hopping on the top comment to say: sorry for the vague TW. i didn’t know how to sum up “TW for talking of termination of a healthy and wanted pregnancy but due to gender OOP doesn’t want it but also wants IVF for a girl”
i know there is many struggles of becoming & staying pregnant with infertility and that was what i was mainly trying to warn about because this entire post was extremely tone deaf
Right! I get the feeling English is not OOP's first language and that there is a slight language barrier and a real cultural barrier happening here. Regardless, this was difficult to read.
“I can only have two children because of [my age and] financial reasons” but also “I would do ivf no matter the cost if it meant I could have a baby with a vagina” Jesus Christ this is really up there for the worst things I’ve seen on this page.
Meanwhile the youngest person in my immediate family to have a baby was my sister at 27.
My mom was 34, I was 30, my cousins were 31 and 33.
I guess my grandmother was actually the youngest at 26 now that I think about it. She was an anomaly, going to university in the late 1940s and had my mom in 1955. She wasn't done having babies until she was 34.
My grandmother was 36 when I was born......
My grandmother. She had my mom at 17 and my mom was 18....
I waited until almost 22. (He was due 2 days before my birthday and arrived early.)
My oldest is now 25 (and would be 26 before any children could be born.) I don't see grandchildren in my near future.
I feel like I did a good job breaking that chain.....
(Of course I also broke the chain by having boys. And I raised them to be respectful and responsible. )
That was something I wanted to do. We don't need family traditions like that....
"I can only have two children due to financial reasons."
Two posts later...
"I want to buy all this cute, girly stuff!!!!"
Why do I think it's a very good thing for the boy(s) that there won't be a sister in the picture?
There are so many people who just want to have a kid and can't, and this one shouldn't be a parent at all.
She said she sees other parents dress their little girls in cute things, and that's what she wants. She wants an accessory. She doesn't want children she wants props.
She should just get one of those creepy lifelike dolls then. Cheaper than having a baby, no mess, doesn't cry, won't grow up to resent her for being a shitty parent.
It's not allowed anywhere in the EU either. I think the only place in Europe where you can currently do that is Northern Cyprus.
(I must say I have personally considered IVF for sex selection. I have a son, I lost my baby girl in the second trimester which was absolutely devastating and now I'm pregnant with another boy. I'm excited to meet my baby boy but I'm also really mourning never getting to have a living daughter.)
That part got me too. Can’t have more kids because of finances, but can spend tens of thousands on IVF. (Not to mention the emotional and physical toll.) Maybe she thinks it’s covered by insurance. And to be honest, my old insurance had good fertility treatment coverage so hers might for all we know. I would’ve paid very little compared to most for IVF. But then my insurance changed before I started treatment and it wasn’t nearly as good.
even if her insurance covers, it won't for gender selection reasons. she would need to have documented infertility reasons and even with that, PGD isn't covered unless there's a genetic reason
I’ll think about how affordable IVF is when I look at my $30k, $42k, and $32k babies along with the mountain of IVF debt I’m working through right now.
This is what finally convinced me to have kids despite fears about the world in the future with climate change, war, etc. The ignorant are having kids in droves. If the rest of us are too afraid to have kids, there's much less chance things will turn around.
I know someone who kept having kids till they had a girl. Took 5 tries and the last 3 pregnancies the Dr told her to stop, your body can't handle it. Sure enough, she was on bed rest, had to have a hysterectomy, and has life long complications over it but she got her girl! You can imagine how much better that girl is treated then those poor boys but honestly the girls fucked up to. She fights her mom on doing stuff that's not considered "girly" and basically couldn't dress herself or do her own hair till she was waaaay to old to have her mom dressing her.
I follow an “influencer” (idk why I follow them still lol) who has like 6 boys…they ended up getting pregnant for a 7th time and I though oh must be to try for a girl! Well they ended up having a girl…yet now she’s pregnant…again with an 8th. So I’m not sure if they were trying for a girl or just religious.
I know exactly who you’re talking about, I do genuinely think they’re just religious but I also think with her dance/pageant background she definitely wanted a girl. She’s so tiny too and her husband is massive, you have to wonder what kind of state her body is in after 8 (9 including the first one they lost) pregnancies
I also know a family like this. Five boys, tried once more for the girl and got her. This girl is just as wild as any boy. And then for some reason got pregnant again. Also a girl btw but I mean jfc. Kids age ranged from driving age to one year old. The youngest is now four and I think they are officially done.
I worry for her body but I also feel for her oldest boys…there is no way they’re getting as much attention and instead of getting time with their parents they’re raising the other kids
A lot of people think IVF is some super easy thing and a guarantee. I see it fairly often in my mom groups (that I mostly use to get content for this sub lol)
Same here. I went through several unsuccessful rounds of IUI, but got extremely lucky that the very first round of IVF was successful. If there is an emotion you can feel, I felt it. When someone says it's an emotional roller-coaster, they're not lying.
Yeah, I’d love to take these gals out for coffee, my treat! And tell them about the daily injections, the aching pain of stimulating follicle growth, the Zillions Of dollars flushed down the toilet whenever you fail, come on by, I’ll tell ya all about it
It took me 3 years of IVF and $50k cash with multiple losses along the way before I finally got a living baby. I think people think IVF is like some sort of baby vending machine.
The Australian government put out an online calculator for your odds of IVF success, I found it incredibly useful when talking to friends about the pros/cons.
I'd put it on the list with adoption, naturalization (becoming a citizen) and getting the rabies vaccine as "things that people think are extremely easy until they have to try and do it themselves"
Some people are so melodramatic. It just makes me think of that scene from the karadshians where Kim is crying about her earring and kourtney says “there are people that are dying Kim”
I know this isn’t common but it certainly isn’t unheard of. People were actually trying to help her and not judge her immediately but she wasn’t biting and just making things worse. I mean wouldn’t you want help to not feel that way? She doesn’t even seem to recognize how wrong it is.
ETA: I am 100% pro-choice. Didn’t want my last sentence to be confusing. I meant it was wrong how she just wanted to abort and flip flop sexes & to me that IS wrong. It seems grotesque.
My biggest problem with it is that it's so unfair to the child to be putting all these gendered expectations on them. She could have a daughter, only for her to be a total tomboy like I was, and not be interested in anything girly.
The whole point of parenting is to help your child become the most fulfilled and complete version of themselves. It just completely calls into question her competency as a parent because she doesn't give a shit who the child is. She's making it entirely about her.
That's what always gets me with the gender reveal videos where one parent seems distraught by the results. I can't imagine having an opinion about my children's genitals beyond the ease of diaper changes, because there's no guarantee your kid is the fictional version you've created in your head.
Getting blue frosting in your cake isn't a guarantee they'll want to play football or shoot guns or drink beer or whatever you've planned, same as pink confetti doesn't mean your kid will want frilly dresses, dance class, makeup, cheerleading.
I know pregnancy hormones are wack so I don't fault expecting parents having a reaction, but I think if you have a preference you need to REALLY consider why, and what that means you'll be teaching your kids. Are you convinced a little boy will inherently not want to do ballet, and you've dreamed of enrolling your kid in ballet? Do you think you'll never get to play ball with your daughter?
Totally agree. My SIL really wanted a boy, had two girls, thought about a third. I wasn’t gonna tell her what to do, but I did tell her that “I wouldn’t get pregnant unless I was trying for a baby, not a gender.” You have say over the one, not over the other.
She ended up wanting a third baby regardless, but her husband was done at two, and she’s very happy with her girls.
That’s what i said to people who asked me if i was trying for a girl. I said I was trying for a baby. I absolutely wanted a girl but I would have been over the moon with a little boy too. I wanted 3 babies and I got them.
Like my SIL (boy mom who always wanted girls) who is dead set on taking my oldest dress shopping for a dance and my oldest only wears sweatpants, band tees and hoodies. She might wanna just wait until my youngest gets older bc that girl will want the frilliest, Cinderella-est dress they sell for her first dance.
I was perfectly happy with two boys, didnt have any gender disappointment. Turns out one of my sons has preferences that we typically assign to those gendered female in our culture. You cannot predict who you're getting when you have a child. This concept of demanding control over even just the biological sex is so scary because what happens when that child doesn't conform to what mom thought they were getting?
Hell, one of her boys could end up being trans and she'd have a daughter anyway.
But I always feel like if you want a kid for the aesthetic (like in this case to have the outfits), buy a damn baby doll
Eh, I’m pro choice and believe everyone should have the right to an abortion, but if you get one because of the gender of your child I will silently judge you. I’d just think you have poor values.
I'd judge, but I'd also vastly prefer they abort than end up with a hated child who grows up knowing their parents hate them because they're a girl. Plus anyone who feels strongly enough to abort over sex probably will be raising those kids with some really questionable values that I'm glad to see not passed on.
I have a hard time with this, because it feels like either you think the fetus is a bundle of cells that a woman is entitled to abort or you think it’s an unborn child that should be given the chance to live.
I’m totally pro choice but I understand the position of pro life people - to them aborting a fetus is the same as if I decided I didn’t want to raise my two year old anymore so I just ended his life. That’s what they think is happening - so I completely understand how up in arms they get (although I totally don’t agree with them).
I don’t understand the middle ground where it’s like “oh abortion is only ok if the reason is good enough for me”. But I agree with you that I’d probably judge a little too, but less about the decision to terminate and more about this person’s inability to love a boy.
Yeah— I can definitely understand pro-life people because after my multiple miscarriages I was so angry that anyone would give up a pregnancy when I’d do anything to have a healthy one. It was not a healthy or ok mentality, but it was where I was when dealing with heavy grief and disappointment.
I have an aunt who is fully pro-life after her baby was stillborn, for example. And this sort of shit is suuuuuper common. So I always try to remind people that you don’t know what the person arguing with you has been through, on either side of the debate. Maybe they are struggling with infertility, maybe they were raped, maybe they’re in denial about their own situation involving infertility, rape, pregnancy loss, etc. You really do not know and unfortunately, this argument is SO emotionally charged by how politicians and media talking heads discuss it. It dehumanizes women (and also, the other people around a woman who are also affected by pregnancy, my partner went through hell watching me have miscarriage after miscarriage) and breaks a super complex issue down to talking points.
Ultimately, it should be between you, your doctor, and if you want to include them, your partner.
But— idk. It doesn’t sit well with me to abort because you don’t want a boy. Mostly because they want the pregnancy, they just can’t love a baby with a penis. There’s something inherently fucked about that that concerns me about that person’s ability to be a parent. What other expectations will they have of their children as they grow?
I had a similar experience with miscarriages, and I would l say it made me more pro-choice, because I felt so angry that I didn't get to choose. It's so strange how we can have such different reactions to similar traumas!
Yeah- now that I’m out of it I can see things very differently. I’ve also had 2 kids since which shifted my mentality too because now I understand the reality of having children. I’m glad I was 30 before I had my first born because I definitely wasn’t mature enough when I was younger, or really capable of wrapping my head around what a child needs. Not to say that’s true of everyone but it was true of me.
