When the Result Isn’t What You Expected: A Real Talk Episode About Gender Disappointment & Healing

In this honest and vulnerable episode of Raising Hustle, we’re talking about gender disappointment — the grief, guilt, love, and gratitude that can all exist at the same time when the result isn’t what you hoped for.

This conversation isn’t about ingratitude or loving your baby any less. It’s about acknowledging the dream that shifted, holding space for both hurt and joy, and allowing healing to unfold without shame.

If you’ve ever felt grateful and grieving in the same breath, this episode will remind you: you’re not alone, and you’re not a bad mom — you’re human. 🤍

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to Raising Hustle, the unfiltered podcast for the moms who are building empires with babies on their hips and grits in their hearts. I'm your host, Mariel Fry, bookkeeper by trade, hustler by nature, and mama by choice. Around here we're raising kids, raising hell, and raising the bar. If you're tired of choosing between nap time and next level dreams, this is your space. Let's redefine what it means to have it all on our own damn terms.

SPEAKER_01 0:31

Hey hustlers and mamas, welcome back to Raising Hustle. This episode is deeply personal to me because I'm going into talking about gender disappointment and healing. Just a quick note for any listener: if you are going through any infertility, miscarriage, and just wanting a baby, I just want to say I am praying for you, I am thinking of you, and I am only sending the best positive healing energy vibes your way. This episode is just to bring clarity and light on what gender disappointment is and just my personal story. So I just want to kind of say that first iteration. If you don't feel comfortable listening to this episode, that you can kindly pause, walk away, listen to another episode. But I want to just not have this be a trigger for anyone. This is my story of gender disappointment and how I've healed from it and healing. My journey is not perfect, but how I am healing from gender disappointment and things that I've done because I am excited to talk about this place of gender disappointment where women feel they're caring quietly, silently, and with a lot of shame. Because it's not that we don't love our babies, and it's not because we're ungrateful, and it's not even because we're selfish. Sometimes the result of what we expected or hoped for and that moment could bring up grief, guilt, joy, love, and loss all at the same time. This is real talk. This is personal about what just gender disappointment actually feels like, why it happens, how we heal, and how we can hold both truths. I'm so grateful for this healthy baby, and it still hurts that I'm not having a daughter. Both can exist, both are valid, both deserve compassion. So let's talk about the messy middle. The place where your heart and heart can still exist next to each other. Number one, the moment you hear the gender in your heart drops. So for my husband and I, I am a very private person. I did not do a gender reveal cake or any of this other nonsense. I did Natara, I did the NIPT, panorama, whatever you want to call it test at the 10-week appointment, the blood work, and it took about a week. Of course, you want a healthy baby, first and foremost. You want to make sure the baby doesn't have any Down syndrome or any other issues. But look, naturally, you want to know the gender. It's pretty obvious. I was had my son, and I love my son. I was very hopeful to have a daughter. Now, let's be clear, this is something out of your control. But when I found out I was having a boy, I cried uncontrollably, like uncontrollably for weeks. The only time I tried to not cry was when I was with a client, right? Or at the time I had people in town. So I couldn't really grieve as much as I maybe wanted to or should have. But I wanted to be happy. I went through a miscarriage right before. And I'll talk about my miscarriage if you haven't heard my episode or it hasn't come out yet. But there it is a rainbow baby after going through something like that. So to say I should feel like excited and happy, especially women going through fertility issues and wanting a healthy baby, believe me, there should be a lot more joy, but it felt so heavy. And the guilt I felt was so shitty. I hated it. I hated that I felt like this. I didn't anticipate to be like a boy mom. That was not my thing. I wanted to be a boy mom and a girl mom. I didn't want two boys. I'll be very honest. I know listening to this, they might hate that I'm saying this. But I want them to know, first of all, that I will love the shit out of them. And I will do anything for my sons. Anything, literally anything. But you can't help to feel love and disappointment at the same time. And that's really hard. And I had to go through a lot of tears and a lot of emotion to get to where I am and to even talk about this today. But what I've realized, I am a researcher, and I love to dig into books and went into podcasts and forums and Facebook and TikTok and Instagram. And I what I realized, this is so much more common than anybody wants to freaking admit. It's crazy. I even reached out to a lot of like clients with boy moms, friends as boy moms, their stories, how they felt, and they all have made me feel so much better. So to all the