Pregnancy After Loss (PAL) - 33 weeks + gender disappointment + guilt

33 weeks yesterday. In ways it feels like the longest 33 weeks of my life but in other ways it’s flown by. I’ve kept a rambling journal since things began to go wrong with Herb and I couldn’t sleep. I’d be up in the middle of night typing out my thoughts, rattling them out so they made some sort of sense to me but lately I often start an entry and don’t finish it. Or I procrastinate and feel like I need to set far too much time aside that is required but only once the house is tidy, I’ve done all my jobs I need to achieve so I won’t be distracted etc. etc. but of course, the jobs are never done, and there’s never a time I don’t have some task or job on my mind. So I’m trying to embrace this last bit of time. I’m not working all that much right now – the restaurant is quiet, having sold Black Cow last year (the restaurant we co-founded and operated for almost 14 years) and now no breakfast at Stillwater means my work load has dropped off. I’ve had a heap of mental health work on, developing new content and things I’ve wanted to communicate and do for a while, but I work better under pressure, so I’ve needed the deadline of upcoming speaking events to finally put pen to paper, or more accurately mind to canva.

We had a routine check-up with our Obstetrician on Wednesday and all is looking good. I feel my emotions are bubbling right at the surface at the moment. Like a simmering pot on the stove. I cried at the thought of Claude becoming a big brother to a living child, cried when I figured out they’ll get one year at Primary school together – this one in kinder, Claude in grade 6, teary at seeing a baby in the waiting room, pain at seeing in my memories on my phone this day 2 years ago we told Claude there was a baby in mum’s tummy, I was 7 weeks + 3 days with Herb. Looking back it was very early to tell him, this time around we waited until after the anatomy scan – so around 16 or so weeks. We wanted to be sure everything was ok.

When things went wrong with Herb – it only took 12 days between appointments. 12 days between routine appointments, because I was in the last 6 or so weeks, my Obs likes to see you every fortnight. It was the 23rd December – all was fine, the next on the 5th January at 34+5 the scan showed his ventricles had enlarged significantly from the last scan. I feel with these later dates approaching that something is going to wrong. That’s the MO of trauma – it likes to go down the same pathway, tell you that it’ll happen again, the safe world you thought you knew no longer exists, of course the bad stuff will happen again, don’t kid yourself it’s all ok…trauma can be a snarky bitch. It takes a lot of effort and conscious thought and connection to body and mind to not fall down that vortex. But, my goodness is it hard.

I caught up with my very good friend the other day who is also a loss mum, she’s also got an older sibling, lost her second who was also a boy and now has her third, a baby girl. We have a lot of similarities and think alike in many ways. We both have agreed, along with many she’s spoken to – that gender is a really difficult thing in subsequent pregnancies after loss. As a loss mum I can wholeheartedly say it is completely separate to a healthy baby, it is still something to grapple with, to grieve, to hate, to feel uncomfortable about, to feel guilty you even have these feelings about. Other’s on the outside may feel like it’s indulgent - How dare you be unhappy about gender? Surely all you need/want is a healthy baby? Be grateful for what you’ve got! Yeah, sure, we think those things, we know those things, but gender can come with a plethora of emotions. And you can still hold the two things at once. You can still be grateful AND be struggling with either/or gender. That’s definitely the biggest learning we’ve experienced since Herb’s death; holding two things at once. The light and the dark. The duality of the good and the bad. If you’ve rolled your eyes or don’t agree, I suggest you close the browser and move on to something else. But, perhaps read on and know my story and view is just one opinion, however, as mentioned many whom I have spoken to that have been through loss also say the exact same thing. This is something we wish was talked about more, but the guilt and the judgment we’re often met with means it’s another taboo topic that goes ignored.

The gender thing for me is that we had always hoped for a girl after having Claude. I’m a typical A personality – I like to be in control, and when I was facing the unknown of my first birth with Claude I wanted to know at least one aspect, and that was the gender. We found from the iGene test at around 11 or 12 weeks with Claude. We’d always thought we’d have two kids so whilst we were a little disappointed we hoped that one day we’d have a girl. I’d always been really flattered that James had always had the sentiment he’d love a girl, a mini-me to bring in to the world and go on and conquer what I have and more.

