Contents
Some prefer not to reveal the secret, others want to come up with a name or even a destiny long before the birth. When we know we will have a boy or a girl, what difference does it make?
It doesn’t matter how we find out that we will become parents – with the help of a pregnancy test or at a doctor’s appointment – but the thought of who we will have, a boy or a girl, flashes through our minds at the same second. Then this question, explicitly or implicitly, will haunt us until the moment when we find out the answer on an ultrasound scan or a blood test.
“I don’t care what gender my child is! I’ll be happy anyway!” 29-year-old Irina confidently declares before doing that same ultrasound. “Girl, girl! I’m in seventh heaven with happiness! she exclaims as she leaves the doctor’s office. And he admits: “Suddenly, so many disturbing thoughts flared up in me … Will my daughter be beautiful? Smart? Will I be able to educate her properly?” The doctor’s announcement of who is to be born changes the life of a parent forever. Their past, their own childhood experience immediately comes to life. Parents project fears, expectations, unfulfilled dreams onto their unborn child.
Read more:
- What are pregnant women afraid of?
Why do we want to know?
Often future parents are guided by practical considerations. “I was itching to go shopping and enjoy buying all these suits, diapers, bottles,” says 32-year-old Marina. – And the husband wanted to be sure to choose a name in advance. So we didn’t even have a question whether to find out the sex of the child. Of course – yes! This longing worries Roger Bessis, one of the pioneers of ultrasound research in Europe. “The first ultrasound shows exactly where the fetus is attached to the wall of the uterus, the second one already shows its gender, the third one can distinguish the appearance of the unborn child. But this information has no medical significance! I never tell the sex of the baby until after the examination. Otherwise, the woman is immediately distracted, starts sending messages and misses the most important thing – the health of the fetus. Even if there are some deviations, women at this moment do not hear anything. His anxiety is not shared by the psychoanalyst Svetlana Fedorova. “Parents are attracted by the very mystery of birth. There is something inexplicable here: we have created a new life, which is still hidden in the womb, and it is not known who is there – a boy or a girl … It is not surprising that the expectation of a child is always shrouded in anxieties, there are so many different signs, forebodings, “prophetic” dreams around this … The desire to at least lift the veil of this mystery is, in a sense, a childish, but quite healthy curiosity.
Read more:
- (Not) young parents: is it possible to prolong youth with the help of children?
Knowing that it is she or he turns the fetus into a real person. “Many parents say that it is at such moments that they fully realize that they will have a child and begin to get to know him,” says psychologist Nadezhda Pavlovskaya, who leads group classes in preparation for childbirth. According to her observations, most parents need time to get used to the thought of a child, to begin to love him. “Thanks to modern research methods, they can start to love him – not an abstract child, but already a boy or a girl.” This is especially important for those who are afraid to be alone with a child of the opposite sex.
Sometimes a woman fully feels her motherhood only when she finds out what gender the child is under her heart. This happened to 22-year-old Sophia: “I just could not recognize that the little man was making movements inside me. I understood it, but I didn’t feel it. It was some kind of incomprehensible “fruit, so many weeks.” But when the doctor said on the ultrasound that I would have a daughter, my imagination suddenly drew a tiny girl. That’s when the emotions kicked in.” Svetlana Fedorova explains: “For one woman, it is natural to immediately and unconditionally accept the life that is emerging in her. And the other needs a push to animate, revive the child in his imagination. And it is important for her to find out what gender he is, so that she can enter into a dialogue with him, talk with him, fantasize about him.
Hopes and fears
“Being a parent means loving your child, no matter what gender he is, and later, no matter what he does,” says Roger Bessis. Which does not negate another equally obvious thing: the child in our dreams is not asexual. But how differently we interpret our fantasies!
“Often I hear from expectant mothers that they want the easiest possible life for the child. And then they dream of a child of the same sex, which, as it seems to them, is easier to cope with life’s tasks, – says Nadezhda Pavlovskaya. – Other parents may have this criterion – who is easier to love. Or with whom they will have better relations, who will take care of them more, will become support. From the point of view of the psychoanalyst, it is important to understand what this “ideal” symbolizes. “For example, for some of the women to be a man means to have strength, power, potency, inaccessible to her,” explains Svetlana Fedorova. “And she may have a fantasy that, having given birth to a son, she will symbolically be able to possess this power. Another option: if a woman does not devalue her femininity, but she has many unrealized fantasies, she can dream of a girl who will bring to life what her mother could not: become, say, a champion or an actress. In both cases, parents unconsciously perceive the child as their narcissistic continuation, and this option cannot be called safe, the psychoanalyst notes. But fantasizing can also be positive if we see a personality in a child and create space in our imagination for its development. In order to assess the desire of parents to know (or not know) the sex of their unborn child, it is important to understand what determines their desire and how ready they are to adapt to any of the options.
work on yourself
“I wanted a boy,” admits 27-year-old Inna. The girl scared me. I remember well how unbearable I myself was in adolescence, how I was in conflict with my parents, and I did not want the same thing to happen to her. But now I am delighted that I am expecting a girl. I dream of teaching her to be feminine, gentle, kind…” Disappointment from the fact that the sex of the child turned out to be “wrong” is usually not too strong, our experts say. Especially if the child is the first. “In our classes, couples who have experienced such disappointment, as a rule, say that they managed to cope with it,” says Nadezhda Pavlovskaya. “Like it was a test on the way to becoming real parents.”
But for some, the fear of being deceived in their hopes is so strong that they prefer not to know anything until the birth. “Behind this “obsession” lies an internal conflict,” Svetlana Fedorova believes. “It’s much better to know the truth in advance so that you have time to sort yourself out (preferably with the help of a psychologist) before the baby is born.” Otherwise, the problem that manifests itself in relation to the sex of the child will make itself felt at that crucial moment when you need to take care of the newborn. For example, postpartum depression can happen not only because of hormonal changes, but also because of the mother’s rejection of the newborn, including its gender.
However, pregnancy in any case involves work on yourself. This is especially true for the mother, who is especially emotionally vulnerable: it is difficult for her to resist the onslaught of the unconscious. The best thing is to give up the image of the “ideal child” in time. Whatever its gender, the child will always be “different”, unexpected, and parents will gradually recognize and understand him.
Alisa, 34 years old, translator “I trust nature”
“My husband and I do not want to know ahead of time who will be born to us. Everything is determined by nature, and it is not in our power to change something. At first, however, I was torn apart by doubts, and my husband was sure that curiosity would prevail. And yet, at the ultrasound, I asked that we not be told anything. And we both turned away from the screen. I play both options, imagining either a son or a daughter. I like the idea that it is only at the moment of the birth of a child that we learn this secret. I think it will be a very intimate experience that will bring us even closer.”