Standing on my in-laws’ dock, wrapped in thick Wisconsin summer air, ducks circled lazily near the shore, waiting for our big moment. I couldn’t seem to take a full breath. I didn’t have the words for it yet, but the truth was already sitting heavy in my chest: I was scared to have a daughter.
My sister passed out the long, white tubes that would tell us who was coming. They looked ready to burst at any moment, though not nearly as tightly wound as our parents, my husband, Joe, and I as we prepared to find out whether our first baby was a boy or a girl.
Joe and I looked at each other in the final unknowing moments before it all got very, very real, and with a sharp inhale, we twisted. Breaths held. Confetti released. There was no going back now.
Explosions of pink swirled around us as the faint smell of gunpowder wafted into the air. Dumbstruck, time slowed as the confetti drifted to the ground.
Squeals emanated from our family close behind.
“Congratulations!”
“You better buckle up, Dad.”
“I knew it! I knew it!”
Not one of them from me. My mind was so clouded by fear that I barely registered the meaning. Maybe it was the heat. Maybe it was the shock. I felt nauseous. I never thought I’d vomit at my own gender reveal, but here I was, nervous I might do exactly that.
We’re having a girl.
And instead of joy, all I felt was certainty: I was going to ruin her life.
That kind of terrifying motherhood thought can feel isolating, but so many moms have experienced scary, unwanted thoughts that make them question whether they’re failing before they’ve even begun.
For a moment, my forced smile faltered, before my own mother wrapped me up in a loving embrace. Snapping to attention, I managed to squeeze her back before turning to the photographer and asking her to proceed with the family photos.
Avoiding the emotion of the moment, I pushed on with the show and took my place next to my husband. We smiled, his hand on my belly in the classic ‘we’re pregnant’ pose. We kissed. All the while, I hoped the beauty around us would distract from the untethered look in my eyes.
Please don’t let them see my self-distrust, I prayed silently.
But putting on a brave face for a camera only made me more nervous that my truth was already too loud to be ignored. Betrayed by my faltering composure, I excused myself, walked up the expansive and exquisitely manicured lawn, and safely locked myself in the bathroom.
Sobbing silently, I looked at my panic-stricken face, feeling both compassion and irritation for the mom-to-be staring back at me. I saw her terror, but couldn’t find a single comforting thought to utter in return. All I felt was cold, like the tile underneath my bare feet.
Finally, I put words to the fear that had been tormenting me all along as I wondered aloud, “What if she hates me?”
I’ll admit I spiraled.
After a tense evening of celebration, I awoke the next morning and took off in my father-in-law’s cherry red Charger before anyone in the house was even awake.
I drove straight to the local Barre studio and sat quietly in the car, chewing my lip like I’ve done since I was a little girl. But before I could even exit the car, I abruptly changed tactics and called my long-time girlfriend instead.
As a mom of two, her first a girl I also adore, she was already up for the day and graciously took my call. I held her hostage for well over half an hour as I blurted out through ragged breaths and explained how I had been feeling for the last 18 hours.
“I know I’ll never be good enough. I’ll never be able to nurture our relationship the way she deserves, the way we both deserve. I’m terrified I don’t have the capacity to co-create the mother-daughter relationship I’ve always dreamed of. How on earth am I going to be a girl-mom?”
Read: As a Child Therapist, Trust Me: Being a ‘Good Enough’ Mother is Enough
Bless her heart, she listened through my entire monologue and managed to calm me down enough to give it some time to land.
“Give yourself some grace,” she said as she acknowledged her own initial hesitation when she too first found out about her firstborn daughter. She followed it with, “Trust me, with time, you will see what an opportunity this really is.”
Though I didn’t believe her in the moment, it still gave me hope that she might possibly, just maybe, be right. So, after missing my class entirely, I returned to the house, pretending all the while that I had had an excellent workout at my studio. The first of several white lies in those early days.
I dreaded it every time someone asked what I was having because I could already hear my voice rise three whole octaves as I exclaimed how excited I was to be having a girl.
Worst of all, I blamed Joe. I projected my apprehension onto him and then verbally punished him for being equally as scared.
“How could you possibly say that!?” I hissed at him one night when he admitted that he, too, was uneasy and unsure about his ability to be a fantastic dad to our little girl. Instead of connecting and using his honest declaration as a moment to deepen our relationship, I punished his vulnerability. I then blamed myself even more and questioned whether I was capable of being the mother she deserved.
