GD

I was up until 1:00am last night.......very late for me. Sometimes when I get to thinking about something I can't shut my brain off. My thoughts just go around in circles; I get more and more agitated and sleep gets more and more elusive. It all started innocently enough. I was watching a PBS Masterpiece Classics version of Jane Austen's "Emma". LOVE Jane!!! Mike was with me working on organizing some scout projects and interjecting dorky comments about how silly and girlie the movie was. We tease each other a lot so I just laughed along with him and occasionally punched him in the arm. After it was over we headed up to bed and then one stupid little thought occured to me that opened up a floodgate of emotions. Mike likes action movies.....bring on the army shows, comic book fantasies......pretty much anything loaded with violence, boy humor, and testosterone. My boys seem to be following in his footsteps. Sooooo......who will ever want to watch Jane Austen with me? I watch/read all kinds of stuff, but I love a good romantic comedy. Am I destined to spend forever having everything I watch annoy all the other inhabitants in the house?

I'm having a hard time putting my feelings into words because one of the trials in my life is not something that very many people understand. Not only that, but I've heard some very judgmental and hurtful comments.

I want a little girl.

I want a little girl so bad it hurts.

I LOVE my boys......more than anything. I wouldn't trade one of my precious boys for 100 girls. But I feel incomplete without another female in the house. When I was pregnant with Tanner and found out he was a boy I shed a couple of tears, I was hoping for a little girl, but I quickly got over it. I was excited that Caeden would have a brother and I hoped that they would be close. When I was pregnant with Weston I just assumed that my time for a girl had come. Mike didn't want anymore children and I had always knew that I would one day have a little girl......almost everyone does, it never occured to me that I wouldn't. Same-sex families are actually pretty rare ....especially ones that have more than 2 children.


I've always wanted a daugher. I kept a journal in high school and in more than one entry I express my desire to make good choices so that my future-daughter would be proud of me. It sounds silly to put it into writing, but for some reason I always had this idea that she was watching me grow up and I didn't want to dissapoint her.


We went to the ultra-sound and found out we were expecting another boy. A fterward I couldn't even drive home because I was bawling so hard. For the first time it occured to me that I may never have any of those experiences that are unique to having a girl. I literally cried for days. It wasn't that I didn't want my baby. I would have been utterly devastated if anything had happened to him.....it was more that I needed to grieve for all the things that I will never experience. Things that parents who have both genders never think twice about. Part of me feels like I will always be a bit of an outsider in my own home. I will always be the different one. I will never get to put on a long white lacey baby blessing gown. I will never get to do braids, hair bows, jewelry, cute girl clothes. I will never get to play "house" with dolls, barbies, or Princess dress-ups. I will never go to a dance recital. I will never get to answer my daughters questions about being a woman. I will never get to see her being picked up for a date. I will never get to do mother/daughter dates like getting our hair done, or shopping, or going to that cheesy chick-flick. I will never be the mother of the bride or help pick out a wedding dress. I will never get to share the experience of pregnancy and the wonder/fear of being a new mommy with my daughter.

Yes, I will hopefully someday have daughters-in-law, but that's not the same. Boys grow up and leave......really leave. They don't call mom if they're having a bad day, or feeling lonely, or need advice. I have these horrible (overly dramatic, I'm sure) dreams of Mike and I being all alone for the holidays. From my own family experience the boys families seem to take a definate second-place in their future relationships. My brothers live an hour away. We see them maybe 2 times a year. They are with their wives/girlfriends families for everything. At weddings the grooms family is a distant thought.... just another set of guest. When a grandbaby comes the new father's family is nowhere near as involved as the mom's. I not only grieve for what I will miss out on, but also for Mike. I hear about how little girls have their daddy's wrapped around their finger and I want that for him. I'm a daddy's girl myself. I love my dad, I want a little girl who will feel that same hero-worship for Mike. I'm very careful about voicing anything around the boys, I would be so upset if they misunderstood and felt less wanted. There have been several times Caeden and Tanner have asked me why they don't have sister. I've just told them that Heavenly Father hasn't sent one to our family. A couple of times I've even had to leave the room because Caeden really wants a sister and can get quite pushy about asking for one. I wish the choice was in my hands.


In desperation for some common understanding I went searching the internet for any validation to what I was experincing. I found that there is actually a name for what I have. GD - Gender Dissapointment. I even found an online group that was made up of women who all have GD. Finding some people to talk to who understood....truly understood what I was feeling was my saving grace throughout my pregnancy. One of these women posted something that perfectly describes how I feel. She said she didn't like the term "Gender Dissapointment" because it implies that the wonderful children you have are somehow a dissapointment to you because of their sex. For most of us that couldn't be more untrue. She said for her GD stood for Gender Desire......because her desire for a girl would never go away. That's what I have....Gender Desire. I know having a girl isn't all tea-parties and well behaved girlies in frilly dresses. I have nieces who are every bit as wild and loud as my boys. BUT there is a difference between the sexes and I would like to have experiences with both.....who knows, I would maybe have these same feelings if I had 3 girls and no little man in my life.