people that I've cried to, voice noted to, talked to, thank you for listening to me. And thank you for being there for me through a time that I didn't know if I'd get through it. And I'm so grateful for each and every one of you. So listening to this, thank you, thank you, thank you for letting me vent and you being that voice of reason. Number two, the grief you weren't expecting. You feel like there's a sudden death, right? You feel like, oh my gosh, you're grieving this daughter you never had. And who knows, I'll be honest. I might go through IVF to have a girl. And if I do, I will definitely talk about that on the podcast. But right now, in this moment of recording, I am grieving the daughter that I might not ever have or raise. And it's also mourning the motherhood I never had. I never thought I'd have two boys. It just never crossed my mind. I don't know why. Like I said, I think society deemed that we'd have like a boy and a girl, like and that's your perfect family, like two kids, picket fence, the whole nine. And did I think I would want to be a boy mom? No. Did I think I'd want to deal with construction stuff and race cars and I don't know, all the things that boys like? No. But here I am, thriving in it. But you do grieve and you feel sad and you feel disappointed and you feel upset. And so what has helped me is just allowing myself to be sad. Like if I get sad, I'm gonna cry it out, I'm gonna let it out, I'm gonna let my emotions out because I know this is temporary and this will pass, and I will love my baby, and I will adore my baby, and I will give my son the best life. But it's it's hard. You think you were gonna have a certain life, and then life takes a turn. And so when you're sad, it doesn't mean you're sad about the baby. It just means you're sad that you weren't getting what you hoped for, what you expected. And after reading all these forums and podcasts and groups, this is very common. This is not something that's not common, which is why I want to talk about it on the podcast. Because if you are going through gender disappointment and you are upset, I want this to be another podcast for you to listen to of ways that I've healed and the ways that I'm gonna grow from this and be so much better. Because at the time of recording, I am pregnant with my second son. I am seven months pregnant at the time of recording. But I know that once he comes into the world, I'm gonna love this baby so much. And so I'm excited to have this episode be a resource for you too. Number three, the fantasy child versus the real child. So even during my first, right, we all create these futures and ideas when we're pregnant of what our children will be like. And then we have the kid and like jokes on us. But when we think about gender, right, it ties so much into identity, dreams, and like generational narratives, where we think, well, a girl's always gonna be a mom's daughter, and a boy, once he's married, will never talk to you. Or boys are wild, or boys are distant, or boys don't love, or boys don't care, and girls are always caring and they're always sweet. And that's like the narrative that society has deemed. And for me, it's it's also letting go of the future daughter, not erasing it, but it pauses it. And I know for me, like I said, I'm gonna be very transparent if I go through IVF. It is for gender selection to have a daughter, but we'll see where life takes us. I don't know. And maybe we will, maybe we won't. I I can't help what might happen, but I just know the reality right now is two boys. Because the truth is the baby's not taking anything away from you. They're adding something so much more. Like any baby is a miracle. Let's be clear. Any baby that you bring into the world is a miracle. And especially for women who go through infertility and who have miscarriages and all sorts of problems, a baby is a miracle bringing into the world, whether it is a boy or girl. So I just want to be very clear on that. Number four, the guilt layer. Why we feel like bad moms. Because we should always feel thankful and grateful. Always, always, always. We shouldn't feel like shit. We shouldn't feel bad. We shouldn't feel shame. We shouldn't feel guilty. I think when we go through gender disappointment, it's really hard to talk about it, especially for anyone going through infertility or any issues. Because, like I remember I was with my parents and I found out, and I literally spiraled. I really just couldn't believe I was having another boy. And I felt awful. I felt like a terrible human fee being. I felt overwhelmed. I felt upset. And it was really challenging. I felt like I was a shitty mom. I felt like I was a shitty person. And I don't want anyone to feel that way. You know, it's it's awful feeling. It's terrible. And I really tried to reframe part of this of like, I can be disappointed, but I don't need to feel rejected or be upset about this. Like, like this was meant to happen in my life. And I've I've told myself I'm not gonna feel guilty or feel bad about it at all. Period. And that's hard, but I'm really doing my best every day to feel gratitude and grateful that I'm having a healthy baby boy, and he's gonna be the best little brother to my son, and that they're gonna have the best bond in the world. And that means more to me than anything else. Number five, healing through understanding that this