First Communion Dresses for the Daughter That I Didn't Have

When I was younger and making plans for the future, I have always imagined myself as having a family and being the mother of a daughter. All women in my family had daughters. My maternal grandmother had two daughters and a son. My paternal grandmother had two sons and a daughter. My mom had two daughters. My sister has a daughter and a son. My aunts have both daughters and sons. So I always imagined myself as a future mother of a daughter. It seemed genetically natural to me that God would gift me with a daughter, just like He did to all the other women in my family. 

Then I started my own family and became pregnant. My wish was to have a daughter, a little girl whom I would have named Laura. I meant to name her after the Godmother to be, a close friend of mine whose name is Laura and who agreed to become my child’s Godmother when the time for christening came. At the beginning of my pregnancy, I was hoping it would be a girl. I liked to imagine the shopping sprees that I would do for my little girl, buying her colorful dresses and cute skirts. I liked to imagine how I would dress her up for parties and events. I liked to imagine how she would have a long beautiful hair, and how I would style her hair in girly braids tied with frilly bows every day. I wanted her to be my little fashionista, my little princess. I wanted to express my fashion style not only with my own clothes, but also by dressing up my daughter.

However, as my pregnancy developed, my instincts were telling me otherwise – it would be a boy, and not a girl. I could tell it would be a boy. My body could tell it would be boy. All my guts were telling me it would be a boy. And because I wanted to have a daughter, I was trying to ignore my instincts and I was hoping that by some miracle it could be a girl. When I was four months pregnant, I had my first ultrasound and I wanted to find out the sex of the baby, but the results of the ultrasound were inconclusive, so I had to wait for another month and for another ultrasound to find out the sex of the baby. When I was five months pregnant, I went for the second ultrasound. I hoped up until the very last moment that maybe it would be a girl, even though all my instincts were telling me it would be a boy. Moms always know, even when they don’t want to admit that they know. Finally, it was the day of the ultrasound, and I was very impatient to know – is it a boy, is it a girl? Is it a little prince, is it a little princess? Turned out, it was a boy, and so Alex came into my life. My husband John was very happy to learn we were going to have a son. I wanted a daughter, and he wanted a son, so the good news here was that at least one of us would have been extremely happy to learn the results of the ultrasound and the sex of the baby.

By the time Alex was born, four months later, I had already gotten used to the idea that I would have a son, and not a daughter, and I welcomed him into my life with all my love, just like I would have done with a daughter, with Laura. If I had a daughter, she would have been seven years now. It would have been time for her first communion, and I would have looked for beautiful first holy communion dresses for my daughter. Recently I became aware of a British online shop, Aisle Style, that offers high quality custom-made communion dresses for girls. I browsed the website, and I saw some amazing white communion dresses, which I would like to share with you today. The girls who model the communion dresses on the Aisle Style website look like veritable little princesses. Looking at those photos with girls wearing first communion dresses, I couldn’t help but imagine my own daughter that I didn’t have, my Laura, coming of communion age and wearing one of these dresses for her first holy communion.

Communion dress, see it here

Communion dress, see it here

Communion dress, see it here

Communion dress, see it here

Communion dress, see it here

Communion dress, see it here

Photo credit: Courtesy of AisleStyle.co.uk