These are not feelings that are acceptable to talk about. If you express a desire for a girl people assume that you aren't filled with gratitude for the wonderful children in your life. That couldn't be farther from the truth. I know I'm lucky to have children. I have several friends and family members who either can't have children or the process of conception, pregnancy, and labor is a massive struggle. I know that I'm fortunate to get pregnant easily and have healthy babies. That doesn't mean that my feelings aren't valid. I read an essay about GD that explained it perfectly. The author, who had GD, stated that you would never be so insensitive as to tell a person who couldn't have children "well, at least you don't have a terminal illness", likewise it's ridiculous that our feelings are unnacceptable and we're told "at least you can have children". I know I'm blessed. A day doesn't go by that I'm not on my knees at some point thanking my Father in Heaven for my beautiful little boys. They are my reason for being. They are my world. I think more people have GD than we realize....it's just not talked about. I was in church about a month after I found out the gender of my 3rd boy. My neighbor across the street has four grown sons. We've talked quite a bit and she has always seemed a bit of a tomboy and content with her all-boy family. She came up to me in the hallway and said that she'd heard I was having another boy. She asked me how I was taking the news. I didn't know what to say and after a moment of hesitation this sweet lady enfolded me in a hug and simply said "It's okay, I understand." We've since talked about it a few times and you know what? She has GD too.....it's just not something she talks about because very few people respond with compassion. Either they feel the need to tell you that you need to be grateful for the children you have (duh) or they feel the need to "help" by telling you all the reasons you don't actually want a girl (of course these comments always come from parents who have both sexes). Like my neighbor, with the exception of a couple close friends, I rarely talk about my feelings to others anymore. I can't help the way I feel no matter how "unacceptable" some people may think it is.

I sometimes think that the Lord must really have a sense of humor making me an all-boy mom. I've always been quite feminine. I don't do sports.....I don't play them, I don't watch them, I have zero interest. I can easily do make-believe play with dolls or barbies, but I'm at a loss when it comes to Pokemon, superheroes, or rough-housing. I sometimes feel like I don't know how to interact with my boys in all their "boyishness". I'm trying to find acceptance and be the best boy-mom I can be. I bought a fishing liscense this year and I took the boys out several times to try and fish. I went to semi-crowded community ponds and got several comments from crusty old fishermen and their sons/grandsons for being a mom out there fishing with my boys. I didn't fit in.....there was one time I even felt distinctly unwelcome. I was a woman ina Man's World. If I can't be in a Man's World and I don't have any daughters to take into MY world......then where does that leave me? As boys grow up I think they distance themselves more and more from their moms. We want to talk about feelings, we want to hug........things that are no longer acceptable to a boy striving to be a man. How will I survive when my boys leave? Girls seem to still come back home and need their parents, even after they're married. Boys? Not so much.



Mike is content only having boys. When I first found out that my hopes for a girl were possibly dashed he tried to console me by saying that maybe......maybe......we weren't done afterall. I think the force of my depression scared him and he wanted to do/say anything to help make it better. Now, when the subject of possibly having another child comes up he is adamently against it, not only because he's happy with our family of 3, but he worries about me going through months of grief again if my hopes for a girl are crushed again. I want another child....even if I end up with 4 boys, I want to carry and love one more baby. I honestly think that I'm resigned to possibly never having a girl and therefore even if we did have another boy it wouldn't be as hard as this last time. I'm so used to boys now that I even wonder if I could handle a girl. We have a sweet little neighbor girl who sometime comes over to play at our house. When her feelings get hurt, which seems to happen often, she cries a river. I don't know what to do. When one of my boys hurts his brothers feelings they usually just punch each other. Tears are foreign to me unless there's blood invovled.


I no longer post to my online GD board. I didn't need them after Weston was born. Having a sweet new baby to love seemed to consume all of me and I didn't have the energy/emotions left for anything else. I have found some peace with being an all-boy mom. When I was pregnant I couldn't shop for little girls, I couldn't attend little girl birthday parties.....I was so relieved that my baby was born and I missed Easter Sunday in church.....all the little girls in their dresses would have been hard for me ( I like to think that pregnancy hormones factored into how emotional I was). My sister and I took my mom to the Nutcracker when I was about 6 months along. I came home and cried for 2 hours after. My sister, who would never intentionally cause me pain, kept saying how she couldn't wait until her daughter was old enough to take to the ballet....the whole auditorium was full of moms and grandmas taking their little girls to see the classic little girl Christmas fairy story. It was so hard on me. Disney Princesses on Ice was much the same atmosphere, but I've come a long way and even though it brought some feelings up, other than a little lump in my throat I was fine. I don't think about it all the time like I used to, the things that bring my feelings to head are usually dumb. Like the movie last night, or seeing a super-cute little girl all dolled up sitting on her daddy's lap in church, seeing my sister-in-law and her teenage daughter going to get their hair done together. Heaven forbid our ward ever have a Mother/Daughter date night.

My mom thinks the intensity of my feelings means that there is a little girl up in heaven waiting to join our family. I'm not so sure. Longing for something doesn't always mean that it's meant to be. Sometimes I think this may just be one of the trials I'm going to have to deal with in this life. It's gotten better over the past year and I think that with time the ache will become less and less. For now, I'll just enjoy doing the girlie things in my life with moms/sisters/friends/nieces. I won't 100% give up hope for a few more years yet.