baby is a gift for your son. So, just talking about this a second ago, I reframed a lot of this and have gone through a lot of work. I worked with a spirit baby coach, which some people energetically might feel weird about this, but I really love working with her. Her name's Justine Cohen. She is amazing to work with. And I've worked with so many other people too. Um, but she's really almost been like a therapist to me and has really helped me get out of this cycle of like, why am I having a boy or why is he here? And I really gained a lot of clarity around it. I also hired someone to do birth chart and tarot, and she was one of the only people who told me I'd have a like I would have a second boy and then probably a girl, which is crazy. And I've asked both of these lovely women, could I handle both? Could I handle three kids? Could I handle being a mom? And they all said yes. And so, again, not knowing if I'm gonna have a girl one day. But what I've realized having another boy, and I did a lot of research on this too, and I'm reading a lot of books as we speak, but I'm excited for my brother, for not my brother. I have, I do have a brother though, but I'm excited for my son to have a brother and growing up together. I'm excited that they will be, I hope, friends, but I really more than anything else hope they respect each other and love each other and know that they they can be there for each other no matter what. That made me feel a lot better. And my husband had a lot of emotion around this. As soon as we found out we had a second boy, first of all, he's like so excited to have two sons. He's got three sisters. And so for him, he never had the brother. And it really bothered him and upset him. And a lot of other boys I talked to who don't have brothers, they feel that too. And I think psychologically, from what I was reading and going down a lot of deep rabbit holes, a lot of men fare better in life when they have a brother than anything else, like a brother they're close with and have a relationship with. And so it made me feel a lot better that my son is gonna have a brother to play with, to hang out with, and to have the best bond. Because even my husband, he laughs. He's like, You don't realize how much time you're gonna save. And I said, Well, what do you mean? He's like, Well, my mom used to have to throw around a soccer ball with me and play with me because I didn't really have anyone. And we moved around and I didn't have a lot of friends. And my mom had to play outside with me. And she goes, These boys are gonna have each other and they're gonna play together all the time. And I really like thought about a lot of this perspective, and I'm giving my son the greatest gift in the world, and that's a brother. And in addition to our family, sorry, I'm getting emotional because this is a very personal episode, but I am really excited about that because I know my husband wished more than anything to have a brother. I'm sure my brother did too, but I know that my son is gonna have like his the coolest brother in the world. And they're gonna have such a relationship, they'll be 20 months apart. And I know my son and this baby are going to be inseparable, especially when they're younger. When they're older, who knows? But at least when they're young, they'll both just wrestle each other and play together. And God, that will save me a lot of time. They can just play together. And I'm I'm just the usher. I was um, I was watching an episode of Chris Rock in getting interviewed by like a Seth Myers or Jimmy Kimmel or someone. And he's like, when you he cracked me up with this. He goes, when you have one child, and this is just children, boy, girl, whatever. When you have one child, like you are the entertainer, you are the show, you have to play all the time. But he's like, What two? You can just have a newspaper and you usher and you say, Okay, children, go run and play. And then you tell them, don't do this, don't hit each other, when you just kind of tell them what to do. But they are playmates and they'll always play together. And that is what has really helped me a lot get through some of the sadness and guilt and and just not frustration, but upsetness around it. Number six, holding space for both, hurt and gratitude. So naturally, I think emotions will always come into play, like me getting emotional here. You can you feel both in motherhood anyway. I think you feel gratitude that you have your children. You feel gratitude that you have a home and food on the table and money coming in and all the things imaginable. But you also feel hurt and sadness some days of missing like your old life or maybe wanting more freedom or wanting a break of other things, like in general. This has nothing to do with gender disappointment, but you can feel that. And for me, I can love deeply and hurt deeply at the same time. And integrating joy without suppressing sadness feels really hard some days, but I've learned to really get over that and to have a hell of a lot more joy than sadness over this. I know deep down this was meant to happen. This was, this was my story. This was meant to be here for me. And I've learned that everything happens for a reason, and like this reason was supposed to be it. And I'm realizing this emotional capacity really grows in motherhood. And it's it's taught me a lot, to be honest