Three and a half years ago I gave birth to my beautiful micro preemie daughter. She lived for twenty minutes and then died in my arms.

Since then, I've had two wonderful, healthy baby boys. My first son was born only a month early, and my second son was born two months ago at (miracle of miracles) 39 weeks.

During my last pregnancy I had some unexpected complications which prompted my doctors to encourage me to not get pregnant again. My mother, my brother, and my husband all concur -- all three of my pregnancies have been fraught with challenges.

I love my baby boys more than I can even express -- they fill my heart in ways I never expected, and I wouldn't trade them for anything.

But you see, I had plans for that little girl of mine. Plans for tea parties, and the Nutcracker ballet, and Anne of Green Gables, and homemade rag dolls. I had plans for her to have an special relationship with her daddy, since I do not have a substantive relationship with mine. And those plans were dashed when she slipped from this world to the next.

I always expected that I would have another daughter some day, but now it looks as though I will never be pregnant again, and my husband is not open to the idea of adoption.

I would shrug and say, "Oh well. I can still do those things with my boys," but I see how my older son is developing, and he is more of a smash and destroy kind of kid. :o)

Since my doctors' pronouncement and my husband's suggestion that he get a vasectomy, I have been feeling very sad and angry. I just want to smash things and cry. I found myself screaming, "Fuck you!" at the radio after they advertised a father/daughter dance for the third time in an hour.

I must emphasize that I LOVE my boys SO much, and I KNOW I am fortunate to have two living children, and what I am saying feels almost blasphemous in a place where deadbaby mamas convene, but I am hurting, and no one else wants to hear it. My husband is preoccupied, my mother just want me to say everything's okay, and my best friend just keeps telling me that I'm too unique to have a "cookie-cutter" family with both boy and girl children in it.

I don't know what I'm hoping for from here. I just have been feeling the need to say this all somewhere before I explode.

I want to add that I know having another daughter wouldn't bring back my little girl -- that she is lost to me no matter what. I don't think my hope was to replace her...more to fulfill some of those dreams that died when she did. I don't know...

pregnancy mentioned:

i'm so sorry for the loss of your daughter, H.

so you have only recently been told that getting pregnant again would not be advisable, at the same time as having a newborn? i'm not surprised that you are upset and angry. you've got everything to deal with and sleep deprivation all at the same time. it must be very hard.

my situation is different as i never found out the sex of the baby i lost. but in my head it was a girl (although i'm less sure of that these days), and i'm now pregnant with a boy. i think that my husband will only agree to even trying for one more baby after this, if he even agrees to that (this pregnancy is extremely difficult on my mental health). and if all the 'ifs' line up and i end up having a healthy baby, managing to get pregnant again and then have a second healthy baby and it's a boy, then i think i will grieve for the daughter i think i should have had. and i know that should i end up with two healthy boys i will be far, far luckier than i ever dreamed of even six months ago, when i despaired of ever having even one baby, but it's hard to give up on how life *should* have been, even when we've spent years dealing with how unfair life really is. i guess it's one last piece of the grief.

can you talk to your doctor about this? or a counsellor of some sort. it sounds like you need someone to talk to and you're not getting the opportunity from friends and family.

thinking of you and your daughter, H.

I am so sorry for the loss of your baby girl, and for the loss of those dreams.

I have a daughter, I lost a son, I am having another daughter. I will be 42 soon and this is definitely my last pregnancy. I will never raise a son. This is part of what I grieve, and it is a separate grief from the loss of my specific son, I think. It has nothing to do with how much I look forward to this experience of raising sisters. (My own sisters are much older than I am so I have no experience of little girls growing up together.) My husband is thrilled to have two girls but I know that he swallows a lot of the grief he feels because he will never raise his son.

I know that does not make it better, I don't have an answer to make it better, I just wanted to acknowledge that this is its own grief, and it's okay to grieve this loss.

I didn't want a boy.

I wanted a girl. Eventually, maybe, a son, but it was shadowy, unreal. A girl - I could understand that, picture that. As you say - teaparties and baking and dolls and dress-up. Things that can be done with boys, but generally, aren't. A daughter and I could replicate the close relationship I have with my mother. I could see it all before me.

We were *so* certain Gabe was a girl. So sure that the first three times we were told boy we didn't believe it (too early, didn't see it, doc wasn't sure yet). Those 6 weeks where I worked to come around to the idea of boy, I felt bad, because we were so sure he was a girl and secretly, that's what I wanted.

And then my boy was born and died and now I ache for him. For four days of complete certainty, I had reimagined the tea parties into playing trucks and fingerpainting and reading stories and I could *see* my little boy so clearly, the mischeivous little grin he'd have. . .

He's gone. I dreamt the other night I was pregnant again, and we were told 'girl' and I cried, because I wouldn't get to fill those empty dreams that were specific to boys and my son. And I may not yet - it's been a long time since I was pregnant. . .

