What did you choose to do and why?
I’m not sure what to do though we are leaning towards not finding out.
Thank you for your help.
I don’t have children yet but my husband and I have decided that when it happens we are going to wait till the baby is born to find out. Personally, I’ve always felt like finding out ahead of time is like sneaking a peak at your presents before [name_u]Christmas[/name_u]. It just takes away some of the specialness for me. We also are going to wait to officially pick a name until we’ve met our child, but we will have narrowed it down to a few favorites before hand.
We decided to find out the sex; there wasn’t any hesitation for either of us. I love being able to refer to her as “her” and “she” and when alone with my husband, calling her by name. It makes it more real and special for me and I’ve had fun buying little outfits hahaha.
I’m leaning towards not finding out. I could write a book on the sociological reasons why, but I won’t. One simple and practical reason is that it’s budget friendly not to find out. Instead of a hundred cute outfits, most of which will never be worn, the things we will stock up on will be practical items.
I found out the sex with one, not the other.
I would not want to find out again.
I hear people say “it’s still a surprise when you find out at the sono” and those are always people who never waited…it is NOT the same. At all. It’s a way bigger, more intense surprise during delivery.
If you really hate surprises, I might opt to find out. Or if you have a really strong preference, like if you have 4 boys and want a girl desperately, it’d be better to deal with that disappointment before the baby arrives. Otherwise I’d wait.
Also - babies don’t have a gender until they’re quite a bit older, and can identify it themselves. So you’re talking about the baby’s sex.
I’m not sure what we’ll do. My husband wants to find out early, but his argument is essentially “if we can, why not?” which is pretty weak, to me. I lean towards waiting mostly because a) the surprise! and b) I’d like to avoid receiving gendered gifts, and my [name_f]MIL[/name_f] is likely to strongarm one of us into telling her the gender if we find out ahead of time.
We found out with this baby. Neither my husband nor I cared. We like to say we are fine either way as long as its cute (kidding!) But our 3 1/2 year old desperately wanted a sister. I don’t really know where his fixation came from, but he was very insistent. So I’m glad that we found out that it’s a boy, bc it has given him time to get used to the idea of a brother instead. He still tells people he is having a sister. We are working on it.
Knowing also gave us a chance to name him, which again really helped our son adjust. We were definitely not expecting to conceive, so we also felt like we weren’t really missing out on the surprise factor. The whole thing is quite surprising!
With our older son, we adopted him and his very existence was a surprise. So it’s a nice novelty in some ways to know so many things about this baby ahead of time! At the same time, I’m sure he will surprise us in so many ways once he is born.
But I get why people wait to find out! I read of one lady who, when people asked her “what she was having” would exclaim brightly, “I’m hoping for a puppy!” I thought that was hilarious. One of my friends waited to find out and people would say, “Boy or girl?” And she would say, “Yes!”
We found out, and I would absolutely do it again. Initially my SO had wanted to wait til the birth to find out, but he gave in after watching me deal with morning sickness for 16 weeks 
I don’t like all the “gendered” items involved with baby shopping (BRU seriously divides up pacifiers by Boy, Girl, or Neutral) so it wasn’t for that reason. We’re still registering for mostly neutral items that can be reused for the next baby. I wanted to find out because:
- I hate surprises - also we weren’t TTC so being pregnant was a huge surprise already!
- I had a slight preference. I wanted a girl, so I wanted to get used to the idea of having a boy - and I have, thankfully!
- We never would have come up with a boy’s name otherwise. Still haven’t actually.
- I hoped it would help me bond with the baby, and it totally did. I think it helped SO bond with him, too.
In short, no regrets. I think whatever works for your family is what matters, though. Some people are happy waiting, and I applaud them too! One thing I’m not sure I’d do again is a “big reveal” for family. It was fun and exciting, but there was a lot of drama surrounding that decision as well. I think next time we’ll go a little more casual with the reveal.
We found out at delivery and I am so glad 
I would be surprised with all future babies too if my husband can wait again…we’ll see…
During those few hours of intense pain I did say to myself that “in just a few hours I’ll find out if it’s a boy or a girl and meet my son or daughter”-and it really helped get through the contractions. I LOVED my husband being able to announce to a full waiting room of family and friends that we had a girl and caught the reactions on video.
No babies yet, but definitely plan on finding out. I am a planner, I can not plan if I do not know the sex! We plan on going pretty much gender neutral, but I like being prepared and just could not go without knowing.
We found out because of the same reasons many people have said above:
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I hate surprises! As someone else said, finding out the sex beforehand is very much like peeking at the [name_u]Christmas[/name_u] presents early–which I always did at every opportunity.