with you. It's taught me to really think about gender. It's taught me to think about humans, it's taught me to think about myself, my expectations. And it's been hard, but I have been able to get better every day. And look, being hormonal and very pregnant right now, of course, emotions will happen in general. But I really just try to do the best I can every day and hold space and just allow myself to feel my feelings as much as possible and to let it out because I know the quicker I let it out, the quicker I'm able to get over it. And that's just me. That's not everybody, but that's certainly helped me. Number seven, giving yourself permission to still want a daughter. So I have gone down some rabbit holes because I love research. And I've only been able to find really two women on the internet, completely, between TikTok, Instagram, everything, who did IVF for gender selection. And both of them have said that it was the best decision of their life. Because the desire to want a daughter isn't betrayal to my sons at all, actually. I can still hold that vision of a daughter. I can still think about it. I can still embrace it. My husband and I almost talk about her like she exists, which is kind of crazy. But we talk about her as if she's going to be in our world. And we can expand family dreams and they don't have to have an expiration date. We don't have to decide today that we're going to do this. We can make decisions that work aligned with our family. And also wanting something doesn't diminish what you have. Just because I want a daughter doesn't mean I'm not going to love this new son that I'm bringing into the world. There is so much room for love and capacity that I know can exist. And I'm going to allow myself all the emotions and all the feelings possible. I'm going to allow myself to feel I want a daughter and give myself that permission. But at the same time, I'm going to be really excited about having another boy. Because what I can tell you is this is having my son at the time of recording, he'll be close to a year and a half. But he's smiley, he loves me, he always wants me. I never really believed in the mama's boy thing, but it's so true. He's so sweet and just like an amazing human. And I know I'm like crying in this to like I'm being very vulnerable here. But to have that times too, like, how cool is that? Like, how cool that I'll have boys who will wrestle each other and then the next moment say, I love you, mommy. Like, that's amazing. And I'm so excited to have that. And I, if you were to ask me this when I found out I had a boy, I would not be here telling you this. But here I am expressing this now, going through all of the feelings and emotions and thought process. And again, being very hormonal pregnant, but I know I will have two amazing sons who will love me and be there. And I am excited about that. It's scary. It's scary to have two boys for me. I'm quite short, and my husband's quite tall. So I know these boys will be tall, but I know that they will be in my life, and I can look forward to that. Number eight, the healing practice of rewriting the story. So going into this, I'm I'm really trying to focus on saying I'm not losing something, but I'm gaining someone. I'm gaining this beautiful boy in my life. And if you're into energetic or spiritual things, my spiritual coach that I've hired, one of the things she said, she's like, this boy wants to be in your family. Like he really wants to be here. And that was so cool to like hear that. And again, people may believe or not believe this, whatever, but it makes me feel good. And I'm excited. If my new son, my this new baby is anything like the son I have now, like I've 100% hit the jackpot. Yes, my son sometimes he's a baby. He can be much and whatever, but my son is like the happiest boy, the go-lucky boy. He wants to be around other kids. Like he's just like the coolest kid. And if I have another one just like that, my husband and I said we literally hit the fucking jackpot. So I'm just so grateful for that. And reframing motherhood for me for gender, my mom made me really think about this. And I went through like a lot of rabbit holes about gender and what that looks like. And I'm reading books about how to raise a boy, how to raise a son, and to be a man, whatever, all this stuff. And it's sad how we look at raising girls versus boys. And in society, it's flipped how we want girls over boys. But the truth is, it's not a gender thing. It's more of like a human thing. I hope to create and have boys in my life who will be men who just respect women, respect people who have good morals, good values, good ethics. And being a mom and raising them to be that way is a privilege and it's an honor. And it took a long time for me to reframe that. But I promise you will get there if you're trying to rewrite your story. Because building a future with room for your hopes. This is for your hopes and not replacing them. I want you to be hopeful in this. And if you have multiple boys or like myself, going to be a second time boy mom, I want you to know like you can rewrite your story and heal it and find the help, find the therapy, find the thing that works for you to reframe it. And I promise you, you're gonna feel so much better. Because Nat last but not least, well, two more actually. Number nine. Community and silence. Why no one