Green eyed monster...

[hopper]

Thank you all so much for helping me feel more normal!! It is just SO unreasonable but I just can't make myself feel or think differently. Unfortunately!!
It's the exact same for me BrightSky, it's ALWAYS the ones who have a girl after a boy! And they are always the ones, well at least that I know, that claim that they were lucky that their second was a girl cause regardless they weren't having 3 to "get the girl". I feel they can be so condescending whether they intend it or not! Like for example, I have been friends with a girl I met in college 15 years ago. She had her son the same time I had my eldest 5 years ago. I had a natural birth and hers was an emergency section so she was a bit afraid after to go again so when she did go again she said it would definitely be her last. I was very encouraging that she could try for a vbac and she did end up having it (though according to her it was so horrendous she should have stuck with the section?!) Of course she had a girl and her FB is constantly covered in girl stuff, even to the point of starting her posts with "Moms of girls, I need advice..." which is beyond ridiculous as her daughter isn't even one year old yet and all kids are basically the same til they at least of school going age IMO. Any way, my college friends have an annual get together which I missed in 2015 so made a point of getting to the 2016 last November. She was there and it struck me that she was actually the only one there with a PP so I said it out to the group. Everyone laughed (there were only 5 of us there and their families make ups went like this: GGGG, GGG, BBG, herself with BG and me BBB) That was fine cause I pointed it out and they all know I have always wanted girls so generally they wouldn't ever say anything hurtful or thoughtless but she comes out with this little nugget: Oh do you need tips on how to do it? Make sure you tell (insert my DHs name here) that (insert her DHs name here) says all he had to do was tell his penis to only release all the female sperm!
It would not have bugged me had I not known that she knew my feelings and that I'd be hurt. She went to bed shortly after that and we haven't spoken properly since. I can't bring myself to get past her lack of consideration and if I'm honest I can't get past my jealousy. If it was that easy surely we'd all get our girls.
Kittendreams I hate those posts too. International Womens Day SUCKED cause they were everywhere!!!
Oh Atomic - don't start me on those Disneyland family pics with their daughters. They break my heart! Not that I don't enjoy it with my boys when we go, I ADORE ADORE ADORE being a boy mom at theme parks cause I am a bit of a tomboy myself anyway but I would give just about anything to have my dream daughter there with us.
Foxtrotmama I hope you are having your girl! How long til you find out? For what it's worth, IF you do happen to hear boy (which I hope you don't!) But IF you do I can guarantee you you will have a special bond with this child. My third child was supposed to be my girl but then I had him and he is the child of my heart. He actually lights up the room, my BIL who doesn't like kids other than his own absolutely loves this guy! His soul was destined to complete my heart, he is the child that made me realise it doesn't matter what you thought you wanted cause he gave me what I needed, if that makes sense. I don't mind if our next baby is another boy and that's the truth. I'd love to have a girl but realistically, cause I have to face the facts, it will be a boy. I went into ttc for my third pregnancy with the mindset of "I'm definitely having a girl!" It was only ever destined to end in tears with that in my head but I wouldn't trade him for the whole wide world. But anyway, I truly do hope you get your girl xx


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[BrightSky]

Hopper, your friend sounds a little mental making such a stupid comment about your husband 'telling his sperm to make a girl'?! How inappropriate, I would have been speechless!! I did find international woman's day hard too, all the comments on Facebook of people celebrating their daughters really brought it home (dont get me wrong, I am very thankful for my sons). At least if I ever do have a daughter I'll be sensitive to this and in truth I think I would avoid the over girly nonsense and definitely won't be using the word 'princess'.

[foxtrotmama]

I'll find out in 10 or 11 weeks.

Another acquaintance had a girl to complete a PP this week. Trying not to be jealous over it.

[Throwaway_panther]

I hardly know anyone with just boys. All of the friends I see regularly have girls. In fact, in the group of us that usually hangs out, there's only one other boy and then six girls. The conversation gets pulled to hair and dresses and everyone buying their girls matching shoes. Everyone in my extended family has either a girl or a PP. I'm losing my mind at the gut feeling that I'm having a third boy and a fourth isn't likely to be in the cards for me.

I swear this must be something that we're biased in what we see. All I see around me are boys. All my family members kids (and we were a super heavy girl family generation). My in-laws ALL have BG PPs. In my birth group from birth classes I had the ONLY girl. In babywearing groups, ONLY girl. In my ped's office it's always boys and some PPs. I've full on felt like a defective person fir how often I see boy only families!

[MiaMelb]

Until I saw your comment Panther I thought I was going to be the only girl mum to comment. It's definitely a perspective thing with the babies/children we notice around us. We live in a very family friendly neighborhood and on my walk each day I'd notice every pram coming towards me will have a baby boy and my heart would just tighten. I know this isn't true in reality and thankfully I actually have 4 close friends who are also currently 2 girl families. What makes it hard is of these friends I feel I'm the only one struggling with GD. I think my desire for a boy stems from just wanting to experience something new and unfamiliar. I grew up in a 3 girl family, went to an all girls high school, work in a female dominant profession and am surrounded by girls all day. I know girls, I get girls, I just want to shake it up a bit. I find it very hard to believe a boy is in my destiny and sometimes feel like I'm kidding myself with the sway stuff and talking myself into a third when I know it's just not going to go my way.

