The reason I am now actually posting about this topic isn't because of a certain "judgemental", "patronising", "shameful" "hormonal rant" - not my words btw - because I didn't even read that comment myself.
I post from a blogger app so there are no comments to read as far as I am aware (apologies for the friendly hellos I might have missed).
The reason that I have changed my mind is because someone who I had considered a friend decided to contact me directly to shun me and my involuntary reaction and I figure that maybe there are others who are similarly "disappointed in me after everything I have been through".
It seems that there are those who expect others to control and censor their feelings to keep them within the realms of excessive gratitude for overcoming infertility and perceived gender disappointment apparently does not satisfy these conditions.
To start, I would like to point out that even after 6 fresh ICSI cycles that I do not find myself perched on any sort of pedestal. I do not feel that infertility is worse than the issues others suffer, I do not believe I wanted my child more than others, I do not regard my child to be a miracle and i do not expect any special treatment or curtsies from others.
Similarly, I do not feel that I owe it to anyone, not to my child and certainly not to strangers, to stifle how I react to any given situation.
To clarify, I *preferred* a girl and my husband *preferred* a boy. We got a girl.
Therefore, clearly my sadness was not in relation to the baby being a girl because I got exactly what I wanted.
We are chasing our ideal family life, not a baby, and that ideal consists of a handful of children in which case you assume you'd get at least one of each gender at some point and in that situation the gender would have been a complete non-issue - for the first born at least!
Unfortunately because of just how difficult our situation is (aww) and how hard we had to work at getting our miracle (oops!) we have to accept that maybe we will only get one child and in that situation we unavoidably find ourselves clinging to the specifics of why we want children. I had visions of being mother of the bride, shopping trips, spas and having the grand kids around all the time (more likely with daughters) whereas my husband had visions of doing all the rough and tumble sports he likes such as rugby and mountain biking.
My husband is the one who was never expected to have children and we had even taken to calling the embryo a boy all this time, perhaps I didn't mind because I wanted him to be content - I don't know.
When we cut into that cake and discovered it was a girl, I didn't see my happiness I just perceived my husbands sadness and reacted to that. Everything that I have been through with infertility has been for my husband and it would appear that it extends to the pregnancy also.
My husband immediately assured me that he was still happy and she could still mountain bike and he even informed me she had more chance of being a world champion as a girl *sigh*.
If people cannot comprehend someone being sad for a person they love before before being happy for themselves, well that is a very selfish person indeed who I'd suggest doesn't know what love is at all.
Even if I give those people who reacted in a negative way to my account of our gender reveal the benefit of the doubt that they misinterpreted my feelings on the gender of our child, I still find their response to be unforgivable.
If I've heard "as long as the baby is healthy" once, I've heard it too many times. No one has suggested that they would opt for a sick child over a child of the wrong gender. No one has prioritised gender above health. No abortions will be taking place. They simply take the good health for granted and express a preference in gender. Not acknowledging their feelings doesn't make them go away.
I know someone who has a handful of kids of the same gender and was still desperately chasing a child of the other gender while i was looking at never having children. The fact that we are struggling for our first child while they are popping out several with ease is irrelevant - the bottom line is that we are both yearning for something to complete us. That sense of desperation is the same in both of us.
I am just as guilty of not being entirely satisfied with all the wonderful things that I do have in my life as she is so who am I to judge or belittle them?
Anyway, so those are my feelings on the topic. Please feel free to leave all your venom in the comments section where I won't be reading them anyway.
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