So I understand. Not exactly the same, of course, but close. I sympathize. I think your reaction is natural and normal. It is what I would expect and a secondary mourning that I think may be universal. I know my friends who have children of one sex only and no plans for more secretly mourn that loss, and I know that is amplified by so much in having had that, in being mother to a daughter or son, and losing it so quickly.

I had been trying to figure out how to title a post like this...The Gender Thing. For people on the outside, it would seem those of us who are babylost would want only a healthy screaming baby. They are not wrong, and I understand there are those of us whose wanting is only that.

But we were robbed of something we had very tangibly, and I want whatever piece of that I can get back. It is my #1 Question to all those who have their rainbow babies, especially if their lost baby was their first...how do you deal with the Gender Thing?

I lost a girl, and am pregnant again, and while I didn't root for one or the other the first time around, I feel that it will make her death feel even more punitive (if this is possible) if I am carrying a boy. I know it is not her in there, I know I will love her brother or sister, but I am SO HOOKED IN to The Gender Thing that it is outshadowing the good of this pregnancy.

We want the baby we had...and for me, gender ended up being a big part of who she was, if only because that's a big piece of all we knew of her, and her things, etc.

So, I understand you, friends...especially those of you facing acceptance at the end of your childbearing. It is not the same as someone having three sons and no lost baby. The ghost isn't there for them. This is yet another element of helplessness and lack of control. How do you all make peace with lack of control?

Oh, yes. The Gender Thing. There are so many secondary losses on this tortured journey, and this one looms large. H, your pain is real, valid, and completely justified. I hope you find the space you need to grieve this particular loss. I'm sorry you aren't getting the validation you need from your inner circle. It is sometimes very hard for folks to understand. And in general I think we as humans have a strong urge to "fix" rather than acknowledge what can't be fixed and mourn it.

Thinking about this some more.

I think it falls in line with something that others can't understand; that our babies aren't replaceable. That we can go one to have other children (or so we hope) and it may fill some part of the void and some bit of the ache, but another child doesn't 'make up' for what we lost, doesn't erase the pain of our lost one.

A piece of that, especially for those of us who lost our babies before any real identity could be established is gender. It's something concrete that we could plan around, a piece of them we know for certain that holds expectations and dreams. And in losing our children, we lose our dreams.

To never have that gap filled is its own acute pain. Yes, you have other children and of course you love them and are grateful for them and they are wonderful, but there will always be an ache of your daughter missing. Even if you had a daughter, it would persist. And to know that you will never be able to replicate what was lost, never to be able to fill even that small bit of the void, never be able to have a tea party with your daughter and miss your first, it hurts.

Thank you, all. It actually helps to know that others have experienced similar pain, or at least that others understand.

I know that in order to completely heal, I need to mourn the loss of the hope of a daughter, and then move forward. I say, move "forward," because I think that I will never be able to move "on" or "past" the loss of my child. But I think I can make my peace with the path I am on.

Just not today.

Went to the movies last night, and stood in line behind two moms with their three little girls in princess dresses. Couldn't keep it together -- burst into tears.

Damnit, damnit, damnit!

Oh H. I'm so sorry. It's so painful and sometimes so unexpected. Sometimes nowhere seems safe from these triggers.

Sending hugs x

Oh, I so, so *get* this.

I have one beautiful boy. One precious beautiful wonderful irreplaceable boy. But I've been pregnant six other times. Three of those times I was SO sure I was carrying a girl. The other three were sweet little mysteries, and I grieve for them, but I lost them so quickly I didn't get a chance to *feel* close to them, and had no instincts about who they were. But the others...they are my daughters. And I want a baby girl so badly. My son asked God quite clearly and with the brightest, most shining faith, for a baby sister. I got pregnant one month later--to the day. SURE it was a girl. Named her: Genevieve. My Jenna. And then she stopped growing at 9 weeks.

I get SO MAD when people tell me that it's okay, that I have my son, that I will have other children. But I want the ones I haven't got. I've never been a "girly" girl, and was thrilled to find out when pregnant with my son that my intuition was right and I was carrying a boy, thrilled to have a little version of my husband entrusted to my care, thrilled to be buying blue and green and yellow instead of pink and purple. But now I find myself fawning over the delicate petal pink things. The cherry blossom motifs, the perfect soft shade of yarn that would make the prettiest blanket for a baby girl. I never thought of myself as a good mom for a little girl. I've always preferred to teach or babysit little boys over little girls. I'm not the princess dress kind. I hate pink.

But I want all of it. And I want my little girl. I want whoever she was going to be. Dainty little sweetheart or fiesty little firecracker...but all girl, my girl.

Please know you're not a bad mom to your boys because you miss all of the things that you had saved up to do with their sister.