And so it went for weeks.
It was right around this time that I discovered a daily meditation practice that actually worked for me.
One day, during a reparenting exercise, the app asked me to consider the circumstances of my own parents when I was a little girl. It asked me to imagine their struggles, their fears, their shifting identities.
And when I tell you it broke me, I mean it. Imagining my mother’s potential fear that mirrored my own current state cracked me wide open. She, too, must have felt the pressure of how our relationship would shape me.
Tears flooded down my face, and though I was only half-conscious of why, I felt a quiet calm fill the space they left behind. For the first time, I saw my mother not only as my mother, but as a woman who had also been trying.
The fear hadn’t vanished, but compassion, understanding, and hope now softened the edges just enough to give me perspective. I stopped catastrophizing and realized that my friend’s advice finally rang true.
What an incredible opportunity.
I stepped into my mother’s shoes and appreciated her unseen efforts. I gained respect for the incredibly confronting challenge of raising a daughter, as motherhood rearranged her own identity. I healed those bits of our relationship that had been quietly fractured for years and deepened our connection all around.
I quieted my doubt in myself.
Read: Everyone Told Me My Body Would Change but No One Told Me My Identity Would
I remembered I was the one responsible for crafting this new mother-daughter dynamic with my unborn babe, and I was determined to be intentional. Calm, ever-watchful but encouraging of her independence and respectful of her blossoming identity. Present, even when I’m not perfect. I was even excited, and no longer saw it as a burden, but as a gift. The gift of conscious motherhood to my daughter.
In the months that followed, I envisioned our future. Dreaming of late-night chats, brushing her hair, and holding her through heartbreak. Teaching her to be resilient, strong, and above all, to trust herself.
These were the thoughts that now consumed me as I rubbed my growing belly, feeling her kicks, sensing even then the tenacity she would bring to this world.
Now, two years in, I can’t imagine life as anything but a girl mom to Rose.
She pushes me to grow and expand every day. Did I mention she’s spunky, independent, and very much her own woman already? She’s constantly providing me with opportunities to grow and forcing me to step up. Rise. Evolve.
She is, without a doubt, the child who taught me exactly what I needed to learn.
Recently, I had the good fortune to hold another gender reveal for our second baby.
We opted for cake, not confetti, but the anticipation was the same. Boy? Girl? What flavor did this new rodeo hold?
I was nervous, but excited, and admittedly, once again hoping for a boy. Symmetry. One of each and then call it a day. But underneath that, I think there was a surprising, secret hope for another girl.
Seated on a checkered blanket in the dewy grass, Joe, Rose, our long-haired miniature-dachshund, Duchess, and I prepared to leap once again. We were alone this time, across the street from our house in a small park that’s often overlooked. No grand scenery, just us and a photographer.
Like before, Joe and I looked at each other one final time and smiled. Though this time the smiles came from deeply contented hearts as we peered over the top of our daughter’s wild, curly hair.
We lifted our glasses and pushed them into the cake at the same time, squishing the fluffy buttercream every which way. As we pulled the glasses away to reveal yet another pink center, time stalled once again.
And though my actual first words were “oh, no” — trust me, I’ve watched the video back a thousand times — this pause felt different.
My brain whooshed away on a rollercoaster of thoughts. The reality of what two kids mean, the sudden shift in family dynamics, the sleepless nights, postpartum fog, and imagining doing all that with a toddler? Those doubts swam ferociously to the surface.
But dread of the mother-daughter relationship? That was happily absent.
The same fear simply wasn’t there. No wave of nausea. No surge of self-doubt. Some run-of-the-mill, oh crap, what have we done tightness in my chest, but that didn’t linger either.
I dropped a weight I didn’t even realize I had been carrying, and felt a new type of tear well up in my eyes. They weren’t quite tears of happiness yet, but rather a deep unburdening from the torment and guilt I’d carried since that Wisconsin dock three years earlier.
Read: I Felt So Much Guilt While Pregnant With My Second Child Until My Friend Said This
Laughing freely as my daughter and puppy simultaneously licked the same cake-filled glass, I whispered a thank you to Rose. I kissed her icing-smeared cheeks, mixing my salty tears with her sugary sweetness, and I thought simply, here we go again.