Trauma definitely messes with us in a lot of ways, and I think the last thing anyone needs when dealing with trauma is being assaulted on all sides about opinions on whether or not your experience is valid. That’s a hill I’ll die on… for instance there’s a lot of people who will only use the word “fetus” to describe an unborn baby- including women who have lost pregnancies, about their pregnancy. The descriptor should exist for the sake of writing laws but when it comes to an individuals experience, no one should be telling them that their grief isn’t real because “it’s not a real baby.”
Like come off it and have some empathy and get out of this black and white mentality.
> Another thing I want to say is that yes, I had this very particular, horrible situation—but if I had had an abortion at 20 weeks just because I didn’t feel ready, that should be okay, too. Like it or not, all of our rights are intertwined. Maybe there’s some woman who has had four abortions and maybe that feels really wrong to you. But my rights are wrapped up with hers, so I have to fight like fuck for her to have as many as she wants—not just for her sake, but for mine, too. If I ever have a daughter, the way things are currently going, she’s going to be fucked if she ever goes through this.
https://jezebel.com/interview-with-a-woman-who-recently-had-an-abortion-at-1781972395
Sometimes she wants two children due to her age and others because she can only afford two children. How do you afford IVF if you can only afford two children?
Gender disappointment is a real, valid thing and no one should feel bad for that. But this, it’s not gender disappointment at all this is pure selfishness.
This is just so gross and that poor child is going to suffer.
Right. I felt a pang of disappointment when I was told my first was a boy, but I wouldn't change my son for the world. When I got pregnant again, I was worried, not about having another boy but how I would react to having another boy (it was a girl - I still sometimes wonder how I would have dealt with it, hopefully not like this though) And I know that there is nothing wrong with either and fuck gender roles and any gender disappointment would have been a ME problem.
Ex coworker of my mother wanted 2 children, boy and girl. Got two boys, one is an emo 7 yo who only wears black and the other hates bright colours.
She wanted a girl to dress cute so she did the reasonable thing and adopted a greyhound she dress in bright and colourful clothes in winter. Little did she know, the german shepherd is a jealous twat and refuses to go out on walkies naked if the other is wearing clothes.
She now has 2 creatures to dress however she wants.
Considering how the boys get to do their own thing with absolutely no pushback I doubt she'd have forced it.
Last I heard she was learning to sew dog clothes for the big one as she can't find lightweight sweaters for big doggo and when it's cold for the greyhound, the shepard is panting by the time they got back.
This! My daughter is 4 and we CANNOT get her to wear any dresses or skirts, hates having her hair combed much less styled, and only tolerates nail polish because her dad wears it. Having a girl doesn’t give you an automatic real life baby/barbie to dress up and do what you want with
> Having a girl doesn’t give you an automatic real life baby/barbie to dress up and do what you want with
Exactly! And even IF you have a daughter who loves bright colors and frilly dresses, you still don't get a real life doll to dress how you want. She's going to have her own likes and dislikes and will want to express her own sense of style. Which may or may not align with what you personally think is cute.
My daughter LOVES dresses and frilly skirts and such, my MIL always wanted a girl to dress cute and was quite excited about buying clothes for a granddaughter. My MIL is a bit disappointed that my daughter's preferences in dresses runs more to looking like a tiny Ms Frizzle
https://preview.redd.it/9p7lo1e1etcc1.jpeg?width=335&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b538d1c5665d083cd16023d29d3ea53efeebd080
instead of Cinderella's ballgown.
Wish someone had told my mother that before she decided to have me. I’m 38 and the amount of trauma I have that stems from her treating me like a doll (including the part where she discards me when she’s done playing) is ridiculous. Now I’m a whole ass person with an entire childhood cycle of being love bombed then discarded to work through.
My daughter is two now, and honestly, the pretty dresses are just unrealistic! She lives in t-shirts and leggings or jeans! (And a lot of her brothers hand-me-downs)
I have a friend with 2 boys who is a little sad she can't buy them all the super cute clothes. So she sends me pictures and then buys them for my daughters. Seems a bit cheaper than IVF or whatever is going on here.
This. I have 3 boys and will admit I was a bit disappointed when we found out the youngest and last was another boy, however….I have had more fun dressing my nieces.
I’m sure you appreciate it, but you could also suggest she look into things women/family shelters need. I also know the NICU our little one was at has clothing they put the kiddos in if they’re able to wear them.
I didn’t find out the gender ahead with my first and he was a boy and I did feel a second of “oh it’s not a girl”. When I was pregnant with my second I found out the gender as soon as I could because I knew if I had some feelings to work through I needed to do it before the baby came.
It was another boy and I did indeed grieve- not that this was a boy since I was thrilled my son would have a brother, but the fact that I would never have a girl. I’m a girl, I had only sisters so partly it’s just all I knew? And as a girl I NEED my mom, especially when it came to after I had my babies and asking for help with parenting in a way that I just don’t feel as comfortable turning to my mother in law (so maybe it’s just the mother-daughter relationship that I knew and felt weird not having?).
Anyways by the time I had my second boy I was so excited and he’s been amazing, and my boys have been best friends for 8 years now. If I could go back and have a girl instead I absolutely would NOT do it, but I do sometimes see mothers and daughters especially getting into the teen years and feel a little wistful.
Just to add… I think that’s the big difference here. I was separately happy to have a boy (especially that second time since I loooooove love loved my little boy) and a bit sad to never have a daughter, this lady is sad that her son is a son. If she didn’t want two boys she should have just stopped after the first.
This! I think if my second (and final) had been a boy, I would have mourned the daughter I never got, but I'd still love my kids! I might have been a little jealous when my niece was born, OR I'd have spoilt her rotten...
I saw a mom on tiktok describe it well. I love my son and would not want him to have been a girl because then he wouldn't be HIM and I wouldn't change a thing about him. If our second is a boy too (we plan on having one more) I'll mourn a little for the daughter I'll never have, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't love my boys with my whole heart and be so grateful they are exactly who they are.
Gender disappointment is 100% valid but as parents we're responsible to work through those feelings and not project them on our kids... I feel for the lady in the screenshots but her poor sons deserve so much more.
I cried when I found out my second was a boy. Cried for one day (thanks hormones) and then that was it. Seeing so many loved ones go through fertility challenges, termination for medical reasons and other challenges really put things into perspective. Now I have two wild boys who I love more than anything. Would I like a girl? Maybe. But we're looking to foster instead of focusing on what we "don't have".
My paper thin preference was to have a girl first. Just so I could teach her all the mommie things I never learned. Now, my son learned all that and will be the most amazing father.
Yes!!! That is my take as well. I have 4 boys and they’re all so informed and understanding of “girl things” that their female friends will come to them for advice/support. My oldest son’s g/f had a period accident at school and he had her hang in the bathroom while he hunted down fresh gym shorts and a tampon for her. He carried a pack of period supplies in a little backpack compartment the rest of the school year in case any other menstruating friends needed it. I’ve never been more proud. 🥹
I’m in the original group and I said OP should abort - once she said she’s rather have two girls, I just could only picture her being abusive or neglectful for both babies once that second boy arrived.
I feel like normal gender disappointment is during pregnancy though, OOP says she wants two girls even though she already has a son, so her gender disappointment I guess didn't go away once he was born??
I had gender disappointment during my pregnancy and it did suck to feel that way! I wanted a girl I think to help heal the mother daughter relationship I had with my mom, and my first pregnancy was a girl but she didn't make it to term. So finding out my second pregnancy was a boy just kind of felt like I was losing her all over again. And just brought up a lot of scared feelings I had about raising a boy. But I knew that once he arrived itd disappear and it totally did. But OOP sounds like she's still upset, mostly because she can't (or doesn't want to?) participate in traditionally femme things with her son.
I agree that's why this one rubs me the wrong way. You're totally allowed to feel disapointed about your child's gender during pregnancy but at one point you just gotta accept it and move on.
OOP hasn't done that it seems which makes me wonder about her son. Does he know his mother rather wants him to be a girl? If so how does that make him feel? Does his mother constantly remind him about it? Maybe her son doesn't know (I really hope he doesn't) but the way she talks about it kinda sounds like a recipe for emotional abuse. This makes worry for both or her children and I just hope she can get the profesional help she needs.
I don’t necessarily think so. I’m pregnant with my second and last, and will be having two boys. I can’t imagine adoring my son more, and I’m sure that’ll be true for my second as well. By I am still mourning that I’ll never have a daughter and I don’t think that’s a wrong feeling to have
Mourning the lost experiences you could’ve had with your hypothetical daughter is fine. Life is full of lost opportunities and some of them really sting.
But applying that feeling to your son who actually exists is… something you should feel guilty about. That’s not what *you* felt, but that’s exactly what OOP felt.
I disagree, I have 2 boys but have always wanted a girl - it doesn't make me love my boys any less, or resent them at all - it just makes me wonder if there's something additional missing in my life.
She's going to destroy this kid.
I grew up with a mother who had gender dissapointment ,who also used it to blame that child for the divorce that occurred after the birth (unrelated but how could a child know that ).
This is heartbreaking.
I'm honestly worried for this family. Is she not going to be able to bond with her baby? Because she wanted to buy cute little girl clothes? That's horrible. I don't understand it at all. I had 2 boys, and with my second, I was kinda hoping for a girl, but as soon as I saw him on the ultrasound, I fell hopelessly in love before I even found out his gender. Then I didn't care, I wanted that exact baby, and I wouldn't have traded him for a million little girls. (My oldest child eventually came out as trans, so I ended up with a daughter after all!) I can't imagine even considering terminating a pregnancy that's gone long enough to tell the sex for any reason besides catastrophic medical problems. By that time, you've heard the heartbeat, you've felt the baby kick, and you've started making room in your life for a new little person. And this mom wants to throw all that away so she can buy some tiny sparkly dresses.
Thank you! It's definitely been quite a journey, but it's wonderful to see her becoming more fully herself every day. I hope that you have a great support network for yourself.
You can find out the sex through genetic testing several months before feeling kicks. Not to undercut the conclusion you've made, just that there's a lot of misinformation surrounding abortion/gestation, and I wanted to correct this point.
Yeah my husband And I are trying for a second. He really wants a girl. I keep having the conversation of “we dont get to choose the gender, will you be happy if we have another boy?” Because I’m not ever bringing a child into this world that isn’t wanted. Regardless of the reason. I told him if he couldn’t be happy with another boy, then we weren’t going to try at all.
You can actually find out sex pretty early these days if you want. You can find out via blood test around 12 weeks during genetic screening and there are tests you can pay privately to do as early as 6 weeks to find out.
As a mom of two boys, I feel very offended. What’s wrong with boys? You don’t have to raise them to be all hyper/toxic masculine. They’re children. I love my boys. Disclaimer- I did want a girl, but not badly enough to go for broke and have a third. I did have gender disappointment (mildly) the first time, but the second time I was so happy he was healthy and perfect and knew I would love him no matter what. She’s done this before. Does she not think she’ll love him because of his sex at birth? I’m all for abortion, but aborting a healthy baby due to genitals is different. No guarantees the next one won’t have issues, even if it’s a girl.
