Your baby's gender is healing your family system
The gender of your baby is predetermined by a lot of factors - the strongest I’ve found is the healing that is required within that family system. You can’t fight karma. You will face what lessons and teachings need to be faced (whether you are ready and willing, or not). I am going to share this through storytelling - a) because it is my favourite mode of teaching, and b) my own personal story reflects what my hundreds of clients' stories have been, and what the research supports.
Why is this important?
I meet a lot of clients who are dying for a particular child, “I won’t cope if I don’t get a girl”, “l only know how to be a boy mum!”. Although my opening statement may have sounded like only hard challenges will come, there is so much beauty and peace that comes from healing the family system. I use the term “family system” because I feel that it encompasses your own personal dynamics, the dynamics in your partnership, the dynamics and relationships in your greater family and family of origin, and the cycles in your ancestral line.
This is also important to me because I was never pre-warned that our childhood issues and trauma will resurface when we are pregnant and in our postpartum. With each child, different aspects of healing will arise depending on the vibrations and karma your little one brings with them. It is divinely orchestrated that this little soul, with their own past life karma and unique qualities, is called into your womb with the perfect frequencies to match the healing you require. And vice versa - you are exactly who this child needs to fulfill their soul contract. Breathe that in.
The journey of having a girl
If you yourself are a child of a “boomer”, having a girl is very important for rewriting your relationship with the feminine. What does it mean to you to be a woman? What has gendered roles taught you? What does society expect from you as a woman? There’s a lot in there, right? In those meaty answers I am going to guess there are layers of ancestral and societal programming that poke at your self worth and self value. All of these “should”s and “should not”s that carry with them the frequency of shame. If this is resonating, it is highly likely that you have or will have a girl.
My daughter came in first. The lesson she brought me was finding who I am and what my voice is. My pregnancy with her had many themes of conflict. I found myself (unconsciously) attracting people and situations where I had to find out what my values were, and then make boundaries and advocate for myself. This was hugely confronting for me. During childhood I was a very nervous and quiet child. My nervous system was on a hypervigilant scan 24/7 to avoid conflict and harm. It felt safer to keep quiet and keep out of trouble. So you can imagine the growth needed to confront people who were not respecting me, or advocate for my rights in a room of assertive and dominant doctors.
Anyone who has met my daughter can attest to this - she is bold. She came out of the womb ready for the stage. I have always encouraged her to be exactly who she wants to be and to have faith, courage, respect and belief in herself. Which sounds like every parent's wishes right? And what many girl-mums can understand is how confronting it is to have a little girl voice herself so loudly and proudly and not giving any hoots, when the messaging to you as a child was this was not ok. As a child I learnt that standing up for myself or talking back had negative consequences (even if I was in the “right”). I had been programmed that who I was (or wanted to be) was “too much”, too loud, and my emotions were too inconvenient. And if I was to express all of this, I wouldn’t be seen as “a good girl”. Who else is cringing with resonance right now? If this is the messaging we received as children, our inner child will feel very reactive when our daughter is the loudest proudest version of herself; even though that is exactly what we want for her! This is when we know it is time to do the work of reparenting ourselves!
Another big theme that comes up for mothers of girls, is their relationship with their own mother. Was your mother kind, distant, helicopter, passive, aggressive or maybe nasty? When we have our daughters, we will rebel or repeat the cycles we have with our mothers and the mothers before them. I believe millennials have a big job of familial cycle breaking.
The journey of having a boy
What kind of father did you have? The roles and expectations for fathers have changed greatly from the boomers to the gen z’s. If you are in a heterosexual relationship, I urge you to talk with your partner about the roles your fathers had in your lives, and what the roles and expectations you have for your children’s lives are. Please don’t leave this to play out in real time, as it’s usually messy because of our inner child’s pain and reactivity.
The lesson my son brought me was learning to use my voice and put myself out there. My daughter taught me who I was and what I wanted to share/say. My son forced me to scream from secret caverns on my inner thoughts. He taught me strength and vulnerability, and that they seldom come alone.
I will admit I had a hard time bonding with my son in the first 6 months. I had always had a difficult relationship with the masculine in my life and had suffered a lot of trauma at the hands of men. This (unconsciously) taught me that all men are not safe. And what do we do when we feel unsafe? We close our hearts. Through what felt like a trial by fire, my son broke my heart open, in the most beautiful way. He made me confront some deep shame stories around the trauma I locked down deep, and catapulted my healing story with the masculine.
Having a boy (in a hetero relationship) is also a big calling for your partner to explore what it means to be a man. Was he allowed to cry as a kid? Was he forced to achieve in particular areas of life? Did he have to be tough and “suck it up”? My mother in law passed before my son was born, and I could feel an ancestral pattern that tried to draw me in from my partner's side of the family. He had been very close with his beautiful mum, to the point of co-dependance. And this played out in healthy and unhealthy ways. After my son had cracked through the walls of my heart, the pendulum swung, and saw us being very very close. To the point where he wouldn’t want anyone but me, and struggled to settle into childcare or even be babysat by close family. I could feel my protective nature arise when he would cry for me. It was beautiful how I could soothe him, but I could feel where our dynamic was holding us both back. I had to do some deep healing on the ancestral line. And also for my inner child who had craved love and adoration from the masculine energy. I had to bring this into balance so that we could have a harmonious relationship, so that my inner child was not grasping at his love, and so that he could experience safety and love outside from me. (I laugh when I think about how much his future partner will thank me for healing an unhealthy mother-son dynamic).
Are you struggling to conceive or are you worried what will be passed down?
I work with a lot of couples in their pre conception phase. Each client I will remind that there is a divine time that your child will come to you, and how wonderful it is that you can heal the family trauma before your little one arrives. I very clearly remember working with a woman who was desperate for her first child, and her very sassy baby girl Spirit was in the corner of the room watching, and said to me “mums gotta clear this *sassy finger wave* up before I come in”. I laughed out loud.
If you’ve already fallen pregnant, or had your children, please do not worry. Their contract was signed to come into the system and cycles as they were. They may be the cycle breakers. Or their presence will catapult you towards healing. If you are worried they have been burdened by the family pain stories, I offer “surrogate” sessions for children under 15, where their healing can be worked on without the need for their presence to be in the room.
Please reach out via email if you have any questions or thoughts you would like to share, I’d love to hear from you.
Jess x