2nd Trimester
Somersky
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Why find out baby's sex before birth?
Somersky
member
So this might be opening up a can of worms (and I'm a newb!), but I genuinely want to know. Having read some heated exchanges on these boards about gender norms, I'm wondering what reasons folks have for finding out their baby's sex before birth. Does curiosity get the best of you? Are there reasons besides gendered purchases that I haven't thought of and ought to consider?
My plan now is not to find out, though I admit I'm curious. I'll also admit I plan to have a boy name and a girl name ready....though I've tried to think of one name that would work for both. (And there's a tension there in that I think traditionally boy names would probably be perceived by society at large as more acceptable for a girl than vice versa. Ugh!)
If you have picked out a good boy+girl name, too, I'd love to hear it!
My plan now is not to find out, though I admit I'm curious. I'll also admit I plan to have a boy name and a girl name ready....though I've tried to think of one name that would work for both. (And there's a tension there in that I think traditionally boy names would probably be perceived by society at large as more acceptable for a girl than vice versa. Ugh!)
If you have picked out a good boy+girl name, too, I'd love to hear it!
Re: Why find out baby's sex before birth?
With the names, a lot of people like to put their child's name in the nursery or have things monogrammed.
We will do a different nursery depending on the sex. Not overly gender specific, just more of a compromise between my husband and my own different preferences
Been married since 2009.
Unicornuate Uterus (yes I menstruate glitter)
Several MCs
DD born 2013 (our miracle "you can't have babies" baby!)
What does girl + boy names mean? Unisex names?
LFAF Summer 2016 Awards:
Thanks for all the feedback, ladies. I guess after seeing a mama get sort of pounced on in another thread for saying she'd rather her son not play with traditionally girl toys (and I agreed with that pouncing!), I thought maybe there'd be a non-gendered reason people on these boards want to find out baby's sex....but planning a nursery and picking clothes still relate to gender (boy norms, girl norms). And I don't fault anybody for sticking with those norms to a small or large extent in the baby years--it's just a personal choice.
On the other hand, plain old curiosity, wanting to call LO by name in utero, and putting baby's name on baby items don't seem directly related to gender. Curiosity is the only one of these we might be tempted by, so we will see if we can stick with our team green decision!
I also think the mistaken sex issue is a good point I hadn't thought of. A big bow definitely says "I'm a girl." And bows are so freaking cute...! Though my friends and family will all know if LO is a girl or boy, and I don't care if strangers can figure it out or not. But the cuteness is undeniable, so I may have a bow or two on standby just because of that.
I looked at it this way: the birth is going to be a surprise whether you know the sex or not. There is going to be a lot to be excited about on the day you give birth. However, halfway through your pregnancy, there's not much to be excited about. You're gaining weight, you're tired, you're uncomfortable, some women are still sick, etc. I thought finding out the sex was a nice "halfway point" surprise. I liked having something to look forward to at 20 weeks. I also feel like it made the pregnancy more "real" for DH when we started calling the baby "her" instead of "it."
We also wanted to know the sex so that we could compile our list of potential names ahead of time. We wound up bringing 5 names to the hospital with us. We thought we'd fight about names (which we actually didn't) so we figured why bother arguing about names for the sex that we wouldn't even need right now, and might never need.
Most of our newborn clothes were gender neutral anyway (as is everything in the nursery and all of our "big stuff" because we plan to have a second baby eventually, if we are able). But it gets progressively more difficult to find gender neutral clothing in larger sizes. Newborn clothes don't last long, and we wanted stuff in 3 and 6 month size as well; knowing the sex helped us with buying that stuff ahead of time. DD does still wear some gender neutral stuff though (i try to buy things like PJs gender neutral so we can potentially use them again).
I will say that SIL didn't find out with her son, and isn't finding out with her current pregnancy either, and she really enjoyed that surprise. Even though she admitted that when her son was born she didn't even hear the "it's a boy!" She realized it was a boy becaues when they put him on her chest he immediately started peeing against her. Haha.
LFAF Summer 2016 Awards:
@PrimRoseMama I love the bow ties idea! You just gave me another Friday distraction...bow ties for babies.
LFAF Summer 2016 Awards:
My DH and I found out we are having a boy. This will be the third boy out of 3 grandchildren for my parents. I don't feel the slightest bit that I disappointed them, mostly because my child's sex isn't about them. But also because I'm not disappointed! As for all of the comments, I've already heard " your family only makes boys" to which I shut down pretty quickly by saying DH determined the gender.
For my first, I wasn't in a good financial situation, so I wanted to find out in order to plan as best as we could (aka getting baby clothes/bedding etc). Unfortunately baby kept its legs crossed and the most I got out of the tech was 60% girl, which I couldn't go by. In the end we did end up having a girl, but she was a preemie and the hospital provided us with some clothes because she was so tiny (even the preemie stuff in the stores was too big- we ended up buying her Cabbage Patch clothes for her first couple months home).
