Dealing with gender disappointment
By: Aishwarya Srivastava
Tags: Parenthood, Baby, Pregnancy, Gender Reveal

“Do you both want to find out the gender today?” the technician asked us. We were a few minutes in, at my 20-week ultrasound. Though the purpose of the ultrasound is to do a full anatomy scan of the baby, for most expecting parents it is about finding out the gender of their baby. My husband and I had decided that we would not keep the gender a surprise, 20 weeks already seemed like a long enough time to wait. So we answered in the affirmative. “I can tell you right now” she continued while I could only see a grainy black and white image on the screen. She re-positioned her wand to show us what she could already see and exclaimed “Its a boy”. Lying down in that bed my eyes teared up before I even fully processed what she had said. I couldn’t bring myself to respond to her and continued staring at the screen.

Ultrasounds were supposed to be this magical time when you get a peep into your baby and see what he/she is up to. And my previous two ultrasounds were. I remember the first one, if you think love at first sight is nonsense wait till you see the first image of your baby. Our baby looked like Casper the friendly ghost and I remember feeling so proud that he was growing ahead of his estimated date by a day (yes that is a silly thing to be proud of) in spite of me being really sick and throwing up a lot. During our second ultrasound he was bouncing up and down in the beginning and when he went to sleep no amount of poking or prodding would wake him up. We treasured every second of these visits. In contrast, I barely paid attention to what she was saying this time. My mind was a million miles away.

I had always wanted a girl. We were going to have mommy and me matching outfits, tea parties, go shopping and to the spa and have long brunches. I am very close to my mom and we had a lot of fun planning my wedding together and that was everything I thought I was going to enjoy with my baby. And suddenly it felt like somehow all these things I never had to begin with were taken away from me.

I remember after my first ultrasound when I accidentally referred to my baby as a ‘he’ I was sure I would be happy either way even though I had a clear preference for a girl. So more than disappointment I think my overwhelming feeling was shock at the disappointment. After all, all I am supposed to want is a happy healthy baby. When you go to the doctor to confirm your pregnancy they first check with you if you planned for the baby before congratulating you. But no one revealing the sex of your baby asks you how you feel about the sex; you are expected to be happy either way. What kind of a parent was I that I was unhappy for something that was under no one’s control especially not the baby. Instead of enjoying the few precious minutes watching my little one I was just being sad. At least I managed to keep note of whether his growth was on track.

On our way back my husband tried to cheer me up but I assured him that while I was a little disappointed I would get over it soon enough. But I didn’t. Over the next few days just about everything from looking at clothes for baby boys online to the fact that we had several candidate names for a girl but none for a boy brought on waves of disappointment.

Logically I knew I was being silly. I was extrapolating the sex of the baby into a whole personality: and what I had lost was this little girl who loved playing with barbies and wanted me to read Beauty and the Beast to her. I could have had a daughter who was totally the opposite of that and a tomboy. And I was assuming my little boy would be destructive, loud and happily causing fake accidents with his cars because that is what I had seen my cousins and brother do. It baffled me then and continues to baffle me now why for instance they preferred to forcibly plunge their cars into the river in Midtown Madness instead of actually driving it on the road to the finish line. But my baby boy needn’t be like that. And even if he is, my brother and cousins have grown up to be such caring sensitive adults. Also with a high chance he would be like my husband who I think is pretty amazing. So I knew my worries/disappointment had no rational basis but the heart wants what the heart wants.

Two things happened in the next couple of weeks that drastically changed how I felt. I chanced upon a blog of a couple who had lost their full term baby. Pregnancy is a time of exciting things, there are milestones to look forward to and while there is an undercurrent of worry that the baby should be healthy, after the first few months, everyone just assumes that things will work out. There is so much planning and preparation for this new addition to your life. It was gut wrenching to read about their traumatic experience and in that moment I knew that the ONLY thing that mattered was that our baby was going to be born healthy.

I also felt him move for the first time; not just flutters but proper “I am sure this is my baby moving” movements. And it was magical. I think in a gender reveal ultrasound, the baby is reduced to a binary variable: boy or girl. But in reality, they are so much more that that. It is everything from what their nose looks like to their unique personalities and feeling our baby move just reminded me of how much we didn’t know about him and what all we have to look forward to. It also helped me bond in a more tangible way and realize what all the reasoning in the world had failed to do: that I was already so in love with this little person inside of me and I didn’t really care whether it was a boy or a girl!