This entry is going to get real, real fast. If this blog ever shows up in 10 or 15 years, my dearest son, my first born child, I am sorry.
I have always dreamed of having a little girl. I have boxes and buckets full of Barbies, and old stuffed animals, and pink little tykes toys. I know about dresses, and dolls, and how to French braid. I don’t know how to be a boy mom. I don’t want to be a boy mom. At least, I wanted to be a little girls mom first. And my heart hurts. It hurts for myself, and for this child that I kept dreaming you were. But most importantly, it hurts for you, my son. It hurts because I’m afraid I’m not going to love you like I should. That I will always wish you were a child that you were not meant to be.
I had a feeling you were a boy. I remember, weeks and weeks and weeks ago, looking at girl nurseries and then figuring I should probably look at boy nurseries too. And I was actually getting excited about boy things. It was probably the first time in my life that I was excited to be looking at something baby boy related. And I remember at that moment, thinking you were a boy. But then things changed, and I would see little girls dresses and outfits with kitties and flowers and I fell in love again. I feel in love with the thought of having a little girl. And I guess in the back of my mind, I always knew you were going to be a boy, but I pushed that so far out of my mind, because all I wanted was a little girl. Her nursery was planned, and she had a name, and I knew exactly what clothes I was going to go to Kohls and buy. And then blue confetti came out of the balloon. And my heart broke over this non existent child that I created in my mind.
My son, you do not have a name. I don’t even want to go look at boy clothes. I don’t want to like sports, or trucks, or trains, or cars. And you don’t deserve that. I don’t feel connected to you. I don’t feel like you belong to me. I don’t feel pregnant any more. I just feel, empty.
I was honestly terrified of how I would feel if blue confetti came out. I just didn’t want to even think about it. Pink confetti, it has to be pink. I was going to get showered with pink, and I would jump up and down and cry and be so excited. But the pink confetti still sits in its bag, probably now in the dumpster at Party City. My little girl, you never existed. You were never real. You were just the child I dreamed of but were never actually mine.
And that moment when the blue confetti came down, my only thought was, how will I ever get my little girl? Will I have to adopt, will I have to unfreeze my embryos and pay to have them genetically tested? Will I just have to give up and accept the fact that I might never have a girl. My son, I was not excited about you, and you were not my first thought. And again, I am sorry.
The past several years, I have questioned why things have happened in my life the way they have. Why did I, of all people, have to go through IVF? Why couldn’t life just go as planned? Why did we have to go through infertility treatments, and heartache after heartache, month after month? And even after all of that, why do my dreams just have to crushed once again? Why do other people get to have their dreams come true? I can’t log onto pinterest without being bombarded by little girl outfits. I can’t get on to Facebook without seeing all the little pink things.
My son, you’ve heard and felt me sob for hours upon hours. I feel like as your mom, I’ve already let you down. I don’t deserve you. But I love you. And you might now know that just yet, and I know it doesn’t seem like it. But I love you. I need to mourn the loss of the child I thought you were, and I’m hoping one day soon I will be able to feel the love of knowing I am having a son. But for now, I am sad. Know that one day, I hope I will be able to give you a little sister. And I hope that I will be able to love you both equally. I have to love you for being the little boy that you are. I’m afraid, son. I’m afraid of the feelings I’m going to have for the remainder of this pregnancy. I am afraid that when I give birth to you, that I am once again going to be sad you are who you are. I am afraid that I will look at you and wish you were a child that you’re not. I am so afraid of having all of these feelings, and not giving you the love you deserve.
To my son, I hope you will be able to forgive me. I hope that you will be able to love me to your fullest, and you will feel that love given back to you.
“I’ll love you forever, I’ll like you for always. As long as I’m living, my baby you’ll be.”
Meet the Applegates 
Thank you for being so brave and admitting this. I appreciate your willingness to speak openly and honestly about something that so many deal with secretly. I think you’ll be an amazing mom. You proved that when you admitted it was unfair to him for you to feel this way. You proved that by being honest with yourself and others about your faults and then being willing to change. I really admire this. So here’s to you raising an incredible man who defies cultural expectations. Here’s to future Mr. Applegate who will be a gentleman, hero, supporter, and kind-heart. I know you’ll do an awesome job. Go raise the kind of man you want your daughter to someday marry. ❤
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Thank you darling 🙂 I was very overwhelmed by these emotions, but I have always felt the need to be honest not only with myself but with the world. I did a lot of soul searching today, spent some time talking with my little man. I’m still hurting, but I’m healing. Your support means so much 💚
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Play with dolls and barbies with your son! Teach him to be warm and loving and nurturing! We only create “gender” as a society. This child will be whoever it is going to be. Embrace every minute. I have also had a miscarriage and I would be thrilled to be pregnant at all! Leave the stigma behind and just play with your child and forget about the other crap. It’s clothes and toys and literally just “stuff.” I hope you get through this hard time. In no way am I trying to be insensitive, just trying to give a different view point. And definitely seek the help of a counselor if these feelings don’t resolve soon. There is no reason to suffer or spend the rest of your pregnancy being upset. Just know that this child is going to be whoever he or she is going to bee, regardless of what genitalia it was assigned.