So this one I wanted to find out because I couldn't find out for the last one, and again, so I could plan appropriately- my child is now 11 and I had gotten rid of all my stuff when she was 5. I have NOTHING for this one as far as clothes. Well this one too has decided to be stubborn and cross its legs. I was (and still am a little) heartbroken over this. I just wanna know! As a catch 22, baby is also transverse, and I have a low lying placenta. Sucks for those issues but it does give me another couple chances to get a peak and hopefully see some boy or girl parts!
As for rude comments, my mother has laughed in my face because we were unable to find out again, and she is all "you aren't supposed to know because its more fun not to". But in the same breath she will tell me I "better" have a girl. Can't have it both ways! Just because she didn't want to know doesn't mean that I'm not supposed to.
- BFP: 3/10/16 — Baby Girl born 11/20/16
TTC#2 April 2019To clarify, we won't wait til birth to buy anything or plan anything--for us, I don't think there's anything for which we really need to know the sex before LO arrives. In fact, we will get everything ready before hand so we aren't tempted to stock up on super gender-specific items right after birth. But finding appealing gender neutral items could be tough. (Boys' section, here we come...)
I did get a few "boy" outfits (with matching bows just in case). I still find it difficult. I don't even want to dress my boy in outfits with baseballs and trucks. I just want cute animals! Lol
Yup. Me too. Several of DD's neutral footed PJs i only saw because i clicked on the "baby boy" link instead of the "baby girl" link on Carter's online...even though there is no reason that they couldn't work for both (for example, one pair has grey owls on it, another has orange foxes...they are otherwise identical to the items on the "girl" page). It's weird that i saw a few truly neutral items on the girl link, but not all. I don't see why orange foxes mean "boy." Dump trucks, ok. Footballs, fine. But animals? No animal is more masculine/feminine than any other animal (unless that animal is wearing a pink dress or something, which sounds insane but is seriously a thing that happens on baby clothing). WTF.
@BostonTerrior2008 Yes! I'm so excited for the surprise!
I know my side of the family will not be surprised that we are waiting to find out--it's kind of a tradition with the women in my family. But DH's side might be surprised. They're also some pretty bad offenders when it comes to gender stereotyping, so this will be one big adventure. Luckily DH agrees with me (well, maybe that's not really luck...we are a pretty good match!).
Also, I don't think there's any correlation between parents pushing the gender norm and finding out the sex.
Infact all my u/s are limited to the number the doc prescribed and even during it they refer strictly refer to the LO as "the baby" and divulge only the necessary info eg; health, position etc. Even the u/s pics i have saved in my file are of specific parts only like head etc.
At the anatomy scan, for which as FTM my husband and i were extremely excited, we were allowed to see only bits and pieces of the whole process and when we saw the first complete shot the LO on the screen, it was zoomed out and quite blurred as well.
So though its absolutely a personal choice whether or not you want to know the gender of your child, from my standpoint all you ladies for a moment should appreciate the fact that you atleast have that choice!!!
I found out with my first and 99% of my shower presents were from the registry, which were all gender neutral non clothing items. I got some clothes but they weren't all blue.
I found out with my first and with this pregnancy. My first has long hair (to his shoulders) and in addition to liking construction toys, loves playing with my makeup. I don't discourage him. In fact I just taught him( as much as you can with a 2 yr old) the difference between a brow gel and mascara ( he thought my brow gel was mascara- similar shape).
You may be right that people prefer to buy gender specific gifts for moms who find out, but Im talking about the parents, not people around them.
My medical team was excited about us not knowing, tho. The nurses in the delivery room and my OB were almost on their toes with excitement to see what we had. It was a lot of fun being Team Green. We probably won't have any more kids, but if we do, I'm totally doing it again.
Just a note on Team Green, tho - be your own advocate about the secret being kept. I used to tell my nurses as soon as they called my name in the waiting room "don't say what the baby's sex is!!". I found out later they didn't know either because it had not been noted in the chart, because I had also said the same thing to our ultrasound tech as soon as I saw her. There were two or three women in my bmb who had their surprise ruined because of a slip of the tongue on the medical team's part, or one gal was reviewing her lab results thru her patient portal and the sex was right there to be seen in her genetic testing. So don't let anyone ruin the surprise for you, and be careful you don't ruin it for yourself
I'm going to have plenty of neutral clothing ready and apart from being able to do a 'gender specific' nursery (which I'm not doing) I really don't see any actual benefit to finding out in advance. Not to knock people who do obviously, it's such a personal decision.