Although I happily call myself a boy mom these days, this wasn’t always the case. Let me start off with a disclaimer that I feel the need to say. I love all three of my boys to death. There is nothing in this world I wouldn’t do for them and given the opportunity I wouldn’t trade anyone of them for a girl. This is just my story of my process coming to grips with the fact that little girls would not be in my future. Like a lot of little girls, I dreamed of the day I would become a mom. I had a lot of dolls and took my job as their mom VERY seriously. It was as if I was training for the day that dream would become a reality. I was pretty certain that when I grew up, I would have six kids. Not only would I have six kids, but they would be three sets of twins, three boys and three girls. There was never any doubt in my mind that one day I would have a daughter.

Flash forward to my pregnancy with my first son (Shawn), when I got the news, I would be having a boy it was fine to me because he was my first and surly the next one would be a girl. Then when Shawn was two, I got pregnant again this time I was ready to go in and have the ultrasound technician tell me the good news, that I was having a baby girl. I did all the old wives’ tales during my second pregnancy. All of which said I was expecting a girl. So, the day comes that we go to an ultrasound to determine the sex of the baby. We do all the stuff in the beginning where we look at hands, feet, side profile etc. in that process I already thought I got a glimpse at the goods and in that moment my heart sank and I was prepared for her to tell me it was a boy. Now I would be lying if I said I wasn’t upset. It feels wrong to say that considering how special Liam is to me, but it is my truth. It wasn’t until jokingly my husband said “I guess you won’t ever be getting your girl” that I broke down crying in the car. It wasn’t that the baby I was carrying at the time wasn’t a girl, but the thought of never hearing the words “it’s a girl”.

I still had hope though because unlike my childhood self who thought I would have six kids, I decided that three would be my number, if my second born was another boy. When Liam was one year old, I got pregnant with my third baby. This one was harder for me to accept. I wasn’t trying at the time for a third, and not that I didn’t want another baby, but this was my last shot for a girl and I wasn’t ready to give up on that dream just yet. I guess maybe I knew from the get-go that it was another boy. I was very weird about anyone knowing I was pregnant before I was able to know the gender. I wanted to do my best to avoid having to hear from everyone that for sure this would be the time I would get a girl. My heart couldn’t take getting my hopes up. When I tell you the number of strangers even that would go out of their way to stop me just to say that it was time for me to get a girl, it’s an unreal amount. In my mind this was my last hope. If I didn’t get a girl this time around it was never going to happen.

The day came where we went to our ultrasound appointment. I remember it vividly that the technician paused the screen on a shot between the legs. I already knew. I have seen this exact shot multiple times before between my first two pregnancies. She tried to build anticipation, but I was already checked out. She slowly typed out “it’s a boy”. I am sure my husband and I cracked some sort of joke to make it not awkward, but I was crushed. As soon as we got in the car, I cried the whole way home. I put up a front in front of everyone but inside I was heartbroken. To this day I am upset with how I handled my last pregnancy. I wish I had embraced it more, knowing it would be my last. Throughout that pregnancy and even a couple months after my third born (Jaxon) was born I would go in and out of waves of intense sadness. This is not to say that I wasn’t absolutely head over heels in love with him because my obsession with him his on another level. No one in my life would know how sad I was because I kept it a secret. I was ashamed. How dare I feel the way I was feeling. There are women that struggle getting pregnant. Women who lose children every day, and here I am having three beautiful and healthy babies, and I am sad. I struggled a lot with it internally. Occasionally hinting to my husband or talking to my mom about it. The best way I was able to describe it was I felt like I was mourning, but I was mourning a child that never existed. I felt really silly. Even typing this out it leaves a pit in my stomach.

I was determined that it made me a bad mom for feeling the way I was feeling. It wasn’t until I turned to google one day and found the term “gender disappointment.” I saw that it was more common than I thought, and a lot of moms have gone through exactly what I was feeling. Once I got over the guilt of how I was feeling I was ready to really accept my reality that I am a boy mom. I pride myself in my ability to be a good mom of boys, and that maybe that’s the reason I keep having them. Of course, if tomorrow a genie came to me and said without a doubt my fourth would be a girl. I would be elated but I know that is just not in the cards for me and I am okay with that. I have fully embraced being a mom and all that comes with it. On a separate note, in my experience I get ALL THE TIME the following:

“You’re lucky you didn’t have a girl they will break your heart”

“You can borrow mine anytime you want”

“Don’t worry, boys love their moms and girls love their dads”

“Girls are drama”

Statements like these don’t help if someone is feeling the way I was. Just like my boys there isn’t anything I would happily deal with having a girl and I don’t want your daughter the point wasn’t like I wanted a doll to play dress up with. Also, another misconception, my want for a daughter never had me feeling resentful toward those who had girls. I understand that in the grand scheme of things my pain I felt was minimal compared to most, but this is my story and my truth and how I came to be the full-blown boy mom that I proudly am today.