Posted byHailey has her 20 week appointment in two days, and is wondering whether or not they should find out the sex of their baby. What do you think?
I am pregnant with my second child and I have my 20 week ultra-sound in a few days. I didn’t find out sex with my first child, but this time I am unsure about waiting.
I feel like I want to know, but you can’t unring a bell and I worry I will be disappointed once it is done. I would love to hear people’s take on finding out sex — did it help you bond sooner to your in-utero baby? Did you feel at all disappointed once you found out? Did you feel less or more excited about the birth once you found out?
I found out with my son. I knew he was a he and had already been calling him Jett so finding out wasn’t that big of a deal. Not telling family was though. I think if I ever get pregnant again, I’ll do it the same way again.
I’m a planner by nature, so I found out with both of my pregnancies. But now that I have one of each I think I’d love to try and let the next one be a surprise. We’ll see how that goes.
My partner/husband and I decided early on we didn’t want to know the sex of the fetus. We knew that our child will be our only child from the get go. Personally my reason not to know was I was afraid of losing the child. I was a first time mom at age 40 so the possibility of suffering from a miscarriage seemed possible to me. I did not want to associate too much onto the unborn child, lose the child, and then deal with the fact that I had lost either a son or daughter. Just knowing I had lost the child would be enough.
After I had gone past the fifth month and the possibility of a miscarriage had lessened, I just thought it was fun. Whenever people asked what the sex was we answered; “We don’t know. Maybe it’s a hermaphrodite!”
I didn’t find out on either of my sons and I enjoyed the experiment of creating a relationship with a genderless creature. I also really loved how uptight it made so many people. It was interesting to see how uncomfortable so many people feel about gender neutral baby gifts. I tie-dyed everything anyway so it really didn’t matter to me but people actually apologized for buying things with flowers on it when Cormac was born.
Hahah my husband and I are going to know ahead of time, we’ve been calling the baby Cousin It for now. We’ll also be settling the bet that’s running on both families. I’m hoping for a girl, and my husband is dying for one. I can’t wait to find out, and we’re going to wait until 22 weeks so we can know for sure. =D We’ll either have a little Ryan Christopher or an Evelynn Danielle.
My husband wasn’t so sure that he wanted to know (his parents didn’t know with either him or his brother, they just picked out neutral names – Morgan and Devin – and let things happen). I, on the other hand, wanted to know.
We had many a discussion, with me first telling him that I could know and simply keep it a secret (which would have lasted until I talked with him next, I’m terrible with secrets). Ultimately, I felt that being able to say “she” or “he” instead of “it” would help the whole situation feel more real for me. Plus, we were both hoping for a boy and pretty sure it was a girl, so knowing ahead of time might give us some time to get used to the idea before we meet her.
In the end, we are expecting a female human child. And being able to refer to her by name and look at all the nifty baby clothes out there has gotten us used to and even excited over the prospect of having a girl (not to mention my husband explaining to me that not all girls think they’re princesses… some think they’re GI Jane, and I should know that because I’m one of them). I think we could have come to these conclusions without knowing if we were going to have a Ripley or a Riker ahead of time, but this was just the right way for us.
It never even crossed my mind with my first pregnancy to NOT find out. At 20 weeks I was told it was a boy and started planning my skull and crossbones themed life in my head. Amadeus was born and everything felt great! A year and a half later I was expecting my second child and decided this time I wanted to wait. To be honest, by the second trimester I was scared to find out the sex. I secretly wanted a girl and at every sonogram I would get so nervous. It was easier to tell the doctor that I still wanted it to be a surprise.
I would have bet a thousand dollars I was carrying a girl. But two days after my due date and 5 hours of labor my OB announced “Its a…… BOY!” and held my son up for me to see. I was shocked. I would be lying if I said I didn’t feel a slight twinge of disappointment. I wasn’t even sure what I was going to name him! But after the nurse wrapped him up and laid that beautiful, chubby cheeked boy in my arms I knew that he was exactly what I wanted. A few hours later I had officially chosen the name Tydus and I can’t imagine a life without the sounds of my toddler boys tearing through the house!
I know I’m about a month and a half late, but I just wanted to say my husband and I didn’t find out the sex of our baby until he was born (March 14 2012) and it was very exciting. I wouldn’t have done it with out his help but I was so happy to hear “It’s a BOY” when he was born! It’s nice to keep somethings old school.
I was on the fence, a surprise would have been pretty neat, but my husband really wanted to know. He had valid reasons for wanting to know so we chose to find out since I had no hard feelings either way. I am glad we did with both babies. I was able to call each baby by name versus by a random word like bun or baby. I feel that helped me bond and made some of the discomfort a little easier towards the end, because I could talk to my babies and tell them not to be so mean to mama. Plus with both babies I had “feeling” and I was right both times.
We aren’t finding out until the big day. This is our first pregnancy and we’re enjoying just being pregnant and all the new experiences that come with that without getting hung up on the future.
I didn’t want to start imposing a personality onto our child before he/she arrives and honestly, the sex doesn’t matter too much to us either way. He/she can wear what they want and play with whatever type of toys they want. And there’s a whole rainbow of colours out there beside pink and blue.
Maybe with baby #2 we’ll decide to find out early, but for now we’re just enjoying the ride.
having had two previous miscarriages, i feel very distanced from my little one’s sex – something i guess should be important to know.
imho, i think that knowing sex definitely makes a ‘difference’ – subconsciously you adjust your expectations and dreams.
for hubby and I, as far as bonding goes, we’ve given each of our pregnancies pet names depending on what we saw at our first sonar.
right now we’re glad to have Chicken wiggling away in our lives – the name inspired by his/her 6 week yolk sac.
wrt showers and gifts, my friends know just how quirky i am and from as far as our first pregnancy, know that i would love all black baby clothing 🙂 i love black on babies!
with or without black though, boy or girl, i’d feel comfortable dressing our little one in whatever we got – a gift is a gift… and who cares what strangers think about a baby boy in pink or girl in blue? babies themselves certainly won’t. 😀
but right now, i honestly and truly just want a safe pregnancy and healthy nunus at the end of it all. i wont pursue the issue of sex since there are no guarantees.
For my first it was a surprise and I really liked that. I loved in a province where they actually legislated that ultrasound tech’s were not allowed to tell you so I didn’t have a choice one way or the other. But I hadn’t wanted to know. I was pretty sure it was a girl all the way through the pregnancy so I was surprised to find out he was a boy when I delivered. But since I didn’t have a strong desire for a boy or a girl I didn’t have any disappointment to wrap my head around.
My parents never found out ahead of time. For all four of us they had a girl name and a boy name picked out and in the delivery room, my dad would always tell my mum “it’s a Jessie” or “it’s a Malachi” instead or girl or boy and I kind of love that.