Dear Baby Boy, We Thought you were a Girl

Dear baby boy,

We had a gender reveal and found out you were going to be a girl, so daddy and I thought we were having a daughter for a couple months. We were so sure of it that we chose a name, and had a registry piled high with pink clothing. After all, the blood test was supposed to be 98% accurate. When I was 21 weeks pregnant, the ultrasound tech explained to us that she saw a penis in your pictures. I cried when I found out, but I was never disappointed in you. In fact, many of the emotions I was feeling weren't bad at all. Sometimes, I just cry when I’m confused. I was excited that I was having a boy, but also somehow sad and guilty. I was happy to know that I would be the mom of a boy, but I felt like I lost the daughter that was never even actually there. You see, I dreamed up a lot of experiences that were unique to a daughter during that long duration that we thought you were a girl. It would have never been that way if I knew you were a boy all along. In fact, I actually hoped that you were a boy at the gender reveal. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I think I formed someone in my mind, and then I was told that you weren’t that at all. I’m just glad that you are not only healthy, but thriving. I love you no matter what.

I never really understood gender disappointment until it happened to me. When I told people about how I was feeling, they told me I should just feel blessed that I was having a healthy baby. I wish they knew how blessed I felt, but I couldn’t help that there were also many other feelings that came with it. When people would tell me to look on the bright side, it just made me ashamed that there was any negative emotion attached to the gender. It made me feel like maybe I didn’t love my baby enough. However, you can feel multiple different ways at the same time and telling someone to just be happy because they have a baby invalidates those feelings. To me, gender disappointment is less about resenting the particular gender you’re having, and more about mourning the gender that you wanted or thought you had.

The good news is that there were ways I overcame missing the daughter I thought I once had. It had nothing to do with counting my blessings. Instead, I looked toward the future. Even if I get pregnant a thousand more times and I never have a daughter, I have come to appreciate that it doesn’t mean my life will be lacking that relationship. The first thing I thought about was my mother-in-law who had 2 boys and cried at my wedding because she finally had a daughter. I’m not sure if I’m religious, but I do think the world works in strange ways, and that maybe families without girls truly aren’t meant to have them. Maybe my mother-in-law never had a daughter because I was supposed to be her daughter in a world where my biological mother couldn’t be there. The thing about having a boy is that I might also get to be an amazing mother-in-law someday the same way she was for me. Whatever Life’s plan may be, it is so complicated that I can’t preemptively get my heart broken over it before I even know what’s in store.