The Blame Game

[shiningstar]

This is where I'm at in my GD journey..

I'm doing ok most days. I even find myself excited about my new little boy. Of course I still have pangs of what if. I'm hoping that will get better with time.

This baby was a surprise. I had thought about ttc #3 this summer, but I wasn't 100% sure. I remember thinking about swaying but then at the same time dreading that part. It was in the future so I didn't put much thought into when and how we would try for #3. I was happy & content with my 2 boys. I never visited gender sites anymore. I didn't think about gender. I didn't obsess over other families. It was sooooo nice.

Well fast forward to the beginning of this year when I found out I was pregnant. We had an oopsie around Christmas. Honestly I wasn't that worried about getting pregnant. I didn't think it would happen that easily. Well, it did. I was in sheer panic mode for a couple weeks after I got the BFP. Then I started thinking maybe, just maybe God was blessing me with a daughter. I still tried to convince myself it was a boy. However it's hard not to have some hope of getting your DG.

I found gender dreaming shortly after I got found out I was pregnant. I read about the low everything diet and got excited. As it turns out I was just finishing a semester of college when we conceived. When I started school at the end of August (4 months before I would conceive) my eating habits changed. I was eating so little. Never ate breakfast. Never snacked. Just ate 2 moderate sized meals a day, if that. I lost about 6-8 lbs. from the summer until I conceived. I wasn't doing any excercise so that was all from my eating habits. I thought maybe the timing was perfect since my body chemistry had to be different from when I conceived my boys. With them I was more well nourished.

I guess that wasn't enough of a nudge to get me a girl. So now I'm playing the blame game. Even though I was eating less, I definitely had some of the no-no foods (red meat, potatoes, bananas). I feel like diet is such a big part of swaying and I messed up. I just wish I had gotten the chance to do a real sway. With ds2 I did an Ingender sway and couldn't get pregnant. I dropped most everything and conceived my sweet little boy. I first found out about swaying in the summer of 2008. It makes me sad to think I've had this knowledge for almost 5 years and never got the chance to really use it. I feel kind of cheated. It's silly but I envy people with just 2 boys who have that chance of swaying for #3.

I don't know what the point of this post is other than to vent. I think this blame is the one (big) thing holding me back from getting over GD. I keep thinking it was something I did or didn't do. I know I need to let it go... I'm just finding it very hard.

Thank you for listening! :)

[hotdogz&boyz]

Blame is a horrible thing. Because even if you did every.single.thing you could have (in regards to swaying), you could be in the exact same place. In fact, there are plenty of ladies on here who have really awesome sways and still get opposites. And I have heard even them say "if only I had done xyz." It's a head game. Yes, you missed out on swaying...but who knows if it would have made a difference. Maybe...but maybe not.

I def think that blame and/or shame plays a huge role in GD. It's about what we can't control and some folks struggle more than others with it. My heart goes out to you. Because, like you said, you have to work through that additional emotion of regret (not the little guy, but of you missing out on swaying). I hope you come to peace with it soon, so you can be gentle with yourself. Your little guy is so lucky to have you and his big brothers waiting on him. Sounds like you are already doing so well with the GD. Just remember to be easy on yourself about what you couldn't control.

[Mrs_P]

If it helps at all i do understand what your going through - i went over and over my failed sway with ds3 for months - i did this time in the beginning to when i was so sure it had failed. I understand you feeling like you have lost your chance but at the end of the day a massive part of swaying (and one that a lot of girls choose to ignore hoping for the best) is nothing other than luck. At best all you can do is fix the dice you roll and keep your fingers crossed in the hope that you have influenced the odds. I have seen the best sways fail and the some of the worst/half hearted (if a nice way though) succeed.

As hard as it is to hear sometimes there is a bigger plan, you will get the baby that is mean't for you, we did with our ds3 and i wouldn't trade him for all the girls in the world. We seem to be lucky enough now that its our turn to get a daughter too and whilst i'm sure there are aspects of my sway (particularly the clomid) that helped, we did just get lucky.

Please don't punish yourself sometimes life just happens and this little person has found their way to you, it was obviously just mean't to be. There is no easy way to getting your dream, the only sure thing is ht and that comes with its own very hard journey that doesn't always end happily either.

I hope there is a little girl in your future but for now enjoy your newest little man, there are plenty of moms on here who will tell you how great ds3's are (even if you can't envisage it during pregnancy, i couldn't - didn't realise there was something missing til he came along to fill an invisible void).