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Thank you! I did a lot of time today crying, but I also spent time talking to my little boy, apologizing to him and asking for his forgiveness. I just needed to work through my emotions, and I’m getting there! Your support is highly valued 💚
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I think this is probably something many people deal with and I’m so sorry for some of the hateful things people are saying. Way to go for being so brave to tell people how you are feeling!
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Thank you! I never wrote this to be brave, just not to bottle these feelings up. I know that if I feel them, someone else feels them too and just might not feel comfortable expressing them. You’re support is amazing 💛
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I’m so tired of reading such awful comments to a post where a woman is just trying to be honest and share her story. All of you should be ashamed of yourselves! If you don’t like it, don’t read it. If you don’t agree with her, don’t read her blog. Trying and actually having a baby is hard. As I’m sure you guys know. Its even harder when you have to sit around hiding your emotions because of shitty, judgmental people that don’t know how to be adults and stop shaming people they don’t even know. You guys need to learn to keep your mouths shut when you don’t have anything nice today. Clearly you weren’t taught that and I’m sure everyone would like for you guys to do us all a favor and please, for the love of god, instill that in your children. This world has enough evil. We don’t need it spilling out of your mouths and you passing that on. You guys may not like or agree with what she has to say and that’s ok. You’re entitled to your opinion but its people like you guys that are making this world worse. Just read and move on. If you like it, great! Come back and read more. If you don’t that’s fine too but the whole world doesn’t need to know that some bitch sitting in front of a computer got offended and now feels the world must know her issue. Trust me, you can’t be THAT interesting. Learn to deal with your judgmental thoughts on your own. Us normal, sympathetic people don’t have time to hold your hand. We’re too busy fixing the shit you guys just LOVE to stir up.
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I have been TTC for 4 years and have gone through two IVF cycles. Our second was successful, but I miscarried at 8 weeks. I found out it was a boy after testing. I have to say this post makes me so sad and emotional. I would do anything to have carried my baby boy full term. I could care less about the sex of my child and this is disheartening to read that you have this view point as someone who has also undergone treatment. If you were so set on a girl why didn’t you PGS test so you could do gender selection? This post is just unreal to me.
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I was so fired up I forgot to leave my email in case you had a response.
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I just responded, not sure if it showed up. My email is in the “about me” section, if you would like to have a further discussion. I have a decent amounts of comments blocked on my page as they were extremely hateful, and that I will not tolerate. If you are interested in having an adult discussion though, I would be happy to engage with you. I know my post had triggered people, both negatively and positively and I think it’s a topic that should be discussed
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Hello! Thanks for taking the time out of your day to read my story. I’m sorry you felt disheartened by my post. A few things on that topic. This was written about 15 hours after we had our party and found out the gender. Did you know that gender dissapointment is a very real emotion and struggle that many women face? In a study reported by the “today show”, over 7000 women were surveyed and 55% of them admitted they had gender dissapointment and it took longer then they expected to cope with it. 18% of women said they experienced gender dissapointment but it went away quickly. I completely understand loss, I myself had a misscarriage last april/may, and I did take a very long journey to get to this pregnancy. But that doesn’t mean that I’m not going to experience normal emotions that other pregnant women go through. Now, 2.5 weeks later, I’m at peace with having a boy, he has more clothes then my husband, he has a name, and a nursery that is getting put together. I have loved him before he was created, and I loved him in my moment of weakness. But these emotions are real, and I fully support being honest and open with your emotions. I didn’t want then to happen, but they did, I grieved, I coped, and I’m completely happy with having a boy now.
In regards to doing the PGS testing, a major portion was money- after going through IVF we simply didn’t have the money left over to do any testing, and my husband wanted things to be “as natural as possible with IVF” and I agreed and supported our decision. On the same token, my clinic is very strick about the embryos the select to implant. They WILL NOT tell you the gender of the embryo (if you did PGS testing) until your first ultrasound. They do not let you select the gender to implant, and simply just select the best looking one. We do have 3 embryos left. And one day I do hope to have more children and I hope I will be able to have the chance of having a daughter. But for now, we are focusing on this pregnancy, the birth of my son, and some day down the road we will discuss our options for having another child.