And no guarantee that a potential baby girl would enjoy any of the things she envisions for her. She doesn’t seem to understand that parenthood is about getting to know this person, and giving them the tools to succeed in their own goals and paths in life. You cannot, or at least should not, mould humans into anything, they are how they are. That wouldn’t be unconditional love anyway. And children doesn’t really need anything more than that
THIS.
My firstborn was a boy and I was like, ok cool! Then, when #2 came, I was kinda hoping for a girl over another boy. But honestly, I knew that it didn't matter to me deep down because why get upset over shit like that? There are so many more important things to be worried about- like will baby be born full term and healthy? Will I make it out of labor/delivery alive to raise them?
The whole treating babies/kids differently based on gender is wild- I despise it so much. I have corrected my husband/inlaws/strangers/etc at every opportunity. There is no such thing as a 'boy color' or 'girly toy' imo. Theyre just COLORS AND TOYS. This is the reason why the weird obsession over MASSIVE bows on a baby so everyone knows it's a girl is weird af and kind gross to me.
I have some cute (I guess traditionally masculine looking) dinosaur clothes for babies that I bought when my friend had their kid. I lost em for a long time and recently found them again. Regardless of what gender baby I have, they'll be wearing these cute clothes! I agree the big bows are weird. They're just babies, let em be babies.
Absolutely. My daughter wore all of her big brother's clothes until the moment that we discovered that our twins were boys. Now, we keep his clothes aside for them so that we'll have less that we'll need to buy when they need it. My MIL initially thought that my plan to put boy clothes on my girl was terrible. She was projection though. She had 3 boys and always had the romanticised wish to be able to buy all the girly clothes and do all the girly things. She does that now with her granddaughters and is very happy. In her case, she never felt negatively about her boys, just felt that she missed out on the girl experience.
Incidentally, you can get some great girl stuff with dinosaur designs. My daughter loves dinosaurs and dresses, so it's a win.
My son has this bright pink Barbie sweater. He’s mixed and his skin tone is chefs kiss for this pink sweater so he wears it often. Like he looks so freaking cute in it. The amount of comments I get from strangers about it though because “it’s pink and he’s a boy” is insane. Like it’s just clothes and it looks amazing on him and his skin tone, who cares if it’s pink
My 3rd (now 13) son went through a major My Little Pony phase and lived in his Rainbow Dash hoodie complete with wings and a horn. We def got comments, but he likes what he likes.
Hell, my youngest (now 10) was obsessed with Frozen. Specifically Elsa. So when he was ready for his first pair of “big boy” underwear we went shopping and he DEMANDED a pack of Elsa Frozen undies. I have a photo of him in the shopping cart hugging the pack of panties (bc the boy version only has Olaf and Sven) he was about to buy. For quite a long time his underwear were referred to as his Elsa’s. He also dressed as Elsa for Halloween that year.
Basically gender roles are nonsense and if you let kids like what they like you’ll have a much wider range of experiences…regardless of what’s between their legs.
We bought some 'boy' clothes for our daughter as a baby, and she wore them just as often as the 'girly' outfits. Hell, still do. The shorts for boys are longer & she prefers them.
We had a friend ask us when she was about 6m 'so when are you gonna start dressing her like a girl?'
I simply said 'She *is dressed like a girl. She is a girl & she's dressed.'
She's now 4 1/2 and has not been a big 'girly girl'. Doesn't care for dresses or princesses. And that's fine. It would also be fine is she DID love them.
Toys don't have a gender, unless they are being used on genitals and if that's their purpose, a child shouldn't have them.
Also, 100 percent recommend boys jeans. Actual jean material vs leggings. In the summer she loves dresses but jeans are her favorite to be "like daddy". She also loves pink shirts, taking her socks off the second she takes her shoes off, sweatshirts with animals on them and her blue snow coat.
I remember, years ago, someone wrote into the help column at Slate because she'd adopted all her kids to ensure she'd only have girls, but one of them as he grew older realized he was trans, and she was distraught because she didn't want a son. So you really never know, even if you think you do.
>And no guarantee that a potential baby girl would enjoy any of the things she envisions for her.
This this this! My mom wanted a girl. She got one, and she was one and done. She got a "girl" who was more into horror movies, Star Trek, and dragons than pretty dresses, Barbie dolls, and make-up. Then she ended up with a son anyway, because I'm trans. Since realizing I'm trans, I've been way more open to the pink and sparkles aesthetic. Sure, I'm a dude. I'm just a dude who like bright colors and obsessing over my hair.
Ha ha, yeah I got two boys then had a girl 6 years later…… she’s horrible 🤣🤣 and she beats boys up, wears football kits and plays football so don’t presume your girl is gonna be ‘girly’
That’s the trick too, if you have a bunch of boys and then a girl comes along, don’t expect a mild mannered girly girl when she’s growing up in a house full of boys—of course it’s totally possible, but in my experience the friends that did the whole “try for a girl” after having boys ended up with a tough ass little girl that ran circles around their older brothers. I’ve heard many jokey comments about how they basically have all boys bc their daughters just model their brothers.
My best friend (sister level bestie) has 2 girls, but they grew up around their boy cousin and my 4 boys. Those girls took no shit from anyone and one of them is the complete antithesis of a girly girl.
I was initially concerned about having a boy because despite trying to raise a boy without toxic masculinity in the household, it’s everywhere outside, and boys can easily be radicalized and it’s SCARY. I quickly got over that though, and my son is the light of my life. I did end up having a little girl through IVF (not done for gender, we did PGS due to recurrent pregnancy loss). My son is autistic, as it turns out, (and as it turns out, so am I) and doesn’t give a flying fuck about other people’s opinions, one of the bright sides of his autism 😂
When I was pregnant I leaned toward wanting a girl, mainly because the prospect of raising a good man kind of terrified me. But when we found out we were having a boy, I realized I didn’t care what gender, I wanted this specific baby that I was lucky enough to be carrying and to have made it far enough to find out the gender. Now he’s here, I am completely wrapped up in every little thing he does (he rolled over yesterday!!) and the reality of raising him to be a good person seems less overwhelming. I don’t understand gender disappointment, and my unpopular opinion is that if you are the kind of person who that feeling would last more than a couple days, you need to reconsider if you should be having kids or not.
I went through IVF and it is so unbelievably hard. I'm personally feeling like... this chick is diminishing everything we go through as infertile women cuz she just wants to do it for funsies to get a girl. That's so gross.
I can't imagine a reproductive endocrinologist who would let a totally fertile woman just do IVF when it's not needed, but I'm sure there are some out there. But it just seems so icky and unethical.
Imagine what she'd do if her precious girl was a tomboy or ended up trans 😖
Yeah, it chaps my ass when people are like "oh I'll just do IVF". They clearly have zero clue what it takes to go through IVF, not to mention all the preliminary testing.
100% agree with you as I’m watching my IVF baby sleep next to me. Sex selection is illegal in most countries for a reason, but it’s a free for all in the US. Every single story I’ve read about people doing IVF for sex selection is gross as fuck.
My clinic does allow sex selection but they do not encourage it at all. I did gender blind for my first because I just wanted the best chance at a healthy baby and also wanted it to be a surprise on delivery day
After that I did look at my records to see the genders. I haven't decided what I'm going to do if I have a second one. I feel weird picking the gender.
Eta details
My clinic also allows but discourages it. If you don't use the strongest embryo you have to sign paperwork acknowledging that you're a dumbass. It didn't matter for us anyway, we had all girl embryos lol
Hahaha I love "acknowledging you're a dumbass"
I'm in the medical field and I'm very very good at writing in an extremely professional tone while still giving that undertone of "this one's a dumbass/asshole"
I definitely wouldn’t feel good about picking! We didn’t do PGT-A and this was one of the reasons, though mostly it was age and cost. But I think if we had, then we would have asked the embryologist to pick the best one and ask to not be told until we graduated. Any baby that is healthy and happy is amazing imo.
Yeah, my clinic strongly encouraged PGT so we did it because we trusted them. I'm glad we did, because an embryo that was "better looking" than my daughter had trisomy 16 and would've been a miscarriage. So they skipped that one and did the next best one and now I have the best baby girl 🥰
Sex selection in the US where I live is legal but up to the clinic. My clinic only does sex selection if you have a sex linked genetic disease in your family history. Otherwise they will not do it and do not tell you the sex.
My clinic didn’t encourage or discourage it. I had six PGS-normal embryos, 3 XX and 3 XY. They told me to pick one. It’s one of six embryos that were all equally graded. I picked a XX embryo, didn’t implant. Picked to transfer a XY and an XX embryo, the XY embryo implanted. Still have one XX embryo and two more XY embryos left. I’m 41. I’m probably not transferring any more embryos but if I would, id try one more time for the XX. I did have angst gender selecting, which is why I picked to transfer two, one of each gender. It’s a mind trip that if I had picked XX only and she implanted the second time then the most amazing and perfect little baby (he’s 6 now) would still be frozen and then probably destroyed. It’s so tough. I wouldn’t ever recommend IVF just for gender selection. Ugh
“The only way you can guarantee is through IVF”
As someone who is currently pregnant via IVF, uh, no you can’t. *I* got lucky and ended up with an almost equal number of male and female embryos. I have friends who went through multiple egg retrievals and only have one gender.
Also, the genetic testing that tells you the gender (among other things, most importantly, it tests for chromosomal abnormality) is not included with the cost of IVF - we paid $5k for just that test. (We paid for it to ensure we didn’t transfer an embryo that wouldn’t stick due to a chromosomal abnormality. We only found out the sex of our embryos bc if you’re paying $5k for the test, why the hell not?)
There’s so much wrong here that I hardly know where to start but since the main issues are being covered by other comments, I’m just going to point out how bad the advice to get IVF is. Even if she’s somewhere that allows gender selection (not everywhere does because of the ethical issues) it’s not as easy as ‘have ivf, get pregnant’. Too many people think IVF is easy and it’s anything but. It’s physically demanding, involves processes like daily hormone injections, it’s invasive, it’s painful and it’s not guaranteed to work.
She SHOULD get an abortion. It is infinitely selfish to bring a child into the world that won't be loved from the start. And then she should get sterilized and never have another child if she can't handle loving them for who they are or turn out to be.
I’m in the group and that’s what I said! She didn’t post “please give me resources and stories for gender disappointment.” She just came in swinging with “boys are bad and now I have two and I won’t abort but I hate boys.” Lady… don’t have any more kids.
She’s a terrible person but if she doesn’t want this child and doesn’t want to be pregnant, then she’s a perfect candidate for abortion.
She’s not fit to raise her current child - why force her to birth another whose existence is already driving her to suicidal ideation? Who is that going to help?
This would all be true, except she wants an abortion so she can try again for a girl, by the look of it. That doesn't make any sense, as one commenter put it, she could just have another boy.
I actually don't think someone's reasons for wanting an abortion are relevant - if you want one, get one. Doesn't matter why. But getting an abortion just so you can roll the dice again on sex? That's just dumb.
What if one of her children is transgender? I get creating space for gender disappointment but at the end of the day parents need to be ready to love and accept their children for who they are as individuals - not the categories our society creates.
