. When I was pregnant I spent so much time thinking about how I would teach the daughter I was not having.
But you, sweet son, taught me that life is what happens when you stop telling yourself a story about what things should look like. You taught me the most important thing that having children can teach any of us: That we are not in charge of this journey, that it will not look like we expect it to look. And that love happens upon us when we open our hearts to what is before us in all its nuanced, complicated (dinosaur-ish) glory.
To my darling son, whom I thought I didnt want, I am so, so, SO glad you are here. You are perfect.
When I was struggling with Gender Disappointment during my PG I searched everywhere for others feeling the same thing. I wish I had known about this forum then!
Anyway, this is what I wish someone had told me when I was PG. If you are struggling with gender disappointment after finding out you are having a boy, please read! (Spoiler- it has a happy ending
)Dear Son,
I remember the moment I knew you were a he. It was the day before my 12 week scan and I was pulling into the driveway after work when it hit me: I was having a boy. It didn't stop me crying the next day when you moved in just the right way for the technician to be absolutely certain that you were a boy. I was so angry at the world. I had waited four years for you. I had said goodbye to two unborn babies. I had been to countless fertility specialists. I felt that I had put in so much work, that I deserved you.
And the you I wanted was a girl.
Part of me wants to sugar coat the rest of the story, to say that after a few days I was happy to be having a healthy baby and that the gender no longer mattered. But I spent the rest of my pregnancy mourning the girl I wasn't having. I set strict rules around the presents that family and friends were allowed to buy you. No clothing with cars or trucks. Nothing too blue. Red was ok. Definitely no dinosaurs. My husband and I worried that I wouldn't bond with you. We stressed about the possibility of a caesarean because we felt that I needed every ounce of the hormones released after a natural birth to aid me in my motherly calling of bonding with you.
And then you were born. Red and squishy, crying loudly. Perfect. But still not a girl.
Everyone had told me that as soon as you were here, I wouldn't care whether you were a boy or a girl. But I did care. I held you. I nursed you. I loved you. I waited for it to not matter that you were a boy.
And then eventually... I noticed that when you were sad you arched you back and cried with every fibre of your being. I noticed that when you were happy you would wriggle and kick as if the joy was so great it leeched into every muscle and compelled you to move. And I came to understand how you feel everything through your body. You started to teach me what it was to inhabit a body as a male. When I look at your dad, I can see that he does the same thing. Society has taught him that he shouldn't show his emotions, but they are evident in the way his shoulders stoop when I criticise him, the way he folds into my hug after a bad day.
And slowly the love unfolded. We had moments of quiet perfection while playing and while nursing. I started to see myself in you: my need to be constantly moving, constantly achieving. I saw some of my own vulnerability in you and felt fiercely protective of you. While at a friends house, I watched some boys aged 5-10 kicking a soccer ball and I felt so scared for you. I didnt want you to have to make you way in that male world. I dont understand it. And if I dont understand it, how would I protect you from its shocks and difficulties? And then today, a tradesman came to our house. I opened the door with you, 13 months old, on my hip. And the tradesman said to you hello muscles. And my heart swelled with pride because you will inhabit a world that I never a will. A world of mate and football scores and dinosaurs and testosterone. And I am proud of your place in it already. I am proud of the part that I will play in helping you grow into that world.
If I had had a daughter, we would have gone shopping together. We would have discussed clothes, and politics and glass ceilings and boys. I would have taught her to find her own style and sass; and to put boys in their place when she needed to. When I was pregnant I spent so much time thinking about how I would teach the daughter I was not having.
But you, sweet son, taught me that life is what happens when you stop telling yourself a story about what things should look like. You taught me the most important thing that having children can teach any of us: That we are not in charge of this journey, that it will not look like we expect it to look. And that love happens upon us when we open our hearts to what is before us in all its nuanced, complicated (dinosaur-ish) glory.
To my darling son, whom I thought I didnt want, I am so, so, SO glad you are here. You are perfect.
But I love him dearly I thought for sure this pregnancy I would go through the same disappointment again if I found out that the baby was a boy but was overjoyed to find out and hear and see that it is a boy couldn't explain it I think it was the fact I hadn't had an ultrasound to see the baby before in another scan as well as I had a gut instinct that it was a boy. This time I didn't go through the disappointment and found out this baby is healthier and bigger than my other two who were too small to even fit in premie clothing at birth at full term. I am so happy and blessed to have my soon to be three boys as I have two and now one more on the way. This really hit close to home for me because I went through it all too and it's not easy but I am just so very very happy to have my boys! Thanks so much for sharing this because it takes away so much guilt I have felt for over two years over having Tommy. It means a lot to know that I am not alone and haven't been the only one to go through this. Sorry so long. 