I wish you the best of luck in your journey to parenthood, the road is rough to get to that point, but let yourself have real emotions every step of the way. Pregnancy is hard. Hormones make you do crazy things. And I can only imagine how stressful being a mom is going to be. But I’m excited to be where I am, and I hope one day you will be able to experience all of this as well- good, bad, ugly, and everything in between
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A sweet baby is a blessing. Period. If you don’t see that then frankly my dear you have NO BUSINESS being a mother. Motherhood is an honor and a privilege and in my opinion one of the most beautiful things a woman can experience. You get to feel that sweet baby boy move and kick and LIVE inside your body. Yet you feel nothing. No love. No hope. No excitment. No motherly protective instinct. I PRAY your sweet baby is healthy. And I PRAY he doesn’t ever find this disgusting letter of which frankly you should be ashamed. It’s bad enough to think these things but to put them on the internet for friends and family and employers etc to see is unacceptable and unforgivable. I PRAY that you aren’t as horrible a mother once he arrives as you are right now. I have been going through fertility treatments including IVF for over 1.5 years and I’d give anything to be expecting a sweet, beautiful, healthy baby boy. Nothing about your post is brave. It’s downright DISGUSTING.
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Hi Christy,
I agree, a baby is a blessing. However, you really have no right to say that I have no business being a mother. Gender disappointment is a very real, and unfortunate feeling. Like I said in the comment above yours, I wrote this with very fresh, raw feelings less then 24 hours after finding out the gender. I believe in being true and open with your emotions. I never asked to feel like this, but once I did, I did my best to cope and process through my feelings. So yes, I did not ask to think these things, but I did. And why do I need to be ashamed for how I feel? HEAVEN FORBID our country (assuming you are in the US) can actually acknowledge mental health and feelings that are something other then sunshine and rainbows. I am NOT ashamed, I do NOT regret writing what I did, and I hope other women and men can find comfort that these are very REAL feelings. If you would be interested in expanding your horizon- http://www.today.com/parents/gender-disappointment-expectant-mothers-confess-secret-regrets-1C8144610
This is an article posted about gender disappoint and how surprisingly common it is. I am not alone in how I felt.
However, this is now an “old” post. I have dealt and coped with my feelings. I have loved my child before he was even created. I’ve known him since he was an embryo, and he’s been my child from the start. He has a name, more clothes then he probably will ever need, a beautiful new nursery set in his freshly painted room, and he is loved. I had a time of weakness and sadness, but that is real life.
I will teach him, and any future child that I have, that it’s fine to have emotions, to accept people if they are different then you, and to lend a helping hand to people who are in need. Whether they are in need financially, spiritually, or emotionally, we need to lift one another up. I hope that you will be able to realize that coming here and posting on my page, to a post that was clearly written in a dire time of need, that you can show some form of compassion instead of telling me that I don’t deserve my son. There are a lot of people who disagreed with me, however, you can respectfully disagree with someone without being hateful. You can’t change how I felt 2.5 weeks ago, you won’t change how I feel now (which is completely opposite of how I felt when I originally posted), and you can never make me feel ashamed for being open and honest about my feelings. Some of my posts are happy, some of them sad, some of them are nothing more then just me rambling. So feel free to keep visiting if you wish, however you will be asked to not follow assuming you can’t show some respect. We all have our own stories, try reading more then 1 chapter before you judge the entire book.
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Just wanted to say please don’t let any of the judgemental posts get to you. As a post-infertility pregnant woman, I have felt a lot of things that I did not expect to feel. Some of those feelings have caused me some guilt/shame because of this unspoken sentiment in the infertility community that we should be grateful 100% of the time for everything that comes with pregnancy. But it shouldn’t be this way. We feel the way we feel, and it’s important that we be able to express those feelings without judgement from other people. I’m glad that you’ve been able to mourn the loss of your original dream of how things would be and are now embracing having a son. I love that you want to teach your children to love and accept others without judgement, and I’m sure your son will be all the better for it. Keep your chin up, and best wishes for the rest of your pregnancy and birth of your baby! ❤
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Thank you so much. I completely understand why some women find this post upsetting, but why do we forget to support each other? It’s so hard being in the infertility community, the minute we get pregnant we become the enemy, we are expected to have perfect feelings and are held to a high standard. I’m glad you can relate to me and have understanding.
Thanks for taking the time our of your day to leave some positivity, for as “strong” as I think I am, the hateful comments can hurt. I hope one day we can move in the direction of community and support, and leave all this judgement behind!
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