talks about this? I don't know. I don't fucking know why nobody talks about this. I had to go through insane rabbit holes to even find the information that I found to even talk about it in today's episode. Because look, society labels gender disappointment as like this weird taboo thing, first things first. We label it as we shouldn't feel that way again. There's all these women going through infertility and miscarriage and all these problems. And we shouldn't be upset. It's weird. It's like, why are you upset? You have a healthy baby. Like, get over it. I think a lot of it's fear of being judged by other moms. We don't want to be ashamed that we're upset about this decision that we really couldn't control, but we don't want to be judged by it. And it's awful. It's awful. Because what's also awful is not talking about it makes this pain so much heavier. And I felt I had to talk about it. In order for me to get over it, quote unquote, I had to bring it up. I had to talk about it. I had to have the conversation. And I'm a talker. I need to let it out. And for some people, they need to hide it. But I think the more you talk about it and the more you speak about your truth, the lighter you're going to feel, the more emotional you'll like understand your emotions, you'll get why you're thinking and saying and doing everything. Because the truth will set you free. And for me, talking about it and even relying it on this podcast has been so freeing. Because I know if I can help one person get through gender disappointment, I did my job. I did my job. And so if you feel that, right? Or if you're going through gender disappointment, you can always DM me, you can always message me. I'm happy to help and give any advice that I can because I've been there and I've walked in your shoes. And last but not least, what healing looks like day by day. Now, every healing journey is different. Now, I'm healing throughout my pregnancy, right? I found out at 10 weeks I don't like surprises, which I'm actually really grateful. I didn't want a surprise. I wanted to know. I like definitive answers. I'm just that person. But the biggest things for me, one emotional waves. Some days okay, some days hard. I feel overall they've gotten a lot better. And again, I've rationalized some of this with my son's going to have a brother and a best friend and someone that he can respect and have a playmate, and he'll just have that built-in buddy. And then I have some days where I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm so sad I'm never gonna have a daughter, or it might not be possible. So you've got to go through the wave and feel the emotion. Because I know I've just had small mind shifts over time. Day over day. Like Rome wasn't built in a day, your business won't be built in a day. Neither will this mind, the mindset shit. You just have to give yourself grace every day that you're gonna go through a lot of emotions, especially being pregnant. You're gonna have just like really amazing days, and then you're gonna just have terrible days. And you just have to know that you'll get through this and it will be okay. Because the healing power of connection and honesty is everything. I had to be really honest with myself and I had to dig really deep about what my life would look like or what decisions would be made and how I would feel about certain things. And it's hard. It's hard. But I know I feel so much better. The more I talk about it and the more I share, the better I feel. Because the one thing I'm trusting more than anything else is that meeting my baby will rewrite everything for me. And I'm actually really excited to meet my son. I'm excited to see what he's gonna do in the world. I'm excited my son will have a brother. I'm excited for this baby to come into the world and into our family. I know he was meant to be here. And I tell myself that all the time, that he was meant to be in our family in some shape, way, or form. And I just really want to have this outro to say thank you for spending time with me, listening to me, and letting me share something really emotional, honest, and vulnerable while also crying through this. Gendered disappointment doesn't make you a bad mom. It doesn't mean you're ungrateful, and it doesn't mean you don't love your baby any less. It simply means you had a dream in your heart. And guess what? That dream shifted. And you're allowed to feel the shift. You're allowed to grieve the daughter you thought you'd have. You're allowed to celebrate the son you are having. You're allowed to have hope for the future, you're allowed to feel joy and hurt at the same time. This is what real motherhood looks like: emotional, layered, complex, and deeply human. If this episode made you feel seen, heard, or just spoke to you, please share this with a mother who might be carrying these emotions. No one should sit in silence. We all should have a voice. Because you're doing better than you think you are, and your heart has room for all of it. I'll see you next time on Raising Hustle.

SPEAKER_00 27:12

Thanks so much for listening. This is just the beginning. Subscribe now to Raising Hustle and get ready for raw stories, real talk, and unapologetic ambition. We're showing up messy, loud, and all in. Because success doesn't wait for quiet. Let's raise our voices, our businesses, and our babies together.