Mom sobs intensely as gender reveal shows she’s having another girl in viral video

A mother’s story of “gender disappointment” has gone viral after she posted a TikTok video of herself bursting into tears at her gender reveal upon finding out she’d be having her fourth girl.

The video shows Kendra Evens with her husband and four daughters as they watch pink fog emerge from a Jack-O-Lantern. As one daughter also expresses disappointment, Evans keels over and begins to cry. The video ends with a series of photos and videos following the birth of the couple’s fourth daughter to emphasize how loved she is despite the initial disappointment.

Related: These 12 awful gender reveal party reactions are going to scar the poor kids for life

Their kids will be showing the video to a psychiatrist one day.

“Gender disappointment is real so dont judge us,” Evens wrote in the caption. “Little did we know our nellie would complete our family & we couldn’t be happier to be raising our 4 daughters! Couldnt imagine life without that sweet girl.”

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Gender disappointment is real so dont judge us, little did we know our nellie would complete our family & we couldnt be happier to be raising our 4 daughters! Couldnt imagine life without that sweet girl #girlgang #fourdaughters #girlmom #sahm #pumkinhead #thisishalloween #fall #genderreveal #daughters

♬ Oh Klahoma – Jack Stauber

The video has been viewed five million times, with many commenters validating gender disappointment, expressing empathy, and commending Evens for being honest. Other comments came from those suffering from infertility and expressing that it’s hard to see someone upset about this when they can’t even conceive at all.

“Gender disappointment is real, both for mom and/or dad,” Evens told People. “Our feelings are valid as humans and gender disappointment should be more normalized. You don’t know anyone’s situation or feelings, and just because somebody is initially disappointed doesn’t mean baby is not loved.”

The concept of throwing gender reveal parties at all has long been controversial, in part because they keep being so over-the-top that they are literally killing people and causing wildfires.

But they are also problematic for LGBTQ+ people. The parties usually rely on gender stereotypes (a football if it’s a boy, dance slippers if it’s a girl). They build up expectations around the child’s gender and emphasize it, when the child may not even identify as the gender that gets revealed.

The woman who popularized gender reveal parties in 2008, Jenna Karvunidis, expressed regret about them later.

“It just exploded into crazy after that,” she said in 2019. “Literally – guns firing, forest fires, more emphasis on gender than has ever been necessary for a baby…. Who cares what gender the baby is? I did at the time because we didn’t live in 2019 and didn’t know what we know now – that assigning focus on gender at birth leaves out so much of their potential and talents that have nothing to do with what’s between their legs.”