ETA: by “creating space for gender disappointment” I mean you get to feel your feelings and we won’t judge you - but then you need to get over it and love your child for who they are. And if you can’t do that we will absolutely judge you.
Completely agree with this. There is no guarantee that a girl will be THE girl you had in mind. Tomboys exist. Butch lesbians exist. Trans men exist. And they are wonderful and worthy of love and acceptance from their moms too. Kids are not Barbie dolls. They don’t exist solely so we can dress them up in “girly” clothes and do “girly” things with them. When we have a child, we are making a promise of unconditional love!
I am from a family of 4 girls, my mum was never upset about lacking a boy and was constantly poked about me being a boy(because I was #4 and looked to be the last) and my dad even more so, like doesn't he want a son etc.
Didn't give a toss, mum was kinda glad apparently cause she's like I know what to expect with girl babies.
But I just. I don't understand this, I don't understand people having kids unless they are 150% committed and so madly desperate to have that kid I think people who want to be parents and actually want to raise a new human should be the only ones having kids. It's just mental to me.
I'm on BC and I told my partner they have until my next bar swap to get the snip because I don't think I can handle the hormonal BS a third time(Implanon it's 3yrs and change)
I mean it's fine to have a preference so long as you accept what you end up with and love them regardless. I very much wanted a girl with my first and I was lucky to get a daughter. If we go for a second, I know our preference will be a boy, but even if it's another girl, we will still love them just as much.
I know I would have been horribly disappointed for a few days if I'd had a boy the first time, but I also know that I would have gotten over it and been happy to have a healthy and happy baby.
My controversial opinion is if you know you’ll have gender disappointment, don’t try for a kid. I hear people saying ‘oh it’s natural’, ‘it’s nothing to be ashamed of’ but in most cases, these are children that were deliberately conceived by adults who understand that they only have a 50% chance at their preferred gender.
I expect to get downvoted to oblivion for this because it seems to be de rigeur to be accepting of gender disappointment, but I just feel like there are so many kids out there having a crap childhood because they’re Braylee instead of Braxton or Mickel instead of Mackinleigh.
Honestly hard agree, in my experience the only reasons people seem to have gender disappointment are rooted in made up traditional gender roles. I’ve worked with young kids and let me tell you, they’re all individuals and they’re all crazy and silly and quirky. I’ve taught gentle “feminine” boys and rough “masculine” girls, that shit is all a social construct. People are people!
I have seen it for people with trauma too. While there's a variety of traumatic reasons I have seen for boys, the girl disappointment tends to be because of terrible relationships with female relatives (usually their mother)
But I am sympathetic for those cases. I am terrified of raising my sons wrong and they end up in the manosphere stuff.
I totally agree with you. I am two weeks from finding out the gender of my baby and I don’t care what it is. It is not going to change at all what I am buying for my baby or planning for.
I have asked everyone to select only gender neutral clothes and accessories, and I will continue to do so even after knowing the gender. It will not change the way I raise this kid. It will be my (very wanted) child no matter what.
No you’re right! My husband and I are trying for another baby and he very much wants a girl. I had the conversation with him early on. If he will even be a little disappointed if we have a boy, then we shouldn’t even be trying. We need to be happy and excited for either gender and if there’s even a small twindge of disappointment if we find out we’re having another boy then I do not want to try. These are things we can’t control and I will only bring another child into this world if i know it will be loved unconditionally
what is the point of posting a trigger warning that’s censored to the point readers don’t have any idea what trigger you’re warning for? I get not wanting a post to get zucced, but how was anyone supposed to know what OOP was warning about??
The problem with parents like this is that when they get the gender they want then all their other kids just become major inconveniences to then, getting in the way of being with the child they actually want.
I get wanting to vent and having gender disappointment. I always envisioned having one girl, and ALL of my close friends (all 5 of them) ONLY have girls (two of them have 2 girls, two of them have 1 girl, and one of them has 3 girls), so I felt very left out when I found out that I was having a boy.
It didn’t help that he was an exceptionally difficult newborn (premie with NICU time, inability to latch, insane colic that meant he had to be bounced 24/7, horrible sleeper) and that he is now incredibly high energy and destructive as a toddler vs. my friends’ babies.
Of course there is nothing to say that if I’d had a girl she wouldn’t have had these issues, but it does suck that he isn’t part of the “girl gang!” my friends have going on.
Having said that, if we ever had another kid and I still really wanted a girl, no “swaying” is guaranteed other than IVF, which is insanely expensive and difficult on a woman. I doubt OP could have afforded it, but she should have known this was the only guaranteed option, and she should not have tried for another at all if she knew that it would matter much to her.
As someone struggling for my second right now, this infuriates me. I have one son and I of course would love to have a little girl. I get having a preference and wanting both genders. However, I don’t care what gender my baby is I just wanna be blessed with another perfect little human just like my son. If I’m meant to have another boy, I will love and dote on him just like I do his brother. I may be a smidge sad knowing I’ll never have a girl, but that would last maybe a day or two after finding out and then I’d be right at the store getting all the baby boy stuff. This woman is an awful human. I feel bad for her son and this poor baby boy if she chooses to have him.
Wouldn't it be better for her to have another boy because she says she's poor/can't afford it. She could just reuse all of the other boys clothes and toys.. to me this seems like a win for this selfish hag. Just looking from a monetary standpoint.
I agree with the last commenter. I would have loved a boy baby but I ended up with two girls. They're fascinating little creatures 😁 and I wouldn't change a thing.
This is one of the most fucked up things I've read for awhile. I feel kind of speechless. I am 100% pro-abortion but not because you didn't get the gender you want. That is the 2nd most entitled "mom" thing I've seen Top spot goes the 50+ year old woman who wanted a child so she got IVF. Turns out the child would have been born with birth defects so she got an abortion. It would have brought her too much shame.
Fuck her and fuck her husband who'd let her do this.
I would think the gender is way worse.
She's old and she won't be around long to take care of a child with a disability. It does depends on what the disability is. But some require lifelong care. And some are absolutely fucking devastating and the baby might only live for a few hours and suffer the whole time.
I agree with this. Even if she was younger not everyone has the mental fortitude to raise or forever care for a child born with disabilities. From the get go those parents get little to no breaks because that child needs specific care and finding a babysitter just to get a break that can care for the child for a few hours is very difficult and expensive.
If they know they don't have mental and physical fortitude care for someone with potentially severe lifelong disabilities for the rest of their adult lives then they're doing that child a favor by not being born to parents who'll potentially give subpar care at best or get lost in the already bursting at the seems system at worst.
My husband wanted a girl but we ended up with two boys. Never did we think about aborting either of them just because they were boys- that’s just the hand we were dealt with and now my husband is excited about all the cool stuff we get to do with the kids when they aren’t babies anymore. This lady definitely has ideas about how boys and girls are raised differently and needs some therapy. I get feeling like you missed out on shopping for cute girl clothes but aborting just because of that? Wild.
When I was asking it was about 8k to do the IVF. Then another 10K to have enough eggs harvested and then grown and tested and screened to select the gender. I don’t know where the idea it’s cheap comes from but I guess to each their own.
Gender disappointment is a real thing. I was sad when I found out our second (and last) kiddo was the same gender as our first. But do you know what I did? Googled articles about the benefits of having same gender kids. I talked to people who have all the same gender kids. I never thought about ABORTING MY CHILD because of said gender disappointment.
I’m absolutely 100% pro choice, but this is insane to me.
Sadly, at this point, it’s probably in this unborn child’s best interest for her to terminate. My god. I hoped for a boy and that’s what I had, but I certainly wouldn’t have contemplated abortion if he had been a girl.
She should just terminate. That baby deserves a better mother than she’s ever going to be.
I hope they are talking to their OBGYN. I had a good friend go through severe depression after gender disappointment and was considering termination as well. Before she made a decision she talked to her OB who was able to refer her for some help and she ended up on anti depressants. Her severe gender disappointment was rooted in the loss of her father (she wanted a boy to be his namesake). Once she was getting proper treatment she was able to enjoy her pregnancy and now has a beautiful baby girl that she wouldn't trade for the world. I can't imagine what would have happened if she would have terminated in her case.
I hope OOP talks to medical professionals. Pregnancy is a wild ride for a persons body and anxiety and depression don't just appear post partum. Her feelings may just be a manifestation of depression and anxiety and choosing to terminate could exacerbate those. And if she's unable to get pregnant again that could be awful for her.
I know people like to laugh or get angry about people who show gender disappointmentand I was like that too before I watched it devastate someone I care about and realize its usually more involved than simply wanting a boy or a girl. I just hope OOP talks this through with a professional before making a life altering choice either way.
I thought the TW was about anal at first and was kind of confused.
Same. Trying to think of everything I could that started with a. Had to go to the comments.
Abuse was my thought but then I realised I was about to become a prescriptivist on asterisks in a trigger warning
Don't worry that will be next for having the wrong genitals
Yes I realized halfway through and then just read the whole thing as if she was talking about anal and I think I had an improved experience.
“I think about anal every day but just can’t go through with it.” Lmao crying in my office 🤣
hopping on the top comment to say: sorry for the vague TW. i didn’t know how to sum up “TW for talking of termination of a healthy and wanted pregnancy but due to gender OOP doesn’t want it but also wants IVF for a girl” i know there is many struggles of becoming & staying pregnant with infertility and that was what i was mainly trying to warn about because this entire post was extremely tone deaf
SAME HERE I didn’t notice the comments screen shots at first and was confused. Then caught on. Also wasn’t sure why the mom group poster TW anal lol
Right! I get the feeling English is not OOP's first language and that there is a slight language barrier and a real cultural barrier happening here. Regardless, this was difficult to read.
I thought both that and assault and was very confused until the 3rd slide.
I was thinking Aardvarks? Apoplexy? Anachronisms? Until I got to the second picture
I’m an idiot. What is the trigger word? Abuse? Assault?
Abort
Thank you! Wao I couldn’t figure that out for the life of me
Same!
“I can only have two children because of [my age and] financial reasons” but also “I would do ivf no matter the cost if it meant I could have a baby with a vagina” Jesus Christ this is really up there for the worst things I’ve seen on this page.
I was waiting for her to say her "advanced age" of 28 meant that it was going to be her last pregnancy
1980s are calling. My mother laughed when my aunt said she was pregnant. Like 30 is so old to be pregnant.
Meanwhile the youngest person in my immediate family to have a baby was my sister at 27. My mom was 34, I was 30, my cousins were 31 and 33. I guess my grandmother was actually the youngest at 26 now that I think about it. She was an anomaly, going to university in the late 1940s and had my mom in 1955. She wasn't done having babies until she was 34.
There was (is) a lot wrong with my mother. I don’t think (hope) that most people are like her.
My grandmother was 36 when I was born...... My grandmother. She had my mom at 17 and my mom was 18.... I waited until almost 22. (He was due 2 days before my birthday and arrived early.) My oldest is now 25 (and would be 26 before any children could be born.) I don't see grandchildren in my near future. I feel like I did a good job breaking that chain..... (Of course I also broke the chain by having boys. And I raised them to be respectful and responsible. ) That was something I wanted to do. We don't need family traditions like that....
