A pregnant mother has sparked debate after she was filmed sobbing when her gender reveal didn't go as planned.
In a viral video on TikTok, Michigan mom Autumn Freeman shared with her followers her reaction to her “gender reveal” after she and her husband Andy popped a balloon and pink streamers came out instead of blue like they wanted.
She stitched together footage of her first and second gender reveal, contrasting the different emotional reactions in both clips. Freeman wrote: “Trigger warning: one of these videos shows gender deception.”
In the first video of 2021, Freeman can be seen laughing and happily jumping into her husband's arms as they realized they were having a daughter when they saw pink confetti emerge from the balloon they had just popped. She exclaimed at that moment, “Oh my God, I'm so excited!”
However, in the second clip, the couple learned that their two-year-old daughter Violet would have a little sister instead of a brother as they expected. To their disappointment, this time the confetti was again pink instead of blue.
“I'm actually sad,” she admitted to her husband, who hugged her before she began to sob. “I wanted a boy.”
Before Freeman left, he told her, “It's okay. “She will be as beautiful as the rest.”
The video now has more than 494,000 likes and 11 million views on the platform, with many heartbroken viewers saying they were “sad” that their next child would be a girl.
“My smile faded really fast,” one user admitted. Someone else commented: “This is so sad, and that poor child.”
“Oh no!!! A healthy girl!! one person scoffed.
Others commented that the mother should not have posted the video on the Internet since everything lasts forever on the Internet. In the future, the daughter could easily stumble across the video and discover that her mother initially didn't love her.
“Your kids will see this when you're older. [you know]“one person warned.
“She can show this to her therapist in 20 [years]” someone wrote, while another added: “Can't wait for him to see how excited you were.”
“The FBI couldn't make me post this video publicly… like I was a friend,” one viewer wrote.
In an interview with PeopleFreeman clarified that her initial disappointment faded shortly after she and her husband filmed their reactions to the gender reveal in October of last year. She revealed that she had been expecting a baby boy as he was going to be her last child.
“In my perfect world I would have a boy and a girl,” Freeman explained to the outlet. “I actually wanted a boy with Violet, but he was the first and she was excited either way… Then with this one, we know he's our last baby.”
“I think I was down for a week and then it went away,” she added. “I just told myself that the universe is giving me what I need and what I can handle… I'm just meant to be a girl mom.”
Regarding the backlash she received for her “gender deception” video, she said she anticipated the backlash but ultimately stuck with it by posting it.
“There are a lot of haters in my comments saying, 'You don't even love this baby.' You don't deserve this baby,'” he said. “That is not the case at all. It had nothing to do with how I feel about the baby or how much I love him or how much he's going to be loved. It was just a brief moment and now it's gone. “I’m ready for my girl.”
Freeman not only shares her daughter Violet with her husband, but is also stepmother to his two children from a previous relationship: Lily, 12, and Grant, eight.
The independent Freeman has been contacted for comment.
