It was like I was mourning my little girl: Mum reveals heartache caused by gender mix-up

Tialee was so excited when she found out back in 2019, she was pregnant with her third child.

Soon after discovering the pregnancy, she was told she was having a baby girl. It was like a dream come true, as her sons Nixon and Aspen would be welcoming a baby sister.

As the weeks went by through her pregnancy, the excitement at the thought of meeting her little girl continued to grow. A fan of dressing her kids in matching outfits, Tialee began to dive into the world of dressing a little girl! Unchartered territory for her, it felt very new - and exciting!

Finally, she would have her little girl.

However, it was not to be.

Let’s hear her story, in her words:

‘21st of November 2019. 

A date that I had been hoping would one day come... I was told I was having a little girl. 20 weeks pregnant with our last and final babe - and we were having a little girl. Nixon and Aspen were going to have a little sister, Zach was going to one day walk this little babe down the aisle and I would have a best friend for life, as my mum has with me.

Let’s go back to the beginning.

We always planned to find out the gender of this baby, however at 7 weeks, it hit me... I was okay with whatever this baby was, he/she, it didn’t matter. And that was truly the case, I can’t really explain it, it was just something within that I had made peace with. Zach and I decided together that this was our last baby regardless of the gender and I would get my tubes tied as I was set to have my 2nd planned C-Section after having an Emergency C-Section with Nixon. 

It was set though, we weren’t finding out what baby was.. Where did it all change? Well, I walked into my 20-week scan, telling our sonographer that I didn’t know what baby was and didn’t want to find out. I was just wanting to hear those words every expectant mum wants to hear, “baby is doing great” which thankfully I did, but at the very end of the ultrasound, the sonographer slipped up and said ‘she’. I paused thinking to myself, “did she actually just say that, or am I imagining it?” But I knew from her face that she’d slipped up, her facial expression said it all. You can’t un-hear something.

So I asked her if she was sure and if she could just confirm it. Her exact words were “I’ve been doing this for 25 years, I am definitely sure.” Well, as you can imagine, I was bursting with excitement, I couldn’t wait to tell everybody, but thinking about it twice, I didn’t get a choice in finding out, so I still wanted to give Zach the choice, so I asked the sonographer to write it down on a piece of paper and I pretended I didn’t know.

I got home, saw Zach and told him that the sonographer knew what the baby was and wrote it down for us, just in case we did want to find out. However, he was still adamant that he wanted it to be a surprise... so I respected his decision to not find out but also decided not to tell him that I actually knew what out baby was – a GIRL!

We discussed both boy names and girl names but really we had our girl name set since before Nixon was born, so I knew exactly what ‘she’ was going to be called – Sahara Lee Wadsworth. Over the next 20 weeks, I did so well, I didn’t slip up, I spoke about the baby both as a boy and as a girl and hid all the girl items that I went crazy buying. A girl after 2 boys... you can bet there were pinks and florals! I knew I was having a baby a few weeks before Easter, so I was prepared. I ordered all my personalised items and grinned with excitement when writing her name in the notes box. I couldn’t believe it; we were having a little girl and were only weeks away from meeting her.

My hospital bag was packed, zipped up and hidden away; it had her announcement plaque, her announcement outfit, all things ready for a little girl. The florals, muted pinks, headbands - the lot!

The day had arrived.

March 19th, 2020 

At 6am off to the hospital we went, mum drove us in and the excitement was next level. I was ready, so ready. Nervous of course, I was just about to be cut open for the 3rd time and that goddamn spinal tap made me so bloody anxious. But I was so ready to meet her. For Zach to have his princess, for her brothers to find out they had a little sister, to have a daughter.

Spinal tap goes in, I’m on the operating table, Zach on one side of me, mum on the other, let’s do this! It's almost time, almost time to hear that cry, and the words “it’s a girl”. My obstetrician says to Zach, “Do you want to watch the baby get pulled out?” I was so excited for him.. I was ready. Zach stands up, looking over the curtain to see my belly open and the baby ready to get pulled out… I hear that cry I had been waiting to hear, but those next few words to follow were not what I was expecting to hear at all… “It’s another BOY.”