[carebear1st]

I'm feeling the same way, last month found out a relative is pregnant with her 3rd and she is having terrible morning sickness like with her daughter and thinks its another girl which she wants so they have a sisterly bond, she had no sickness with her eldest boy. My family is full of girls and her and one of my sisters(who desperately wants a girl also) were team blue like me. I found out I am pregnant with an oops bubs last week and didn't get to sway girl, pregnancy feels the same as with my boys(i did not feel pregnant at all, lack of symptoms no morning sickness etc)

Healthy baby is most important yes and I love bubs already but I can already hear everyone's comments when I get another boy and their inner giggles

[ChezIBY]

Lots of thoughts after reading this thread, would really like to share them in the hopes that someone will find something to make them feel a bit better (that would be great, maybe helping someone a bit The community here is really supportive and nice )
So, first reaction after reading over the comments – why do you folks hang out on FB? Seriously, it seems that a lot of people read/see stuff on FB that makes them feel bad. I am extremely cautious over the whole FB phenomenon. Just think about it – people are only posting things on FB that they WANT you (the world) to see, a sort of dream version of their life. No one in their right mind would take a photo of themselves overtired, crying, having a fight etc and post it on FB. I think I joined FB in high school or something and was pretty active on it at the time, but since finishing my studies and embarking on ‘adult’ life I hardly ever hang out there. I have kept my account, cause it can be very convenient to send group messages and all, but many of my girlfriends have actually completely disabled and cancelled their accounts. It can be misleading, you know? On here for example people are mostly very honest and open (but then, no one knows you and it’s easier to speak your mind anonymously surrounded by like-minded people) on FB people are continuously presenting ‘an image’.
If hanging out on FB is something one intends to keep doing, I would propose keeping a small track record, for example – how many times one logs onto FB, and how many times out of those one actually ends up feeling good/bad after browsing. Also, if some sort of particular type of meme is getting you down (the ‘women’s day’ one people mentioned) why not share or even make your own meme, something celebrating being a boys’ mama? Even for women’s day; this can really be super – a meme about being the only woman in your family and feeling celebrated by all your ‘boys’? It might make other boys’ mothers feel great too.
This brings me to the subject of your friend’s comment about the ‘girl sperm’, hopper. Now this is a good one, because it actually opens up a huge subject (IMHO) – how the way we ultimately feel about something is influenced by all the comments and feedback around us. I wonder how much better people would feel actually if they were permanently protected from hurtful comments coming from others. It can be intentional and unintentional – sometimes people say things to hurt you on purpose (generally because they are insecure/feel bad themselves), sometimes they just blurt something really dumb out without thinking. This was maybe what happened in your friend’s case hopper, it really looks to me like the kind of thing she blurted out trying to be witty (and failing…) and she has probably forgotten all about it long before you did.
That being said, intentional or not, someone says something that hurts you – so what can you do to protect yourself? Various answers are possible I guess. You can shoot a sharp line back to ‘get even’ at once, if you are quick at thinking up one-liners on the spot. I am generally, quite good… I could have given your friend many, MANY great comebacks for her little quip. But you know, when you throw stone for stone…
Example: I am actually in my seventh month of pregnancy now, and my bump is very different to my usual silhouette (think ‘skinny as a chicken bone’ for the usual look). A lot of my friends/colleagues have obviously been talking about how my looks are changing (you know, in that way people think they have the right to when one is pregnant – pour out the opinions and advice, ahoy!) I generally don’t mind, but found that some of my colleagues were really going into a kind of ‘haha, she’s not so skinny now, is she!’ mode. So one of my colleagues says to me a couple of weeks back (poor girl, she was just the ‘one too many’): ‘Man, your tummy is showing something now, huh?’ I reacted with my immediate comeback mode: theatrically patted the bump with a proud/fond smile and said, ‘Yup, mine’s a hundred percent baby though’, cue pointed look at said colleague’s more-than-flabby stomach, ‘what’s yours?’
Well. I got the message through. Her reaction was quite strong though: she went red, looked mortified, stared at her feet and kind of whispered, trying to muster a weak smile, ‘Oh, I’m just fat.’ ARGH! I did not feel great! (Though I had ‘defended’ myself.) I of course went into ‘haha, you’re not fat fat, I was just kidding!’ mode, she looked miserable, and of course in the weeks since she has had an awful time, three burials in her in-laws’ family and I felt like crap for well, ‘calling her fat’. (Plus side – she lost some weight because of the stress with her family, I enthusiastically stressed the fact when we met up again, and we ended up chatting a couple of days back; I really think she had made the comment without thinking that time, I feel zero anger at her and neither does she hopefully, and we kind of hit it off. Also, the story must have gotten round because now all of my colleagues are falling over themselves to tell me that I look ‘radiant’, ‘the picture of health’, ‘like I should be on the cover of a magazine’, etc. So yes, ultimately one comeback gleaned good results, but I wish I had been less brusque and that I had not hurt that woman)
All of this to say, proceed with caution if you decide to strike back; if you do and want to practice quick comebacks, let me know and we can brainstorm over ‘hurtful things you’ve heard’. I feel like this is something that is done a lot in France; the conversation over a typical friendly meal is somewhat more peppered with friendly attacks and quips than in English – at least that is my impression, I remember discussing this with a British friend and trying to explain that we were not ‘continually taking the mickey’. Conversation is supposed to ‘sparkle’, it is a way to break the tension of a work day during lunch, and it really makes good practice for thinking fast in the moment and popping out a good punch line.
This is getting super long, but still a few thoughts: linked to what I mentioned earlier about how others’ opinions and comments boomerang back to us, I don’t think you can (or should) try and force yourself to feel one way or another; if you feel hurt/disappointed, accept it. But it can be good to try and think where it comes from, the feeling, and I think it is how you can ultimately start feeling better. I also think that it is a good idea to look really closely at the folks whose lives might be making you feel jealous.
There’s a Disneyland theme park next to Paris too, the only one in Europe. It costs a fortune to go, lol. And there are the same picture perfect pigeon pair owning families going there. Another one of my colleagues went a couple of weeks back with her husband, daughter and son. She must have posted a picture on FB too, if she has an account (no idea, like I said, I don’t hang out much there now!) My colleague is pretty and generally considered successful at her job. Well, she is also currently in depression (few people know this), freaking out at work and home at times, feeling like she can’t cope, her husband has repeatedly told her to ‘get a grip’ or else he’s leaving her and taking the kids. (Yes, I might have sounded pretty tough with those comebacks, but I can be the kind of person people confide in, and believe me, you learn things you’d never have imagined, looking at somebody from the outside!! The closer you get, the more surprised you can be by people.)

