I used to be disillusioned once I discovered I used to be having a son. Before you choose me, learn my story… I do know so many ladies in the identical scenario
‘I didn’t want a boy.’ The words tumbled out just after my 20-week scan – at which I’d found out the sex of my first baby – as I was telling a close friend the news.
In the wide-eyed silence that ensued, I instantly wanted to take them back.
Because we’re not supposed to say that, are we? Especially when the sonographer had just told me I was going to have a son.
When it comes to pregnancy, there’s only one socially acceptable response to questions about the baby’s sex: ‘I don’t mind, as long as it’s healthy.’ And of course, that’s true. But for many parents, it isn’t the whole truth.
As a psychotherapist, and mother of three, I’ve lost count of messages I’ve received that begin the same way: ‘I know this sounds terrible, but…’
Whether the sender ‘really wanted a girl’ or had their ‘heart set on a boy’, the words are tinged with apology, as though the feeling itself needs to be corrected.
Because though gender preference is far more common than we admit, it is rarely spoken about honestly, resulting in it feeling like a shameful secret.
Why did I have such strong feelings on the gender of my baby?
Whether the parent ‘really wanted a girl’ or had their ‘heart set on a boy’, the admission is tinged with apology, writes Anna Mathur
Though gender preference is far more common than we admit, it is rarely spoken about honestly, resulting in it feeling like a shameful secret
Honestly, the idea of a boy scared me. Some of my relationships with male family members have been somewhat dysfunctional, and I feared that a son would, one day, reject me.
A daughter felt safer; I assumed we’d be similar and share the same interests. My heart yearned for a mini-me.
But I kept this to myself, not even confiding in my husband, who had never expressed his own preference.
So when I was told I was having a boy, my heart sunk into my flip-flops with a guilty kerplunk. But I stuck on a doting smile, wanting to prove to the sonographer and my husband that I was a good, happy Mum.
The disappointment, happily, soon dissipated. I began to daydream again, this time with a cheeky boy in place of the girl I’d longed for. By the time my son was born, I was filled with adoration.
The second time around, crippling morning sickness led everyone to proclaim ‘it must be a girl’. However, back in the sonographer’s room she pointed out the very clear boy parts. I actually laughed – a sign that my previous desires were losing their grip.
But while I grinned at the joy of another healthy baby, on arriving at a friend’s house later that day she gave me a huge hug and my eyes welled up as I was hit with a flash of grief that, now, I may never have a daughter. During my early pregnancies I felt the need to hide my wish for a girl, but by my third – already a mother of two young boys – people began to make their own assumptions.
Friends and family would ask whether we had ‘tried again for a girl’. One friend had even suggested timing sex specifically to ensure the baby would be female (ironically, I dropped my ovulation stick down the toilet not long after, so there was no timing anything).
Though by then I was at peace with the idea of three boys, I had strong suspicions I was carrying a girl. When I found out I was right it felt like the cherry on top of an already wonderful cake.
By then I’d realised something important. Me not wanting a son was never about my baby, and who they might be, it was about what I believed I might be like as a boy’s mother.
And sharing these feelings with other mums has helped me see that it doesn’t make us ‘terrible’ if we initially carry these kind of assumptions.
After all, emotions don’t obey moral codes. The important thing is what we do once our baby is born.
Me not wanting a son was never about my baby, and who they might be, it was about what I believed I might be like as a boy’s mother
Indeed, I laughed when my own mother told me she’d hoped for a boy. But when I was placed on her chest as her first-born and declared a girl, she realised my sex was irrelevant, saying: ‘I wanted you. You just happened to be a girl.’
Still, it’s possible to be overwhelmed with love for what you have, and still experience grief for what wasn’t to be.
In my work as a therapist, I meet parents who still carry a sense of disappointment when reality doesn’t match what they had hoped for.
For most, these feelings are fleeting. But if they begin to shape how we connect with our child, it’s worth gently paying attention. Because often, these reactions are not about the child in front of us, but something deeper: a belief, a memory, a past experience.
We don’t choose our children. But we do get to know them, love them and grow alongside them. And more often than not, it’s the letting go of what we thought parenting would be like that makes space for something even better.