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I wouldn’t say we necessarily had a preference, but everyone said they thought we were having a girl and because of that we had completely convinced ourselves it was a girl. I think that if we’d gone into labour in that mindset and the baby was actually a boy, we would have been a bit shocked and maybe had some gender disappointment which would have been better to deal with earlier on, in my opinion.
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Boys names were going to be a battle. An epic battle. Like, “I’m not sure the marriage would have survived” type battle. ([name_m]Just[/name_m] kidding.) But seriously, I didn’t see the point in going through that if we just ended up having a girl anyway. Which we are!
I do understand why people wait to find out, though. We plan on having a mostly gender neutral nursery and would prefer gender neutral gifts and things because we plan on keeping everything for baby #2 who might be a boy, and I don’t think everything needs to be colour-coded so young! We’ve already gotten a pretty horrendous neon pink dress with flowers, lace, ribbons, and bows on it which I think I would rather burn than put on my daughter. Avoiding all that would be great. But I’m still very glad we found out!
Thank you everyone for your input. It is going to be a tough decision for us I think but we have a while until we need to decide for sure.
I can see the positives of both sides. On one hand I like to plan and be organised and know what to expect but then on the other hand I can see how it would help to get through labour.
Also, I hope I didn’t offend anyone by using the term gender instead of sex, I can now see that I used the wrong term.
We’re pregnant with our first and found out. I’m a planner and couldn’t wait that long! I love being able to refer to the baby as “our son” and “he”. We also refer to him by his name when it’s just the two of us (we’re not telling anyone the name we’ve chosen). I feel like it has helped me bond with him. And I haven’t had to drive myself crazy deciding on a girls name that I don’t need, which is what I was already doing in the first trimester
I am pregnant with #6 and only ONCE did we decide to not find out the gender. While the surprise was fun and exciting, knowing and being able to say “he” or “she” or calling baby by his/her name instead of “it” is definitely my preference.
(Especially since my first two ended in miscarriage at 15-16 weeks, I knew the gender for only a very short amount of time but the connection was a lot stronger.)
We opted for a surprise with our first and plan on doing that again. It was an awesome experience and I recommend it to everyone. There is even some claim that labour goes quicker if you don’t know the gender lol
I should add that while I strongly prefered waiting, my SO was the one to choose whether we found out or not with this baby (what convinced me or at least made me ok with finding out was that I thought it would be easier for my daughter), I don’t think my SO was unhappy with his choice, and with the next one he will probably want to find out as well (which I will sadistically use as leverage in the name discussion).
As far as getting through labor, I feel like, even if you did know the baby’s sex, there’s still unknowns that could help get you through. Like “who will he look like” or “I wonder what she will look like” or “I can’t wait to hold my baby for the first time”. So either way, there is something to look forward to 
I myself keep going back and forth. Part of me would like to know, one reason being I would like to just know what I’m carrying. I feel like it would help my husband and I on our naming adventure (even though we mostly have names picked out). I think it would also help my husband adjust to the idea of a new baby, and would be sweet for him to know. There’s not much reason for me not to find out. I don’t care an ounce about whether or not my baby is dressed in or given pink or blue or yellow or tan outfits. They get soiled anyway and I know people are usually really excited and put a lot of thought into the gifts they give. The room we would use for a nursery is already blue (we live in an apt and the landlord painted it before we moved in) but I don’t care what it looks like. So yeah…we’d probably just find out and enjoy the results
We found out the sex with our first two, and that was the right decision for us at the time. But with this one we couldn’t find out the sex, and I am so grateful because I wanted the surprise.
To me it truly doesn’t matter what sex this baby is. I just don’t care. But with my first especially I did care, and so finding out would have allowed me to process any gender disappointment before the baby arrived.
Good luck with whatever you decide
Not expecting yet, but I fully intend to find out the gender at the earliest opportunity. I’m sure I’ll be anxious enough preparing for motherhood, so no need for one more thing to wait on :). Plus, the “surprise” idea feels false to me, if the information is available and you’re just asking other people to hide it from you.
We decided to find out because we didn’t really have any reason to wait. I get the whole surprise thing, but I feel like there will be enough surprises and new things even if we already know the sexes. Plus I’m always a planner so it helps me a lot that I don’t need to think about girls’ names, can design the nursery specifically for my two boys, etc. I also wanted to be able to call them by the right pronouns from the start instead of “it” or “he or she”, I mean if I call my hamster “she” I’m sure as hell not calling my baby “it”.