Some friends of our family had their second, a boy following a girl, a couple of months back. Does that sound like what I’d like? Yes, on paper. Would I also like the marital problems they’re struggling with, their near-divorce in between pregnancies, the hubby’s drunk driving accident that nearly lost him his career and the wife’s resulting weight problem issues that mean she’s basically two times wider than her hubby now and had to spend the entirety of her second pregnancy on bed rest, feeling very ill? Um… nope, I’ll pass.

My mother-in-law, listen to the family she comes from – her parents had GBGB, in that order!! Mother-in-law being the second girl. Well, fast-forward to today, she never talks to her siblings and I have only met my DH’s aunt out of all of them, and only once or twice.
Not that the perfect family of your dreams can’t exist, I am sure it can, but I feel when we get obsessed with something, we only pick out that aspect in other peoples’ lives, and that is what causes our jealousy. Maybe look again, more closely.
And well, I am that kid, hopper – on the opposite side; I am the third girl out of three. I never even wondered whether my parents had been ‘trying’ for a boy until it suddenly hit me as a teen (cause someone said something in school probably) and I asked my Dad (cause in my opinion if someone had wanted a boy, it would have been the father). He was great and told me, ‘We wanted YOU!’ which I highly recommend as a reply to any of your kids that ask you this in the future My family is great, and I have to say it is great thanks o me too – my two elder sisters have had many fights, and I have often acted as a kind of buffer between them, helping them sort it all out (sometimes anxiously egged on by my worried mother). I think that, character-wise, I balance them out nicely and the whole family too It really would have been a very different family had it not been for me, or if I had been someone else, or a boy. Which is what I always remember when I wonder about swaying in the future and whether I will not be too disappointed if the sway ‘fails’.

Try and sway – yup. Take what you get then – also a yes. Believe everything is for the best ultimately, fight for your happiness no matter what. If you believe you should go for it again, really, fight for that. If you feel jealous, dig deeper, without judging yourself EVER. Share here or with people you really trust. Don’t beat yourself up.
And as for the comments – if you find you care, you let me know. I’ll help you come up with some of the BEST comments of your won Or sharing will make you not care anymore : One of the two

Signing off on this humongous reply, which I had been thinking over the last couple of days and decided to share – it’s my birthday today, so this is my present for you guys

Bon courage hopper! Que sera, sera !
(Best of luck hopper! What is meant to be, will be!)

PS We live in a society that needs people to be consumers to function economically, to buy more than they actually need. The way this is accomplished is to make people believe they are unhappy with what they have and need that other thing to be finally happy. Maybe another reason why it is so common to chase some sort of dream and feel jealous (?) Opinions?

[Throwaway_panther]

Chezi, I don't have time to write out a super long reply, but I do really love your response, AND your more philosophical questions. Some of us have discussed that before, even -- where does this GD stem from? Is it this consumerist drive? A biological imperative? Personal, deep issues?

I think, like most things in the human psyche, it's a multifaceted issue. But I sometimes do think it might be something we should focus more on tackling in here, too, considering how failed sways are a reality, and living beyond this GD is important!

I'm very happy you made it onto this board -- I really value what you have to say.

[atomic sagebrush]

Yes I agree Chezi, that's a great reply and I LOVE to talk about stuff like this, just coming to the end of my work day here - would love if someone gives this post a bump and then I'll swing back around on a day I have more free time! And happy birthday!

[Kelbear]

Bump for atomic