Navigating the Emotions of Gender Disappointment: A Deep Dive

Virtually every expecting mom imagines what life will be like with their new, healthy baby. What color eyes will they have? Will they be solemn and stoic, or playful and sensitive? And when it comes to taste in music, will they side with your partner’s, or yours?

Often, gender is one of the first traits to fill in those blanks—and when a baby’s sex doesn’t match expectations, many moms can experience disappointment, guilt, or shame.

But fundamental to moving past gender disappointment is practicing self-forgiveness: It’s okay to feel let down by your baby’s gender. Accepting your feelings about gender preference the first step in accepting the circumstances overall.

Whether you’re a first-time mom or are making a final addition to your family, understanding the complexities of gender disappointment can help you realize you’re not alone in your feelings. Below, we offer some insights, reframing exercises, and coping strategies to help celebrate the new life you’re welcoming into the world.

What causes gender disappointment?

The term “gender disappointment” is still relatively new, though the concept has endured in various cultures throughout history. Historically, the phenomenon is particularly pronounced in many East and South Asian societies, though today, it’s a common experience for parents around the world.

Gender disappointment can stem from many factors, including:

• Cultural beliefs and value systems surrounding gender and family structures
• Personal aspirations about family life, parenthood, and plans for the future
• Personal beliefs (whether realized or unconscious) about what it’s like to experience life raising a child of a certain sex
• Personal relationships, like believing a partner, parent, or another significant figure desires a baby of a certain sex
• Difficulty navigating negative feelings (one 2005 study suggested gender disappointment could be a contributing factor to postpartum depression in some women)

Not all parents experiencing gender disappointment have conscious ideas or ambitions related to who their child will be. Sometimes, gender disappointment catches parents off guard, inspiring feelings of shame or guilt that can be psychologically taxing to process.

If you’re struggling with gender disappointment, try to remember that you are certainly not the only or first person to feel this way. By bravely confronting your authentic experience and reframing your beliefs or desires surrounding gender preference, it’s more than possible to embrace your baby’s gender and rediscover what’s truly rewarding about being a parent.

Coping with Gender Disappointment

Processing gender disappointment can look different from person to person, but in general, processing feelings often comes down to an attitude shift. With combined effort and self-compassion, the following steps can help you move through hard feelings and facilitate a change in perspective.

Recognize and Feel Your Feelings

Feelings are such an organic part of the human experience that we don’t always spend time thinking about what they are.

Interestingly, many mental health professionals distinguish between “feelings” and “emotions”:

• Emotions are deeply physical, experienced as sensations originating in our bodies.
• Feelings can develop from emotions, but they also carry a cognitive component: they’re highly impacted by thoughts we attach to our emotions.

Let’s take an example as it pertains to gender disappointment. The emotion of sadness might manifest as:

• A “heavy” or “sinking” sensation in the heart or chest
• Tightness of the throat
• Difficulty mustering energy to complete tasks (physical, mental, and otherwise)

The feeling of sadness might contain some, all, or other kinds of physical sensations. It might also be attached to ideas like:

• I can’t recover from a let-down like this
• I won’t love my baby boy as much as I would love a baby girl
• My partner is judging me for feeling sad

Alongside these thoughts, other feelings—like worry and fear—can churn up, complicating our ability to process sadness. When we’re preoccupied with the stories or beliefs that surround certain feelings, it can be harder to accept our emotions and let them change over time.

When confronting gender disappointment, it can be tremendously helpful to discuss both emotions and feelings with a therapist or mental health counselor. However, if you don’t have access to those resources, it can help to create your own inventory.

The following can be performed daily, or you can reach for it when you feel especially overwhelmed:

1. Start with a body scan – See if you can identify what physical sensations you’re experiencing.
2. Describe what you feel – Do those sensations have a temperature? A texture? How fast are they moving? Do they have a weight, like a feeling of heaviness or detachment? If you can, try to give a name to that collection of feelings.
3. Jot down related beliefs – What thoughts and beliefs arise when you meditate on that feeling? Many might conjure supplementary feelings, emotions like guilt, shame, worry over others’ judgment, or feelings of powerlessness. If you can, try to write down all the beliefs you have.

Often, feelings themselves are very straightforward—and there’s nothing “wrong” about them. It’s the thoughts, beliefs, or negative self-talk that we “shouldn’t” feel a certain way that can complicate them.

Let’s discuss how reframing exercises can help you explore new beliefs and feel more positive about the future.

Experiment with Cognitive Restructuring (“Reframing”)

Many of our thoughts—even highly negative ones—can seem logical, particularly if we’ve been living with certain beliefs for a long time. The notion of “reframing” means taking a thought or belief and orienting it towards a more positive outlook.