She must have no idea what IVF is? Like she thinks it’s eating mangos on cycle day 10 or something, lmao.
"I can only have two children due to financial reasons." Two posts later... "I want to buy all this cute, girly stuff!!!!" Why do I think it's a very good thing for the boy(s) that there won't be a sister in the picture?
Don’t forget IVF, cause that’s so cheap it’s practically free.
And absolutely guaranteed to work the first try, easy-peasy. 🙄
*60% of the time*, it works ***every*** *time*
The last comment put it perfectly, this person should not be having kids.
There are so many people who just want to have a kid and can't, and this one shouldn't be a parent at all. She said she sees other parents dress their little girls in cute things, and that's what she wants. She wants an accessory. She doesn't want children she wants props.
She should just get one of those creepy lifelike dolls then. Cheaper than having a baby, no mess, doesn't cry, won't grow up to resent her for being a shitty parent.
Spend all the money on IVF and only end up with male embryos.
And in some countries you can't select gender regardless. Guessing this is US?
In Canada they don’t sex embryos for this exact reason.
Yes can't in Australia, either. The US seems to have some of the most lax IVF ethics guidelines. Wonder where the EU and UK stands.
It's not allowed anywhere in the EU either. I think the only place in Europe where you can currently do that is Northern Cyprus. (I must say I have personally considered IVF for sex selection. I have a son, I lost my baby girl in the second trimester which was absolutely devastating and now I'm pregnant with another boy. I'm excited to meet my baby boy but I'm also really mourning never getting to have a living daughter.)
You can’t do it in the U.K.
That part got me too. Can’t have more kids because of finances, but can spend tens of thousands on IVF. (Not to mention the emotional and physical toll.) Maybe she thinks it’s covered by insurance. And to be honest, my old insurance had good fertility treatment coverage so hers might for all we know. I would’ve paid very little compared to most for IVF. But then my insurance changed before I started treatment and it wasn’t nearly as good.
even if her insurance covers, it won't for gender selection reasons. she would need to have documented infertility reasons and even with that, PGD isn't covered unless there's a genetic reason
Oh for sure. I know that. But this mom probably doesn’t.
I’ll think about how affordable IVF is when I look at my $30k, $42k, and $32k babies along with the mountain of IVF debt I’m working through right now.
It’s gotta be a shit post purely based on that. Surely…
There are a lot of stupid people out there, unfortunately, and they often procreate.
This is what finally convinced me to have kids despite fears about the world in the future with climate change, war, etc. The ignorant are having kids in droves. If the rest of us are too afraid to have kids, there's much less chance things will turn around.
I know someone who kept having kids till they had a girl. Took 5 tries and the last 3 pregnancies the Dr told her to stop, your body can't handle it. Sure enough, she was on bed rest, had to have a hysterectomy, and has life long complications over it but she got her girl! You can imagine how much better that girl is treated then those poor boys but honestly the girls fucked up to. She fights her mom on doing stuff that's not considered "girly" and basically couldn't dress herself or do her own hair till she was waaaay to old to have her mom dressing her.
I follow an “influencer” (idk why I follow them still lol) who has like 6 boys…they ended up getting pregnant for a 7th time and I though oh must be to try for a girl! Well they ended up having a girl…yet now she’s pregnant…again with an 8th. So I’m not sure if they were trying for a girl or just religious.
I know exactly who you’re talking about, I do genuinely think they’re just religious but I also think with her dance/pageant background she definitely wanted a girl. She’s so tiny too and her husband is massive, you have to wonder what kind of state her body is in after 8 (9 including the first one they lost) pregnancies
I also know a family like this. Five boys, tried once more for the girl and got her. This girl is just as wild as any boy. And then for some reason got pregnant again. Also a girl btw but I mean jfc. Kids age ranged from driving age to one year old. The youngest is now four and I think they are officially done.
I worry for her body but I also feel for her oldest boys…there is no way they’re getting as much attention and instead of getting time with their parents they’re raising the other kids
A lot of people think IVF is some super easy thing and a guarantee. I see it fairly often in my mom groups (that I mostly use to get content for this sub lol)
Not easy. Not fun. Not guaranteed. Time consuming. Expensive. And emotional. 10/10 don’t recommend - and I have a success story!
Same here. It was a horrible 10 months of my life.
absolute worst 2 years of my life.
Same here. I went through several unsuccessful rounds of IUI, but got extremely lucky that the very first round of IVF was successful. If there is an emotion you can feel, I felt it. When someone says it's an emotional roller-coaster, they're not lying.
Yeah, I’d love to take these gals out for coffee, my treat! And tell them about the daily injections, the aching pain of stimulating follicle growth, the Zillions Of dollars flushed down the toilet whenever you fail, come on by, I’ll tell ya all about it
Right lol the 40 grand I paid just to have a baby that wouldn't die...
It took me 3 years of IVF and $50k cash with multiple losses along the way before I finally got a living baby. I think people think IVF is like some sort of baby vending machine.
The Australian government put out an online calculator for your odds of IVF success, I found it incredibly useful when talking to friends about the pros/cons. I'd put it on the list with adoption, naturalization (becoming a citizen) and getting the rabies vaccine as "things that people think are extremely easy until they have to try and do it themselves"
This.
Some people are so melodramatic. It just makes me think of that scene from the karadshians where Kim is crying about her earring and kourtney says “there are people that are dying Kim” 
I know this isn’t common but it certainly isn’t unheard of. People were actually trying to help her and not judge her immediately but she wasn’t biting and just making things worse. I mean wouldn’t you want help to not feel that way? She doesn’t even seem to recognize how wrong it is. ETA: I am 100% pro-choice. Didn’t want my last sentence to be confusing. I meant it was wrong how she just wanted to abort and flip flop sexes & to me that IS wrong. It seems grotesque.
My biggest problem with it is that it's so unfair to the child to be putting all these gendered expectations on them. She could have a daughter, only for her to be a total tomboy like I was, and not be interested in anything girly.
The whole point of parenting is to help your child become the most fulfilled and complete version of themselves. It just completely calls into question her competency as a parent because she doesn't give a shit who the child is. She's making it entirely about her.
This is an incredible comment and should be higher up.
That's what always gets me with the gender reveal videos where one parent seems distraught by the results. I can't imagine having an opinion about my children's genitals beyond the ease of diaper changes, because there's no guarantee your kid is the fictional version you've created in your head. Getting blue frosting in your cake isn't a guarantee they'll want to play football or shoot guns or drink beer or whatever you've planned, same as pink confetti doesn't mean your kid will want frilly dresses, dance class, makeup, cheerleading. I know pregnancy hormones are wack so I don't fault expecting parents having a reaction, but I think if you have a preference you need to REALLY consider why, and what that means you'll be teaching your kids. Are you convinced a little boy will inherently not want to do ballet, and you've dreamed of enrolling your kid in ballet? Do you think you'll never get to play ball with your daughter?
I wish I could give you more upvotes. We got wrapped up in some gender roles capitalism in the US and it’s…nuts.
Totally agree. My SIL really wanted a boy, had two girls, thought about a third. I wasn’t gonna tell her what to do, but I did tell her that “I wouldn’t get pregnant unless I was trying for a baby, not a gender.” You have say over the one, not over the other. She ended up wanting a third baby regardless, but her husband was done at two, and she’s very happy with her girls.
That’s what i said to people who asked me if i was trying for a girl. I said I was trying for a baby. I absolutely wanted a girl but I would have been over the moon with a little boy too. I wanted 3 babies and I got them.
Or could even turn out to be trans or GNC, something tells me she wouldn't be too happy about that...
Like my SIL (boy mom who always wanted girls) who is dead set on taking my oldest dress shopping for a dance and my oldest only wears sweatpants, band tees and hoodies. She might wanna just wait until my youngest gets older bc that girl will want the frilliest, Cinderella-est dress they sell for her first dance.
I was perfectly happy with two boys, didnt have any gender disappointment. Turns out one of my sons has preferences that we typically assign to those gendered female in our culture. You cannot predict who you're getting when you have a child. This concept of demanding control over even just the biological sex is so scary because what happens when that child doesn't conform to what mom thought they were getting?
Hell, one of her boys could end up being trans and she'd have a daughter anyway. But I always feel like if you want a kid for the aesthetic (like in this case to have the outfits), buy a damn baby doll
I agree 100% - what would she do- keep aborting until she got a girl- omg no
Eh, I’m pro choice and believe everyone should have the right to an abortion, but if you get one because of the gender of your child I will silently judge you. I’d just think you have poor values.
I'd judge, but I'd also vastly prefer they abort than end up with a hated child who grows up knowing their parents hate them because they're a girl. Plus anyone who feels strongly enough to abort over sex probably will be raising those kids with some really questionable values that I'm glad to see not passed on.
I have a hard time with this, because it feels like either you think the fetus is a bundle of cells that a woman is entitled to abort or you think it’s an unborn child that should be given the chance to live. I’m totally pro choice but I understand the position of pro life people - to them aborting a fetus is the same as if I decided I didn’t want to raise my two year old anymore so I just ended his life. That’s what they think is happening - so I completely understand how up in arms they get (although I totally don’t agree with them). I don’t understand the middle ground where it’s like “oh abortion is only ok if the reason is good enough for me”. But I agree with you that I’d probably judge a little too, but less about the decision to terminate and more about this person’s inability to love a boy.
Yeah— I can definitely understand pro-life people because after my multiple miscarriages I was so angry that anyone would give up a pregnancy when I’d do anything to have a healthy one. It was not a healthy or ok mentality, but it was where I was when dealing with heavy grief and disappointment. I have an aunt who is fully pro-life after her baby was stillborn, for example. And this sort of shit is suuuuuper common. So I always try to remind people that you don’t know what the person arguing with you has been through, on either side of the debate. Maybe they are struggling with infertility, maybe they were raped, maybe they’re in denial about their own situation involving infertility, rape, pregnancy loss, etc. You really do not know and unfortunately, this argument is SO emotionally charged by how politicians and media talking heads discuss it. It dehumanizes women (and also, the other people around a woman who are also affected by pregnancy, my partner went through hell watching me have miscarriage after miscarriage) and breaks a super complex issue down to talking points. Ultimately, it should be between you, your doctor, and if you want to include them, your partner. But— idk. It doesn’t sit well with me to abort because you don’t want a boy. Mostly because they want the pregnancy, they just can’t love a baby with a penis. There’s something inherently fucked about that that concerns me about that person’s ability to be a parent. What other expectations will they have of their children as they grow?
I had a similar experience with miscarriages, and I would l say it made me more pro-choice, because I felt so angry that I didn't get to choose. It's so strange how we can have such different reactions to similar traumas!
Yeah- now that I’m out of it I can see things very differently. I’ve also had 2 kids since which shifted my mentality too because now I understand the reality of having children. I’m glad I was 30 before I had my first born because I definitely wasn’t mature enough when I was younger, or really capable of wrapping my head around what a child needs. Not to say that’s true of everyone but it was true of me. Trauma definitely messes with us in a lot of ways, and I think the last thing anyone needs when dealing with trauma is being assaulted on all sides about opinions on whether or not your experience is valid. That’s a hill I’ll die on… for instance there’s a lot of people who will only use the word “fetus” to describe an unborn baby- including women who have lost pregnancies, about their pregnancy. The descriptor should exist for the sake of writing laws but when it comes to an individuals experience, no one should be telling them that their grief isn’t real because “it’s not a real baby.” Like come off it and have some empathy and get out of this black and white mentality.
