For some parents, learning their baby’s sex is a disappointment

Many are surprised by, ashamed of their conflicted feelings.

Ceilidhe Wynn was sure she was having a boy. Call it maternal intuition, but she just knew: she pictured herself cradling him, and she imagined her husband playing with his son. It all felt so certain that it wasn’t until moments before her 20-week ultrasound, as the technician squirted gel on Wynn’s bulging belly, that a sudden thought popped into her head: what if it wasn’t a boy?

“And then she said, ‘It’s a girl!’ Wynn says. “It was just a feeling of shock.”

Her astonishment was quickly eclipsed by disappointment and fear. She didn’t know how to raise a girl, she thought. She couldn’t make a french braid or put on makeup, and what if her daughter didn’t get along with her? It didn’t help, Wynn says, that friends and strangers alike responded to the news with a flurry of unhelpful sentiments — everything from “I’m sorry,” to a cynical “Good luck!” or “Oh, girls hate their moms.”

Wynn, a Canadian writer, eventually penned an essay about what it was like to experience so-called “gender disappointment,” a term that has become more widespread in recent years as more parents choose to share their reactions —

in gender reveal videos, personal testimonials and online support groups — when they learn whether they’re expecting a boy or a girl.

“People say ‘just as long as it’s healthy!’ because that’s what they’re supposed to say,” says Joyce Venis, a psychiatric nurse in Princeton, New Jersey, who specializes in perinatal mood disorders and has treated parents who experience gender disappointment. “But most people do have a preference, they do have particular dreams. Over the last 10 years or so, I’ve seen more people open up about how they really feel instead of subscribing to expectations.”

It all makes for a rather striking dichotomy: Modern babies are born into the most openly gender-nonconforming generation in history, in an era when gender-neutral pronouns have crossed into the mainstream and many prominent activists and celebrities are challenging the gender dichotomy and traditional gender roles. Plenty of parents make a point to avoid clothing, toys or decor that play into stereotypes — no blue trucks, no pink flowers.

Still, social media feeds are increasingly flooded with photos and videos from “gender reveal parties,” which transform the announcement of an unborn baby’s sex into a fullblown event — complete with cupcakes filled with pink or blue icing, or a box filled with pink or blue balloons, or fireworks, or confetti cannons. One Louisiana family unveiled their son’s sex with the help of a live alligator named Sally (she chomped into a watermelon filled with blue JellO). A Border Patrol agent in Arizona recently made headlines when his gender reveal explosion ignited a massive wildfire.

For most parents, the moment of truth doesn’t play out so theatrically or publicly. It often happens in the privacy of a doctor’s office, and the emotional aftermath is processed with partners, therapists or in online support forums, where messages reveal the shame that accompanies admissions of disappointment.

Some people know they have strong opinions before an ultrasound technician shares the news. Others, like college English professor Natalie Ricci, are surprised by their own sudden, visceral response.

“It was immediate disappointment,” she says, of the moment she learned her second child was a boy. “And then I walked out of the office and cried.”

Ricci had grown up with an especially close bond to her mother and sisters, she says, and she realized that she would not be able to re-create many of her own favorite childhood bonding moments — shopping for a prom dress, for instance — in a house with two boys.

She kept her reaction largely to herself: “I was uneasy about it,” she says. “It’s such a taboo thing. You’re not supposed to feel any disappointment about having a baby.”

Wynn contends that this expectation is itself rooted in gender roles.

“Mothers are supposed to be incandescent in their glowing love for their children, loving their children no matter what, sacrificing everything for their children,” she says. “Being a mother is just as nuanced as being anybody else. I can love the idea of having a baby but still be disappointed, or scared, that I’m having a boy instead of a girl, or a girl instead of a boy.”

After Wynn talked through her feelings with close friends at a rape crisis center where she volunteered, she realized her own concerns were mostly tied to her fears about how to guide and protect her daughter.

“I realized, I don’t think I’m scared of raising a girl, I think I’m scared of how to prepare her for this,” she says. “When do I start talking to my child about the dangers of violence and sexual violence that women experience over male peers? How do you impart navigating this world to a little innocent child?”

Fathers can have conflicting feelings, too. Brad Grayson, a father of two young daughters in Minnesota, says he was caught off guard by his disappointment when he learned that his second child was another girl. Before becoming a parent, he says, he’d always envisioned a future son, and — since he and his wife planned on having just two children — he realized he wouldn’t be able to share the same sorts of bonding moments he’d experienced with his dad. But his sorrow was short-lived.

“Those feelings and any concerns I had went away quickly,” he says. “Fatherdaughter moments are equally if not more wonderful.”

TIM GOHEEN/MCT