IVF mum CRIED every night when she found out she was having a BOY

Amanda Naor started trying for a baby in June 2015 with her husband Spencer. Like many couples, they struggled to fall pregnant and it took more than three years before they would have a baby.

Their baby was conceived with the help of assisted conception, however when Amanda found out she was having a boy, she was deeply disappointed as she had always longed for a girl.

“Behind the scenes we endured an ectopic pregnancy, 4 IUIs, and eventually 2 IVF cycles, leading to a frozen embryo transfer,” she explains on Love What Matters.

The couple had two embyros transferred, and Amanda hoped she would end up with twins, but only one baby ‘took’.

“I was finally, finally pregnant and simultaneously deeply grieving the daydream of twins, and the loss of another life that could have been,” she explains.

“And then, I found myself lying awake in bed at night, my stomach in knots, absolutely and utterly terrified it was the boy embryo that took.

“I fundamentally couldn’t even picture raising a boy. The possibility that might be my future literally terrified me, kept me up at night with anxiety, brought me to tears.”

Experiencing gender disappointment also made her feel terrible, and ungrateful.

“I felt awful. I felt selfish. But I was so disconnected, almost mad at the fact there was a perfect little boy growing inside me.”

Amanda tried to deal with her feelings by communicating with other mums on message boards and talking to a therapist. Eventually, she came around to the idea of having a son.

“There came a point in the pregnancy where I did accept having a boy, but in a very neutral way. I took gender completely out of equation.

“Because at the end of the day, we want to raise a curious, kind, and creative human. End of story. That perspective shift changed everything for me,” she explains.

Finn was born almost three years after Amanda first trying for a baby, and she says everything changed the moment she met her son. After a long, intense labour, some complications and eventually an emergency c-section, she finally held Finn in her arms.

“This moment, for the time being, erased everything that transpired over the last 2.5 years to bring him to us. It was all for this moment,” she recalls.

“I do regret not writing down my feelings of all this in the moment, because I’m sitting here with my incredible Finn napping on my chest as a I write this…and I love him so, so damn much.

“It is a love so intense, often times feeling uncontainable. Because you know what? Those women who responded on the message boards about gender disappointment were 100% right. I can’t imagine having any other baby. Truly.”