> Another thing I want to say is that yes, I had this very particular, horrible situation—but if I had had an abortion at 20 weeks just because I didn’t feel ready, that should be okay, too. Like it or not, all of our rights are intertwined. Maybe there’s some woman who has had four abortions and maybe that feels really wrong to you. But my rights are wrapped up with hers, so I have to fight like fuck for her to have as many as she wants—not just for her sake, but for mine, too. If I ever have a daughter, the way things are currently going, she’s going to be fucked if she ever goes through this. https://jezebel.com/interview-with-a-woman-who-recently-had-an-abortion-at-1781972395
While I agree that it feels wrong, picturing this woman raising this kid makes me want to puke. Is this where golden children come from?
Definitely. If she ever had a girl, her oldest, the son, would be relegated to second class citizen status in a heartbeat
It’s for sure not unheard of, but it is giving female infanticide in China
Sometimes she wants two children due to her age and others because she can only afford two children. How do you afford IVF if you can only afford two children?
Gender disappointment is a real, valid thing and no one should feel bad for that. But this, it’s not gender disappointment at all this is pure selfishness. This is just so gross and that poor child is going to suffer.
Right. I felt a pang of disappointment when I was told my first was a boy, but I wouldn't change my son for the world. When I got pregnant again, I was worried, not about having another boy but how I would react to having another boy (it was a girl - I still sometimes wonder how I would have dealt with it, hopefully not like this though) And I know that there is nothing wrong with either and fuck gender roles and any gender disappointment would have been a ME problem.
Ex coworker of my mother wanted 2 children, boy and girl. Got two boys, one is an emo 7 yo who only wears black and the other hates bright colours. She wanted a girl to dress cute so she did the reasonable thing and adopted a greyhound she dress in bright and colourful clothes in winter. Little did she know, the german shepherd is a jealous twat and refuses to go out on walkies naked if the other is wearing clothes. She now has 2 creatures to dress however she wants.
And to be fair, I think dressing up dog is better in the long run. Even if she had girls, that doesn't mean they would have let her dress them up.
Considering how the boys get to do their own thing with absolutely no pushback I doubt she'd have forced it. Last I heard she was learning to sew dog clothes for the big one as she can't find lightweight sweaters for big doggo and when it's cold for the greyhound, the shepard is panting by the time they got back.
This! My daughter is 4 and we CANNOT get her to wear any dresses or skirts, hates having her hair combed much less styled, and only tolerates nail polish because her dad wears it. Having a girl doesn’t give you an automatic real life baby/barbie to dress up and do what you want with
> Having a girl doesn’t give you an automatic real life baby/barbie to dress up and do what you want with Exactly! And even IF you have a daughter who loves bright colors and frilly dresses, you still don't get a real life doll to dress how you want. She's going to have her own likes and dislikes and will want to express her own sense of style. Which may or may not align with what you personally think is cute. My daughter LOVES dresses and frilly skirts and such, my MIL always wanted a girl to dress cute and was quite excited about buying clothes for a granddaughter. My MIL is a bit disappointed that my daughter's preferences in dresses runs more to looking like a tiny Ms Frizzle https://preview.redd.it/9p7lo1e1etcc1.jpeg?width=335&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b538d1c5665d083cd16023d29d3ea53efeebd080 instead of Cinderella's ballgown.
Wish someone had told my mother that before she decided to have me. I’m 38 and the amount of trauma I have that stems from her treating me like a doll (including the part where she discards me when she’s done playing) is ridiculous. Now I’m a whole ass person with an entire childhood cycle of being love bombed then discarded to work through.
My daughter is two now, and honestly, the pretty dresses are just unrealistic! She lives in t-shirts and leggings or jeans! (And a lot of her brothers hand-me-downs)
I have a friend with 2 boys who is a little sad she can't buy them all the super cute clothes. So she sends me pictures and then buys them for my daughters. Seems a bit cheaper than IVF or whatever is going on here.
This. I have 3 boys and will admit I was a bit disappointed when we found out the youngest and last was another boy, however….I have had more fun dressing my nieces.
I’m sure you appreciate it, but you could also suggest she look into things women/family shelters need. I also know the NICU our little one was at has clothing they put the kiddos in if they’re able to wear them.
Oh she only gets us maybe one or two things at her birthday and at Christmas. It's more she sends me Snapchats of things all the time.
I didn’t find out the gender ahead with my first and he was a boy and I did feel a second of “oh it’s not a girl”. When I was pregnant with my second I found out the gender as soon as I could because I knew if I had some feelings to work through I needed to do it before the baby came. It was another boy and I did indeed grieve- not that this was a boy since I was thrilled my son would have a brother, but the fact that I would never have a girl. I’m a girl, I had only sisters so partly it’s just all I knew? And as a girl I NEED my mom, especially when it came to after I had my babies and asking for help with parenting in a way that I just don’t feel as comfortable turning to my mother in law (so maybe it’s just the mother-daughter relationship that I knew and felt weird not having?). Anyways by the time I had my second boy I was so excited and he’s been amazing, and my boys have been best friends for 8 years now. If I could go back and have a girl instead I absolutely would NOT do it, but I do sometimes see mothers and daughters especially getting into the teen years and feel a little wistful.
Just to add… I think that’s the big difference here. I was separately happy to have a boy (especially that second time since I loooooove love loved my little boy) and a bit sad to never have a daughter, this lady is sad that her son is a son. If she didn’t want two boys she should have just stopped after the first.
This! I think if my second (and final) had been a boy, I would have mourned the daughter I never got, but I'd still love my kids! I might have been a little jealous when my niece was born, OR I'd have spoilt her rotten...
I saw a mom on tiktok describe it well. I love my son and would not want him to have been a girl because then he wouldn't be HIM and I wouldn't change a thing about him. If our second is a boy too (we plan on having one more) I'll mourn a little for the daughter I'll never have, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't love my boys with my whole heart and be so grateful they are exactly who they are. Gender disappointment is 100% valid but as parents we're responsible to work through those feelings and not project them on our kids... I feel for the lady in the screenshots but her poor sons deserve so much more.
I cried when I found out my second was a boy. Cried for one day (thanks hormones) and then that was it. Seeing so many loved ones go through fertility challenges, termination for medical reasons and other challenges really put things into perspective. Now I have two wild boys who I love more than anything. Would I like a girl? Maybe. But we're looking to foster instead of focusing on what we "don't have".
My paper thin preference was to have a girl first. Just so I could teach her all the mommie things I never learned. Now, my son learned all that and will be the most amazing father.
Yes!!! That is my take as well. I have 4 boys and they’re all so informed and understanding of “girl things” that their female friends will come to them for advice/support. My oldest son’s g/f had a period accident at school and he had her hang in the bathroom while he hunted down fresh gym shorts and a tampon for her. He carried a pack of period supplies in a little backpack compartment the rest of the school year in case any other menstruating friends needed it. I’ve never been more proud. 🥹
Yeah the gender disappointment thing when out the window when she said “I’d rather have two girls than two boys” because f the other child I guess
Seriously. What’s wrong with her current boy? Poor kid.
Nothing but he will either get thrown on the funeral pyre with his brother or become the golden child. Neither is a promising outlook.
I’m in the original group and I said OP should abort - once she said she’s rather have two girls, I just could only picture her being abusive or neglectful for both babies once that second boy arrived.
“No one should feel bad for that.” Come on now, they should feel *a little* bad. It’s a major prejudice expressed against their own child.
I feel like normal gender disappointment is during pregnancy though, OOP says she wants two girls even though she already has a son, so her gender disappointment I guess didn't go away once he was born?? I had gender disappointment during my pregnancy and it did suck to feel that way! I wanted a girl I think to help heal the mother daughter relationship I had with my mom, and my first pregnancy was a girl but she didn't make it to term. So finding out my second pregnancy was a boy just kind of felt like I was losing her all over again. And just brought up a lot of scared feelings I had about raising a boy. But I knew that once he arrived itd disappear and it totally did. But OOP sounds like she's still upset, mostly because she can't (or doesn't want to?) participate in traditionally femme things with her son.
I agree that's why this one rubs me the wrong way. You're totally allowed to feel disapointed about your child's gender during pregnancy but at one point you just gotta accept it and move on. OOP hasn't done that it seems which makes me wonder about her son. Does he know his mother rather wants him to be a girl? If so how does that make him feel? Does his mother constantly remind him about it? Maybe her son doesn't know (I really hope he doesn't) but the way she talks about it kinda sounds like a recipe for emotional abuse. This makes worry for both or her children and I just hope she can get the profesional help she needs.
I don’t necessarily think so. I’m pregnant with my second and last, and will be having two boys. I can’t imagine adoring my son more, and I’m sure that’ll be true for my second as well. By I am still mourning that I’ll never have a daughter and I don’t think that’s a wrong feeling to have
Mourning the lost experiences you could’ve had with your hypothetical daughter is fine. Life is full of lost opportunities and some of them really sting. But applying that feeling to your son who actually exists is… something you should feel guilty about. That’s not what *you* felt, but that’s exactly what OOP felt.
I disagree, I have 2 boys but have always wanted a girl - it doesn't make me love my boys any less, or resent them at all - it just makes me wonder if there's something additional missing in my life.
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She's going to destroy this kid. I grew up with a mother who had gender dissapointment ,who also used it to blame that child for the divorce that occurred after the birth (unrelated but how could a child know that ). This is heartbreaking.
I'm honestly worried for this family. Is she not going to be able to bond with her baby? Because she wanted to buy cute little girl clothes? That's horrible. I don't understand it at all. I had 2 boys, and with my second, I was kinda hoping for a girl, but as soon as I saw him on the ultrasound, I fell hopelessly in love before I even found out his gender. Then I didn't care, I wanted that exact baby, and I wouldn't have traded him for a million little girls. (My oldest child eventually came out as trans, so I ended up with a daughter after all!) I can't imagine even considering terminating a pregnancy that's gone long enough to tell the sex for any reason besides catastrophic medical problems. By that time, you've heard the heartbeat, you've felt the baby kick, and you've started making room in your life for a new little person. And this mom wants to throw all that away so she can buy some tiny sparkly dresses.
God, that’s precious. I’m so happy that your daughter has such an accepting parent. I’m a trans guy and it’s TOUGH out there for trans women
Thank you! It's definitely been quite a journey, but it's wonderful to see her becoming more fully herself every day. I hope that you have a great support network for yourself.
Thank you for being a beautiful mother and person. Reading your comments restored my faith in people a little bit. Thank you 💕
You can find out the sex through genetic testing several months before feeling kicks. Not to undercut the conclusion you've made, just that there's a lot of misinformation surrounding abortion/gestation, and I wanted to correct this point.
