What I would do differently
Sorry if this is long. So, only have the two boys, I'm not pregnant and according to my husband we are done. But i still hold out hope that maybe in a few years we can have another and maybe this time do a proper sway with a personalized plan. But I know I can only have another child if I am 100% ok with another boy. So, I've been trying to sort out my feelings in the meantime.
It seems like I had (and oddly still have) the worst GD with my first son. Don't get me wrong, I love him to death and he is a beautiful and brilliant child. I'm lucky to have him and I know that but as you all know GD is a complicated issue. The issue that is all mine and has nothing to do with my son.
But since the 20 week mark of pregnancy with him I have just felt disappointment, dread and a whole host of other negative emotions about motherhood. I waited until I was older to have kids and by the time I got pregnant with him, I couldn't believe it was actually happening to me and I was so paranoid about something happening and it being taken away from me. When i was 16 I lost a baby at 12 weeks. Everyone around me was pressuring me to terminate and I feel like the stress caused the miscarriage. I know I was too young to handle a child at that time but I mourned the loss of that baby for a long, long time. In that pregnancy I felt immediate and all consuming love for the baby my gut told me was a girl. I never felt that way again with either of my children during pregnancy.
So, I guess I thats why I was overly cautious with my son. I was disappointed when I found out he was a boy. Even though I knew he was. And oddly I probably would have also been disappointed if they said girl because I thought boy for 5 months. But I started to get excited again when I imagined what he would be like, a mini version of my husband. Calm and sweet with dark features. I got so attached to this little boy in my head.
Well, after a horrible birth experience I felt extreme shock and disappointment after seeing my son who looked nothing like I imagined. But looking back a lot of that was from the drugs and pain. He was also an extremely unhappy baby but he also had had a traumatic birth experience. For the first year of his life, I felt this horrible GD which I now know was probably also PPD mixed with sleep deprivation and the reality of motherhood versus my idealized version. So, for the first year and a half of my sons life I obsessed over having another baby, a girl specifically. Because I guess I thought that would fix everything? And by the time I got pregnant again, i had a wonderful bond with my son (who was now also a great sleeper lol) so much so that I felt a lot of guilt about having another baby. Which my gut told me was another boy.
With my second I hoped and prayed it was a girl but wasn't surprised when I heard boy. I think this time the GD was because it was my last chance to have a girl and I felt like I blew it (not a good sway.) but i was determined to love him, have a good birth experience and NOT have any expectations of how he would look or act. And I was not disappointed when he looked much like my first son but was very calm and a happy little one. His birth was very healing for me.
Needless to say, I still feel an emptiness in my heart for the daughter I may never have and that's hard to live with sometimes. But if I ever have another pregnancy, I don't want to know the gender. I don't want to hope for a girl or even imagine what my baby might look or be like. I would just want to get attached to the tiny person growing inside my body. I even fantasize about not knowing the gender until after baby is placed on my chest and I can just hold them and love them for whoever they are without any expectations of who i want them to be. I would probably experience GD if it's another boy but maybe not. I may never know the answer to that.