So when the iGene tests came back for Herb, we were both quite devastated. I felt like I’d failed (even though gender is determined by the sperm, not by the egg, so it’s James’ fault, not mine), I grieved not having a girl. As menial as it is I grieved the loss of maybe one day helping to plan my daughter’s wedding, or helping her with her children, yeah sure you might get the chance if your son goes on to marry a girl, but they might already be close with their own mum, and of course, there’s the chance you do go on to have a girl and they never marry or have children, or you just aren’t close and don’t have that sort of relationship. Of course, there are tonnes of what-ifs, but still, I grieved them. My Instagram feed sponsored ads were coming up with mother-daughter matching outfits to rub salt in the wound. I burst in to tears in the car one morning about the fact I’d never have a girl. To raise her strong and independent like me, I’ve fought really hard to be the person I am today, I’ve fought hard to craft a strong exterior and to impart those feminine wisdoms we all craft every single day in what we know has mostly been constructed to be a man’s world, and the bringing down, slowly, of the patriarchy I hoped to see her contribute to.

So I looked for all the examples of great boy mum’s, I looked for the examples of brotherly friendships with the same age gap as what Claude and Herb would be. I strengthened the neural pathways to see the positives in what was about to happen and told myself I couldn’t wait to be a boy mum. And I got there, I was excited, relieved I didn’t have to deal with periods, mood swings, educating a girl on bitchy girl friendships and predatory boys and men. I would always be the queen of the household, heck we had only ever had boy dogs too! Three in total, it was like I was always just meant to have boys.

The irony (is it irony?) that if I was a boy – I’d never have been adopted out. My paternal grandmother would have allowed my mother to keep me, instead, I was sent away since the doctor had mistaken a scan and told my parents I was a boy in-utero, so she didn’t abort me. That’s a longer story for another day.

So perhaps my destiny means I’m only meant to have boys.

And this time, we decided to keep it a surprise. And my vibe…it’s a girl.

And I’m struggling with it. I thought I’d resolved it somewhat, but I’ve realised it’s still something I’m not coping with but working on it with the psychologist. Thinking about it more, visualising it, journaling about it. But my last appointment I realised how much I am struggling with it. I can’t warm to any girls names, I feel the guilt and shame like a lump in my throat if it is a girl. I have this irrational belief that if it is a girl, every time I look at her, I’ll just be reminded of the pain of losing Herb, because she’s only here, because Herb is not. Which is ridiculous, because another boy is technically the same! Any soul, no matter what gender, is only here because Herb is not. Because, we were certain we’d only have two. I even asked James before things went wrong should we book him in to get his tubes tied before the birth, and gosh aren’t I glad we didn’t do that.

Am I struggling with gender too because I have difficult relationships my own mum and my biological mum (mostly language barrier and distance with that one), my grandmother is the one who sent me away, I was never close with my Nan here…am I worried I’m going to fuck it up with a girl. Most likely.

And I feel the guilt, how dare I be unhappy about gender, what does it matter. I’m hyper-aware of the potential emotions and trauma I can impart in-utero and once they are earthside. I never, ever want this little person to feel unloved, or unwanted, or a replacement. They are absolutely wanted, loved and an addition to our family, not a replacement.

But gender is a tricky thing, in a world where we feel we have control over most things, gender is one that we do not. It’s challenging. And it’s a layer on top of just having a healthy, happy, breathing baby. I know once they’re here it’ll be easier to perhaps work through. It’s probably still going to be tough, and those secondary losses will come still. And my brain will still go to a place of thinking there’s not even any point in getting worked up about this sort of stuff, because will I even get a healthy, breathing baby? But I know that’s the trauma speaking…

As always, thanks for reading. I hope I can help another loss parent with feeling less guilty about gender difficulty/disappointment. It’s ok to feel these feels. We just need it acknowledged that it’s normal and it’s a process.