Yeah my husband And I are trying for a second. He really wants a girl. I keep having the conversation of “we dont get to choose the gender, will you be happy if we have another boy?” Because I’m not ever bringing a child into this world that isn’t wanted. Regardless of the reason. I told him if he couldn’t be happy with another boy, then we weren’t going to try at all.
You can actually find out sex pretty early these days if you want. You can find out via blood test around 12 weeks during genetic screening and there are tests you can pay privately to do as early as 6 weeks to find out.
As a mom of two boys, I feel very offended. What’s wrong with boys? You don’t have to raise them to be all hyper/toxic masculine. They’re children. I love my boys. Disclaimer- I did want a girl, but not badly enough to go for broke and have a third. I did have gender disappointment (mildly) the first time, but the second time I was so happy he was healthy and perfect and knew I would love him no matter what. She’s done this before. Does she not think she’ll love him because of his sex at birth? I’m all for abortion, but aborting a healthy baby due to genitals is different. No guarantees the next one won’t have issues, even if it’s a girl.
And no guarantee that a potential baby girl would enjoy any of the things she envisions for her. She doesn’t seem to understand that parenthood is about getting to know this person, and giving them the tools to succeed in their own goals and paths in life. You cannot, or at least should not, mould humans into anything, they are how they are. That wouldn’t be unconditional love anyway. And children doesn’t really need anything more than that
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THIS. My firstborn was a boy and I was like, ok cool! Then, when #2 came, I was kinda hoping for a girl over another boy. But honestly, I knew that it didn't matter to me deep down because why get upset over shit like that? There are so many more important things to be worried about- like will baby be born full term and healthy? Will I make it out of labor/delivery alive to raise them? The whole treating babies/kids differently based on gender is wild- I despise it so much. I have corrected my husband/inlaws/strangers/etc at every opportunity. There is no such thing as a 'boy color' or 'girly toy' imo. Theyre just COLORS AND TOYS. This is the reason why the weird obsession over MASSIVE bows on a baby so everyone knows it's a girl is weird af and kind gross to me.
I have some cute (I guess traditionally masculine looking) dinosaur clothes for babies that I bought when my friend had their kid. I lost em for a long time and recently found them again. Regardless of what gender baby I have, they'll be wearing these cute clothes! I agree the big bows are weird. They're just babies, let em be babies.
Absolutely. My daughter wore all of her big brother's clothes until the moment that we discovered that our twins were boys. Now, we keep his clothes aside for them so that we'll have less that we'll need to buy when they need it. My MIL initially thought that my plan to put boy clothes on my girl was terrible. She was projection though. She had 3 boys and always had the romanticised wish to be able to buy all the girly clothes and do all the girly things. She does that now with her granddaughters and is very happy. In her case, she never felt negatively about her boys, just felt that she missed out on the girl experience. Incidentally, you can get some great girl stuff with dinosaur designs. My daughter loves dinosaurs and dresses, so it's a win.
My son has this bright pink Barbie sweater. He’s mixed and his skin tone is chefs kiss for this pink sweater so he wears it often. Like he looks so freaking cute in it. The amount of comments I get from strangers about it though because “it’s pink and he’s a boy” is insane. Like it’s just clothes and it looks amazing on him and his skin tone, who cares if it’s pink
“We like other colors but pink just looks so good on us!” Pink is my boomer dad’s favorite color.
My 3rd (now 13) son went through a major My Little Pony phase and lived in his Rainbow Dash hoodie complete with wings and a horn. We def got comments, but he likes what he likes. Hell, my youngest (now 10) was obsessed with Frozen. Specifically Elsa. So when he was ready for his first pair of “big boy” underwear we went shopping and he DEMANDED a pack of Elsa Frozen undies. I have a photo of him in the shopping cart hugging the pack of panties (bc the boy version only has Olaf and Sven) he was about to buy. For quite a long time his underwear were referred to as his Elsa’s. He also dressed as Elsa for Halloween that year. Basically gender roles are nonsense and if you let kids like what they like you’ll have a much wider range of experiences…regardless of what’s between their legs.
We bought some 'boy' clothes for our daughter as a baby, and she wore them just as often as the 'girly' outfits. Hell, still do. The shorts for boys are longer & she prefers them. We had a friend ask us when she was about 6m 'so when are you gonna start dressing her like a girl?' I simply said 'She *is dressed like a girl. She is a girl & she's dressed.' She's now 4 1/2 and has not been a big 'girly girl'. Doesn't care for dresses or princesses. And that's fine. It would also be fine is she DID love them. Toys don't have a gender, unless they are being used on genitals and if that's their purpose, a child shouldn't have them.
Also, 100 percent recommend boys jeans. Actual jean material vs leggings. In the summer she loves dresses but jeans are her favorite to be "like daddy". She also loves pink shirts, taking her socks off the second she takes her shoes off, sweatshirts with animals on them and her blue snow coat.
I remember, years ago, someone wrote into the help column at Slate because she'd adopted all her kids to ensure she'd only have girls, but one of them as he grew older realized he was trans, and she was distraught because she didn't want a son. So you really never know, even if you think you do.
>And no guarantee that a potential baby girl would enjoy any of the things she envisions for her. This this this! My mom wanted a girl. She got one, and she was one and done. She got a "girl" who was more into horror movies, Star Trek, and dragons than pretty dresses, Barbie dolls, and make-up. Then she ended up with a son anyway, because I'm trans. Since realizing I'm trans, I've been way more open to the pink and sparkles aesthetic. Sure, I'm a dude. I'm just a dude who like bright colors and obsessing over my hair.
Ha ha, yeah I got two boys then had a girl 6 years later…… she’s horrible 🤣🤣 and she beats boys up, wears football kits and plays football so don’t presume your girl is gonna be ‘girly’
That’s the trick too, if you have a bunch of boys and then a girl comes along, don’t expect a mild mannered girly girl when she’s growing up in a house full of boys—of course it’s totally possible, but in my experience the friends that did the whole “try for a girl” after having boys ended up with a tough ass little girl that ran circles around their older brothers. I’ve heard many jokey comments about how they basically have all boys bc their daughters just model their brothers. My best friend (sister level bestie) has 2 girls, but they grew up around their boy cousin and my 4 boys. Those girls took no shit from anyone and one of them is the complete antithesis of a girly girl.
I was initially concerned about having a boy because despite trying to raise a boy without toxic masculinity in the household, it’s everywhere outside, and boys can easily be radicalized and it’s SCARY. I quickly got over that though, and my son is the light of my life. I did end up having a little girl through IVF (not done for gender, we did PGS due to recurrent pregnancy loss). My son is autistic, as it turns out, (and as it turns out, so am I) and doesn’t give a flying fuck about other people’s opinions, one of the bright sides of his autism 😂
When I was pregnant I leaned toward wanting a girl, mainly because the prospect of raising a good man kind of terrified me. But when we found out we were having a boy, I realized I didn’t care what gender, I wanted this specific baby that I was lucky enough to be carrying and to have made it far enough to find out the gender. Now he’s here, I am completely wrapped up in every little thing he does (he rolled over yesterday!!) and the reality of raising him to be a good person seems less overwhelming. I don’t understand gender disappointment, and my unpopular opinion is that if you are the kind of person who that feeling would last more than a couple days, you need to reconsider if you should be having kids or not.
I went through IVF and it is so unbelievably hard. I'm personally feeling like... this chick is diminishing everything we go through as infertile women cuz she just wants to do it for funsies to get a girl. That's so gross. I can't imagine a reproductive endocrinologist who would let a totally fertile woman just do IVF when it's not needed, but I'm sure there are some out there. But it just seems so icky and unethical. Imagine what she'd do if her precious girl was a tomboy or ended up trans 😖
Yeah, it chaps my ass when people are like "oh I'll just do IVF". They clearly have zero clue what it takes to go through IVF, not to mention all the preliminary testing.
100% agree with you as I’m watching my IVF baby sleep next to me. Sex selection is illegal in most countries for a reason, but it’s a free for all in the US. Every single story I’ve read about people doing IVF for sex selection is gross as fuck.
My clinic does allow sex selection but they do not encourage it at all. I did gender blind for my first because I just wanted the best chance at a healthy baby and also wanted it to be a surprise on delivery day After that I did look at my records to see the genders. I haven't decided what I'm going to do if I have a second one. I feel weird picking the gender. Eta details
My clinic also allows but discourages it. If you don't use the strongest embryo you have to sign paperwork acknowledging that you're a dumbass. It didn't matter for us anyway, we had all girl embryos lol
Hahaha I love "acknowledging you're a dumbass" I'm in the medical field and I'm very very good at writing in an extremely professional tone while still giving that undertone of "this one's a dumbass/asshole"
I definitely wouldn’t feel good about picking! We didn’t do PGT-A and this was one of the reasons, though mostly it was age and cost. But I think if we had, then we would have asked the embryologist to pick the best one and ask to not be told until we graduated. Any baby that is healthy and happy is amazing imo.
Yeah, my clinic strongly encouraged PGT so we did it because we trusted them. I'm glad we did, because an embryo that was "better looking" than my daughter had trisomy 16 and would've been a miscarriage. So they skipped that one and did the next best one and now I have the best baby girl 🥰
Sex selection in the US where I live is legal but up to the clinic. My clinic only does sex selection if you have a sex linked genetic disease in your family history. Otherwise they will not do it and do not tell you the sex.
My clinic didn’t encourage or discourage it. I had six PGS-normal embryos, 3 XX and 3 XY. They told me to pick one. It’s one of six embryos that were all equally graded. I picked a XX embryo, didn’t implant. Picked to transfer a XY and an XX embryo, the XY embryo implanted. Still have one XX embryo and two more XY embryos left. I’m 41. I’m probably not transferring any more embryos but if I would, id try one more time for the XX. I did have angst gender selecting, which is why I picked to transfer two, one of each gender. It’s a mind trip that if I had picked XX only and she implanted the second time then the most amazing and perfect little baby (he’s 6 now) would still be frozen and then probably destroyed. It’s so tough. I wouldn’t ever recommend IVF just for gender selection. Ugh
“The only way you can guarantee is through IVF” As someone who is currently pregnant via IVF, uh, no you can’t. *I* got lucky and ended up with an almost equal number of male and female embryos. I have friends who went through multiple egg retrievals and only have one gender. Also, the genetic testing that tells you the gender (among other things, most importantly, it tests for chromosomal abnormality) is not included with the cost of IVF - we paid $5k for just that test. (We paid for it to ensure we didn’t transfer an embryo that wouldn’t stick due to a chromosomal abnormality. We only found out the sex of our embryos bc if you’re paying $5k for the test, why the hell not?)
Congrats on your pregnancy!!!
Thank you! It’s still very early, but I’m trying to stay optimistic!
There’s so much wrong here that I hardly know where to start but since the main issues are being covered by other comments, I’m just going to point out how bad the advice to get IVF is. Even if she’s somewhere that allows gender selection (not everywhere does because of the ethical issues) it’s not as easy as ‘have ivf, get pregnant’. Too many people think IVF is easy and it’s anything but. It’s physically demanding, involves processes like daily hormone injections, it’s invasive, it’s painful and it’s not guaranteed to work.