You know when you watch a movie and the actor is in a really confusing moment and the whole room starts to turn and go blurry? Well, that was me, that’s the best way to describe it. I was so confused, my head hurt and my eyes started to go blurry. I looked at mum, she knew. She knew from about 21 weeks as she guessed and knowing me how she does, she just knew. Her eyes filled with tears as she watched how confused and heartbroken I was.

 GET IT TOGETHER TIA! – I told myself. In what was the most confusing moment of my entire life, I had to get it together. I just had to, not only was I just about to meet my beautiful new baby, Zach had no idea. My Obstetrician held him over the curtain for me to see, I instantly fell in love, as mothers do. There was no question, I absolutely adored this beautiful boy.

I had ONE, ONE white plain onesie in my entire hospital bag. Looks like that’s what we were putting him into. There was no announcement photo in the hospital bassinet, because I wasn’t announcing a girl, I didn’t have anything! I was still getting used to this reality where I didn’t have a daughter, Zach didn’t get his princess and Nixon and Aspen weren’t getting a little sister.

I was so attached to this little guy though, in an unexplainable way... the best way I can describe how it felt was like he was a twin... and the twin was a girl, and we didn’t get to meet her... don’t get me wrong, I’m not crazy, I most certainly know that’s not what happened and am not disregarding anybody who has been in that exact situation, I’m simply just describing the best way I can, on how it felt.

Nobody apart from my mum knew. And that’s the way it stayed for another 6 weeks... I struggled. Showers turned into crying fits, with the water disguising my tears and the question “What the hell do I do now?” I couldn’t picture my life without this little girl that I had been dreaming about and ‘bonding with’ for the last 20 weeks... How do I tell my husband who I knew didn’t want four kids, that I might not be ‘done’? What if this was a deal breaker? Not only did I have a newborn and 2 toddlers, I also was trying to deal with all of this.

"Then I told him everything."

I told him. I told him everything. I was waiting for him to get angry, not because of the situation, but because I had potentially changed my mind on being ‘done’. But that anger didn’t come… he was amazing. And was open to having another baby if that’s what I truly wanted.

But that wasn’t necessarily the answer... Do I regret having my tubes tied? Not at all, at the end of the day I can’t just keep having kids, nor do I want to. But still to this day, it hits hard. I struggle thinking about it and it breaks my heart every time my head goes back to that time.

It also breaks my heart because I don’t ever want Oaklee to feel like he wasn’t wanted, because that couldn’t be further from the truth. I am so in love with that kid, he isn’t ever moving out! I’ve convinced myself he will be a Mumma’s boy for life!

Why am I choosing to share this now? Because I want other women to know that it’s okay to feel this way, don’t get me wrong, I am the luckiest person in this world. I have 3 gorgeous babies who were all conceived, carried and delivered healthy and safely. I love each of them more than myself and anything in this whole wide world and wouldn’t trade them for anything.

BUT that doesn’t mean that I am not grieving the daughter I thought I was having. That I don’t wonder what she would have looked like, would she be a girly girl or would she want to be like her big brothers and play with their toys? And then I remember, SHE never actually existed. But that’s not how I feel. For 20 weeks, I carried this baby that was a ‘She’. I bonded with this ‘little girl’ and dreamt of who ‘she’ would be. It’s probably something I’m never going to get over, but something that will get easier with time.

Just please know if you have or do go through something similar, that you aren’t alone. And it doesn’t mean you are ungrateful, because I am one of the most grateful people to have what I have. But I do feel like there is a stigma where you can’t talk about this topic without being judged as greedy or ungrateful because I have healthy children here with me.’

Three years on, Tialee and her husband could not imagine their lives any other way. Recently finding a new home in Hamilton Island, the family are thoroughly enjoying their permanent seachange, and Tialee as a glorified ‘boy mum’. It’s the life she was meant to lead, and that much is obvious now. 

So, how often do sonographers get the gender wrong?

According to a report on CNN.com, ‘Making the wrong call happens more frequently than we realise, perhaps as high as one out of ten times. “It's not that uncommon to have gender wrong,” said Dr. John Williams III, Director of Reproductive Genetics at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, said. “It's just a screening tech. They can’t make a guarantee of that.”

Written by Tialee Wadsworth, with the foreword by Olivia Mackinnon.