GD is a horrible path, i hope you find your way out the other end quickly and we are always here if you want to chat x

[hlmcdaniels]

first I want to say that i'm so sorry! Secondly I feel as though I am in the same situation.. we've also had a surprise baby 3 and I feel as though even though it hasn't been confirmed, this is our third boy.. I want to so badly blame myself but I don't know why I cant get blessed with a girl, and I'll never know.. my stomach is just in knots. Try to cheer up, and don't punish yourself, its not our fault, I have to keep telling myself this daily

[ocean]

OP - I actually think you answered your own question with your sway for #2. You couldn't get pregnant and kept dropping sway factors until you got pregnant. (I did something similar - except in my case, I had 2 miscarriages, and I steadily dropped parts of my sway until I did conceive a healthy child.) Even if you could've done a 'perfect' sway for #3, there's no reason to think the outcome would've been different than with your first sway.

As I say this, I felt regret and self-blame too with my #2 -- though in my case, it was for not going HT. I knew very well that swaying is likely hogwash, at best a very slight favorable tip. If I really wanted to stay at 2 kids like DH and I had planned, I would've taken my desire for a girl more seriously. I thought though at the time that I wanted the child I was meant to have, and I didn't want to keep messing around with nature and having miscarriages.

Now, months after birth, I'm so thankful how things turned out. #2 is already a dream, and there's no doubt in my mind he was 'meant to be'. But it wasn't until quite recently that I could stop blaming myself for not going HT. So I understand fully what you're putting yourself through. The obsession with regret/whatif/self-blame is emotionally quite painful, and is utterly and completely pointless -- it accomplishes nothing but misery -- but somehow we still do it to ourselves.

This isn't your fault, this isn't something you (actually) could've controlled with a sway. Please keep venting when you need to, I do think it helps.

[1+2+3boys]

I kind of understand. I knew about swaying after my first son so decided to do it for number two but miscarried and just wanted to get pregnant again. I knew it would be a boy but I could always sway for number three because I had always wanted three kids. When I found out it was twins I was so scared that I had not swayed and tried to think about what I had been doing to hopefully tip the scales to girls. It was boys and now I have my wonderful family of three children that I had always wanted but I am still sad that I never really got the chance to sway. I always imagined my family as two boys and a girl. I am most likely done now. I have done much better in accepting things than I thought I would have. I am focusing on being a wonderful Mother to my boys and buy nice pretty things for myself instead of a daughter. I'm very busy and don't think I can handle any more children boys or a girl. As much as I want a girl it wouldn't be fair to have another and divide my time between my children even more when I am already finding it hard. Your three boys will be great together though :) Goodluck with the rest of your pregnancy

[shiningstar]

Thank you, everyone! I really appreciate the kind words. :awe:

Another thing that bothers me is I think I was more fertile this time around. I had an emergency c-section with ds1. During my repeat c-section with ds2 (he was breech) my OB commented that there was a lot of scar tissue. He said he cleaned it up.

Since I got pregnant sooo easily this time, it leads me to wonder if it had anything to do with the scar tissue being removed. When I was trying to conceive #2 it took 9 long months. Of course some of that was due to swaying. A few of those months I avoided ovulation because I was trying a cut-off (stupid IG way of swaying).

I was always so jealous of people that got pregnant with a perfect sway. It killed me each month having to drop parts of my sway. Even though I know a perfect sway is not a guarantee... It would have felt soooo good to get pregnant with one. *sigh*

I guess I will never know if I had been able to get pregnant with a good sway this time around. For some reason the stars aligned that night and this little guy made it to the egg. With my first ds we weren't trying to get pregnant (I was only 18) but we threw caution to the wind A LOT before it caught up with us. I've heard before that it's amazing we conceive at all because of the obstacles that a sperm has to go through to get to the egg.

I still wish I hadn't had a surprise pregnancy. I wanted that control of choosing to get pregnant. I feel in a way I did choose to get pregnant (because I wasn't on bc) and I chose for it to be a boy because of my diet (even though my diet wasn't super boy friendly, it wasn't a good girl diet either). Hopefully I will get to a place where I can let go of these regrets...

[crazyladyneedsababy]

hey hun, congrats on your surprise baby boy, im sorry it wasn't the girl you were hoping for. Don't beat yourself up about what could have been, it will eat you up. I wish I had discovered and swayed more with DS2 but in hindsight if I could go back and do it again I wouldn't :) xxx