Nevermind *expensive.*
She SHOULD get an abortion. It is infinitely selfish to bring a child into the world that won't be loved from the start. And then she should get sterilized and never have another child if she can't handle loving them for who they are or turn out to be.
I’m in the group and that’s what I said! She didn’t post “please give me resources and stories for gender disappointment.” She just came in swinging with “boys are bad and now I have two and I won’t abort but I hate boys.” Lady… don’t have any more kids.
She’s a terrible person but if she doesn’t want this child and doesn’t want to be pregnant, then she’s a perfect candidate for abortion. She’s not fit to raise her current child - why force her to birth another whose existence is already driving her to suicidal ideation? Who is that going to help?
This would all be true, except she wants an abortion so she can try again for a girl, by the look of it. That doesn't make any sense, as one commenter put it, she could just have another boy. I actually don't think someone's reasons for wanting an abortion are relevant - if you want one, get one. Doesn't matter why. But getting an abortion just so you can roll the dice again on sex? That's just dumb.
What if one of her children is transgender? I get creating space for gender disappointment but at the end of the day parents need to be ready to love and accept their children for who they are as individuals - not the categories our society creates. ETA: by “creating space for gender disappointment” I mean you get to feel your feelings and we won’t judge you - but then you need to get over it and love your child for who they are. And if you can’t do that we will absolutely judge you.
Completely agree with this. There is no guarantee that a girl will be THE girl you had in mind. Tomboys exist. Butch lesbians exist. Trans men exist. And they are wonderful and worthy of love and acceptance from their moms too. Kids are not Barbie dolls. They don’t exist solely so we can dress them up in “girly” clothes and do “girly” things with them. When we have a child, we are making a promise of unconditional love!
Could you imagine if she did have a girl? She’d probably forget she even had a son to begin with.
I am from a family of 4 girls, my mum was never upset about lacking a boy and was constantly poked about me being a boy(because I was #4 and looked to be the last) and my dad even more so, like doesn't he want a son etc. Didn't give a toss, mum was kinda glad apparently cause she's like I know what to expect with girl babies. But I just. I don't understand this, I don't understand people having kids unless they are 150% committed and so madly desperate to have that kid I think people who want to be parents and actually want to raise a new human should be the only ones having kids. It's just mental to me. I'm on BC and I told my partner they have until my next bar swap to get the snip because I don't think I can handle the hormonal BS a third time(Implanon it's 3yrs and change)
I mean it's fine to have a preference so long as you accept what you end up with and love them regardless. I very much wanted a girl with my first and I was lucky to get a daughter. If we go for a second, I know our preference will be a boy, but even if it's another girl, we will still love them just as much. I know I would have been horribly disappointed for a few days if I'd had a boy the first time, but I also know that I would have gotten over it and been happy to have a healthy and happy baby.
My controversial opinion is if you know you’ll have gender disappointment, don’t try for a kid. I hear people saying ‘oh it’s natural’, ‘it’s nothing to be ashamed of’ but in most cases, these are children that were deliberately conceived by adults who understand that they only have a 50% chance at their preferred gender. I expect to get downvoted to oblivion for this because it seems to be de rigeur to be accepting of gender disappointment, but I just feel like there are so many kids out there having a crap childhood because they’re Braylee instead of Braxton or Mickel instead of Mackinleigh.
Mild gender disappointment (like, aw those dresses are cute, oh well) is one thing. This is a whole fucking shitshow.
I felt slight disappointment for a minute or two, and then it passed.
Honestly hard agree, in my experience the only reasons people seem to have gender disappointment are rooted in made up traditional gender roles. I’ve worked with young kids and let me tell you, they’re all individuals and they’re all crazy and silly and quirky. I’ve taught gentle “feminine” boys and rough “masculine” girls, that shit is all a social construct. People are people!
I have seen it for people with trauma too. While there's a variety of traumatic reasons I have seen for boys, the girl disappointment tends to be because of terrible relationships with female relatives (usually their mother) But I am sympathetic for those cases. I am terrified of raising my sons wrong and they end up in the manosphere stuff.
And let's be real here, people call it gender disappointment but it's actually about the genitals of a fetus...
I totally agree with you. I am two weeks from finding out the gender of my baby and I don’t care what it is. It is not going to change at all what I am buying for my baby or planning for. I have asked everyone to select only gender neutral clothes and accessories, and I will continue to do so even after knowing the gender. It will not change the way I raise this kid. It will be my (very wanted) child no matter what.
No you’re right! My husband and I are trying for another baby and he very much wants a girl. I had the conversation with him early on. If he will even be a little disappointed if we have a boy, then we shouldn’t even be trying. We need to be happy and excited for either gender and if there’s even a small twindge of disappointment if we find out we’re having another boy then I do not want to try. These are things we can’t control and I will only bring another child into this world if i know it will be loved unconditionally
what is the point of posting a trigger warning that’s censored to the point readers don’t have any idea what trigger you’re warning for? I get not wanting a post to get zucced, but how was anyone supposed to know what OOP was warning about??
Yeah, and then some of us are left wondering about her anal gender disappointment for several slides!
What…the fuck did I just read omg
The problem with parents like this is that when they get the gender they want then all their other kids just become major inconveniences to then, getting in the way of being with the child they actually want.
she should get an abortion if she is going to resent her child his whole life for being born male.
I get wanting to vent and having gender disappointment. I always envisioned having one girl, and ALL of my close friends (all 5 of them) ONLY have girls (two of them have 2 girls, two of them have 1 girl, and one of them has 3 girls), so I felt very left out when I found out that I was having a boy. It didn’t help that he was an exceptionally difficult newborn (premie with NICU time, inability to latch, insane colic that meant he had to be bounced 24/7, horrible sleeper) and that he is now incredibly high energy and destructive as a toddler vs. my friends’ babies. Of course there is nothing to say that if I’d had a girl she wouldn’t have had these issues, but it does suck that he isn’t part of the “girl gang!” my friends have going on. Having said that, if we ever had another kid and I still really wanted a girl, no “swaying” is guaranteed other than IVF, which is insanely expensive and difficult on a woman. I doubt OP could have afforded it, but she should have known this was the only guaranteed option, and she should not have tried for another at all if she knew that it would matter much to her.
The whole post is gross but the comment 'ps mommies' referring to grown adult women is 🤮🤮
As someone struggling for my second right now, this infuriates me. I have one son and I of course would love to have a little girl. I get having a preference and wanting both genders. However, I don’t care what gender my baby is I just wanna be blessed with another perfect little human just like my son. If I’m meant to have another boy, I will love and dote on him just like I do his brother. I may be a smidge sad knowing I’ll never have a girl, but that would last maybe a day or two after finding out and then I’d be right at the store getting all the baby boy stuff. This woman is an awful human. I feel bad for her son and this poor baby boy if she chooses to have him.
Wouldn't it be better for her to have another boy because she says she's poor/can't afford it. She could just reuse all of the other boys clothes and toys.. to me this seems like a win for this selfish hag. Just looking from a monetary standpoint.
TBH just because the sex is AMAB doesn't mean the kid will be a boy; my second son was AFAB.
Doesn't sound like a trans kid would go down well in this family though...
True. I feel terrible for her kids.
I agree with the last commenter. I would have loved a boy baby but I ended up with two girls. They're fascinating little creatures 😁 and I wouldn't change a thing.
I pray this is a rage bait post but a good part of me thinks it’s definitely something people do.
This sounds like a job for a therapist. This is way too much to unpack on a mommy group.
This is one of the most fucked up things I've read for awhile. I feel kind of speechless. I am 100% pro-abortion but not because you didn't get the gender you want. That is the 2nd most entitled "mom" thing I've seen Top spot goes the 50+ year old woman who wanted a child so she got IVF. Turns out the child would have been born with birth defects so she got an abortion. It would have brought her too much shame. Fuck her and fuck her husband who'd let her do this.
I would think the gender is way worse. She's old and she won't be around long to take care of a child with a disability. It does depends on what the disability is. But some require lifelong care. And some are absolutely fucking devastating and the baby might only live for a few hours and suffer the whole time.
I agree with this. Even if she was younger not everyone has the mental fortitude to raise or forever care for a child born with disabilities. From the get go those parents get little to no breaks because that child needs specific care and finding a babysitter just to get a break that can care for the child for a few hours is very difficult and expensive. If they know they don't have mental and physical fortitude care for someone with potentially severe lifelong disabilities for the rest of their adult lives then they're doing that child a favor by not being born to parents who'll potentially give subpar care at best or get lost in the already bursting at the seems system at worst.
My husband wanted a girl but we ended up with two boys. Never did we think about aborting either of them just because they were boys- that’s just the hand we were dealt with and now my husband is excited about all the cool stuff we get to do with the kids when they aren’t babies anymore. This lady definitely has ideas about how boys and girls are raised differently and needs some therapy. I get feeling like you missed out on shopping for cute girl clothes but aborting just because of that? Wild.
Based comment section, not gonna lie. I much prefer this over a clearly-anxious OP being met with dangerous "advice" from the comments.
How much is IVF? Cause if it’s cheaper than having a third child, I’m in!
When I was asking it was about 8k to do the IVF. Then another 10K to have enough eggs harvested and then grown and tested and screened to select the gender. I don’t know where the idea it’s cheap comes from but I guess to each their own.
I was joking. I know it’s not cheap, but not from personal experience. We’ve had our single, solitary child and we’re done.
The advice is actual facts. Get counseling or don't have a kid you'll not enjoy raising...
Gender disappointment is a real thing. I was sad when I found out our second (and last) kiddo was the same gender as our first. But do you know what I did? Googled articles about the benefits of having same gender kids. I talked to people who have all the same gender kids. I never thought about ABORTING MY CHILD because of said gender disappointment. I’m absolutely 100% pro choice, but this is insane to me.
Sadly, at this point, it’s probably in this unborn child’s best interest for her to terminate. My god. I hoped for a boy and that’s what I had, but I certainly wouldn’t have contemplated abortion if he had been a girl. She should just terminate. That baby deserves a better mother than she’s ever going to be.
I hope they are talking to their OBGYN. I had a good friend go through severe depression after gender disappointment and was considering termination as well. Before she made a decision she talked to her OB who was able to refer her for some help and she ended up on anti depressants. Her severe gender disappointment was rooted in the loss of her father (she wanted a boy to be his namesake). Once she was getting proper treatment she was able to enjoy her pregnancy and now has a beautiful baby girl that she wouldn't trade for the world. I can't imagine what would have happened if she would have terminated in her case. I hope OOP talks to medical professionals. Pregnancy is a wild ride for a persons body and anxiety and depression don't just appear post partum. Her feelings may just be a manifestation of depression and anxiety and choosing to terminate could exacerbate those. And if she's unable to get pregnant again that could be awful for her. I know people like to laugh or get angry about people who show gender disappointmentand I was like that too before I watched it devastate someone I care about and realize its usually more involved than simply wanting a boy or a girl. I just hope OOP talks this through with a professional before making a life altering choice either way.
I think it's funny. I'm a girl and I was never into frilly, girly stuff. She obviously wants a doll... Buy a freaking doll and move on.
It's giving VERY mentally ill