Let’s look at a few examples of beliefs that can arise with gender disappointment:

• Life is unfair. The world is an unfair place → Life is filled with unexpected challenges and opportunities to grow through them. In this moment, I can adapt and find positivity in unexpected outcomes.
• This disappointment is intolerable to me → While this information is difficult to process, I am willing to navigate it and reach the other side.
• I’m going to be a bad mother → My ability to parent my child is not defined by my baby’s gender. I’m capable of nurturing and loving a child irrespective of their sex.
• I must have done something to deserve this → I am not to blame for outcomes I can’t control. While I can’t control my baby’s gender, I can control how I act today.

Beliefs are rarely changed overnight. But listening to your thoughts and being willing to see a new perspective is a key step in supporting their evolution.

Reconsider Your Expectations

Aside from the beliefs you have about what you are feeling, another element of gender disappointment is breaking down the beliefs you have about your baby’s future.

Let’s say you have two 2 girls already, and you wanted to give them a baby brother. You might believe that:

• Having a boy would recreate your experience of motherhood
• A boy would balance out the genders in your household
• A boy would give your male partner the chance to connect more deeply with his child
• A boy would have life experiences or opportunities a girl simply wouldn’t have

Each of these beliefs is founded on assumptions—but no matter what gender baby you have, there’s no predicting the future. Even moms who give birth to a healthy baby of their ideal gender meet unmatched expectations, unexpected circumstances, or obstacles when raising their child.

Maybe you can think of this challenge as an early opportunity. You get the chance to meet and make friends with a difficult truth in life: that we can’t know what’s going to happen next. All we can do is respond with hope and openness—for ourselves, our children, and our loved ones—as we adapt to the circumstances we’re dealt.

Communicate with Your Partner

It can be difficult to digest emotions internally, and processing and communicating with a partner can be its own challenge.

Every relationship is different, but it may help to:

• Express how you’re feeling – Honest communication with your partner helps you both progress towards parenthood from where you authentically are. If you don’t feel able to share your feelings with a partner, it’s important to find another trusted person to talk to—whether a sibling, a parent, or a licensed mental health counselor.
• Practice “active” listening – Not all parents agree on what sex they want their baby to be—and that’s okay. If possible, give your partner space to express what they’re feeling: excitement, disappointment, or ambivalence. Whether you’re experiencing the news differently or similarly, receiving their perspective may help you gain more clarity on your own.

It’s also normal for feelings to change over time. It can help to treat this process as an opportunity for developing emotional resilience—and if you’re able to find an open mind and heart, your partner may even help support that process of growth.

Connect with Other Moms

In recent research conducted on gender disappointment, most scientists defend that gender disappointment is not a distinct mental health condition. However, it is a shared experience among many moms, many of whom can find solace in connecting with others.

Support groups of moms may help to:

• See that you’re not alone in your feelings
• Take your mind off your personal struggles
• Expose you to supportive resources, coping mechanisms, and tools for dealing with grief
• Open your mind to the many ways there are to be a mom
• Restore excitement about your new arrival around the corner

Finding a group of expecting mothers is an excellent way to get honest about your feelings and learn from others who are moving through their pregnancy journey with you. Listening and exchanging stories about the unique segways pregnancy and motherhood can take is just one way to open your mind and heart to the gift you’re welcoming into the world.

Join 1 Million Moms Finding Clarity in Their Pregnancy Journey

Whether your pregnancy was a surprise or a long-planned effort, learning about your bundle-to-be can help you plan (and fantasize) your family’s future on surer footing. SneakPeek’s gender blood test, a DNA-based at-home Early Gender Test lets you know your future baby’s sex as early as 6 weeks into your pregnancy with over 99% accuracy¹.

Feelings can be complicated, but our process is simple: You’ll take your sample at home, send it to SneakPeek labs, and we’ll triple-review your results and send them back to you on the same day we receive them.

More than 1 million moms trust SneakPeek Test, the #1-recommended at-home early gender test by OBGYNs. Order your test and get more clarity on your pregnancy today.

This post has been reviewed for accuracy by:

Haley Milot

Haley Milot, a highly skilled laboratory professional, currently serves as the Associate Director of Lab Operations at Gateway Genomics, the parent company of SneakPeek. Her extensive experience in laboratory management, spanning over seven years with Gateway Genomics, showcases her expertise in quality assurance, quality control, and the development of laboratory procedures. Haley's background includes pivotal roles in DNA extraction and purification, real-time qPCR, and specimen accessioning, underscoring her comprehensive understanding of laboratory operations and diagnostics. Her adeptness in managing complex laboratory functions and her deep knowledge of medical diagnostics make her a vital contributor to SneakPeek's innovative approach to prenatal testing.

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