I’m a way off finding out the gender - if we decide to find out - as I am only 6/7 weeks. However, my husband and I are discussing it all the time.
The husband unit doesn’t want to find out at all and wants the surprise and I feel conflicted. Both of my sisters didn’t find out the genders with their first children but found out with subsequent children because they said not knowing is the worst and lots of my friends and colleagues have many varying thoughts. And I go from not wanting to know to desperately wanting to know.
[name_m]How[/name_m] did you decide? [name_m]How[/name_m] did you deal with the urges or impatience? [name_m]How[/name_m] did you compromise with your partner if their opinion was opposite to yours?
Obviously, I haven’t had to deal with this yet… but I do feel your struggle. Hubby is fiercely team green and won’t budge, where I can see pros and cons to both, and lean more towards wanting to find out. I am not a fan of surprises, and I can’t imagine waiting 9 months for one!
There was another thread on this topic a while back, and most people said it really comes done to feelings and personality. There’s no right or wrong way to do it. Some people like the rush and surprise. Others like to feel more in control and organised, and so finding out ahead works best for them. It just depends what works for you. Maybe chat to your hubs and find out why he is so stuck on Team [name_u]Green[/name_u]?? If there is no specific reason, then maybe talk about it a bit and toss about the pros and cons. Work out what feels best as a couple.
As a side note, I think it is definitely becoming much more common to find out before hand.
I am also due in [name_f]February[/name_f] and this is a conversation we are having. I am team green and he would like to find out. I asked him if he had a really good reason that he wanted to find out, like he needed time to adjust to one or the other or that he felt like it would help him connect to the baby, but the truth is he just wants to know! My reasons I gave him for not wanting to find out are as follows:
We will have one baby shower (I don’t care for multiple showers or “sprinkles”) but we will have more than one child. I would like our carseat, stroller, etc. to be able to be used for all of our children regardless of gender.
Discussing names with others wont be as big of an issue because clearly we wont be able to say for sure if we don’t know the gender.
It will be a fun surprise at the end of labor. When I feel like I want to give up, I can remember that I am finally going to get to know if my baby is a he or a she.
It will make some of our family crazy not knowing and that’s just an added bonus for me!
We decided to find out at our 20 week anatomy scan and I’m so glad we did! I was convinced we were having a boy and so finding out then gave me time to get excited about having a girl. I knew I’d be happy either way, but I had such a strong feeling she was a he that I had to completely readjust my expectations. It also helped a lot in planning and organizing things. I like a lot of unisex stuff but I also really like some gender specific clothes so I don’t always have to correct people about her gender.
It is a very personal choice and I agree that you should talk it over with DH before coming to a decision. This won’t be the first time you’ll disagree when it comes to parenting so you might as well practice compromising!
We found out at 9 weeks via the blood test. Our reasons for finding out were basically as follows:
It made the pregnancy a lot more real and we both feel a lot more bonded to the baby after knowing.
I’m a planner and DH and I tend to disagree a lot on various things (it takes us awhile to come to a consensus). By finding out, and finding out early, it narrowed the focus on discussing names, nurseries, etc.
While we still plan to get all of the big, expensive stuff in gender neutral options, this allows us to add a little more personality to the nursery, wardrobe, etc. We both find strictly gender neutral stuff to be pretty bland.
We don’t want to announce name choices until after the baby shower so that we don’t get a bunch of worthless gifts (i.e. 30 monogrammed blankets, lots of wall decor, etc.), but finding out the gender gives us something to tell people to appease them
We both are very curious people. We would never choose not to know something that we could know (also why we did the early blood test)
DH really wanted a boy and I preferred a girl. Finding out early gave us both a chance to deal with the outcome in private without feeling guilty for any feelings of disappointment.
I didn’t want to find out and my husband did, like was going to have a mental breakdown if we didn’t find out. So, we found out. I didn’t want to find out because though I wanted a girl I knew I would be excited with whatever on it’s birthday. Then the upside to finding out is, I had a window to be “disappointed” without feeling guilty.
Our compromise was we find out but don’t tell anyone, which is terrible, I don’t recommend it. I’ve slipped a few times, we end up telling strangers just to tell someone and it is literally the first question most people ask you. We decided to do a reveal at our shower because our main reason for not telling people is we wanted gender neutral things, by then most things will be bought and it won’t matter, and we just can’t keep it in anymore. If we have another I probably would be undecided once again, though I think hubby might be more open to having it be a surprise. One of my friends didn’t find out and ended up having a very tramatic pre-term delivery at 28 weeks, she said that surprise at the end at least makes the day a little better in her memory.
I can see the benefits of both, it’s just something the two of you will have to decide. It is a surprise either way, just depends on when it comes. If he wants something special you could always get a reveal cake for just the two of you, or make it a little special on some other way if you find out and surprise him with it.
We didn’t find out with #1. I didn’t want a lot of super-gendered clothing. I don’t like color coding little kids, and I wanted to be able to reuse clothing and things for a possible #2. Also, I felt like if we didn’t know, then the nursery would truly be gender neutral, there wouldn’t be any subconscious tendency on our part to swing one way or the other.
We are TTC #2, and we want to find out this time. I want to be able to tell my daughter to expect a little brother or sister and we’ll use the same nursery, etc. regardless. Also, I want to be able to make a more definitive name selection.
DH and I always said that we wouldn’t find out the gender and we didn’t with either of our first two pregnancies, neither of which I carried to term (miscarriage and stillbirth). Nothing was different the third time around, until we found out we were having twins and then we just HAD to know and found out as soon as we could.
The deciding factor for us was the multiples part, we just were too curious with there being two of them. I think the gender being a surprise is so great though. DH and I had so much fun speculating, and we even had a gray and white nursery for the second time around. It feels crazy and you want to know so badly, but it’s fun to drive your family mad with not knowing and I think gender neutral clothing is the cutest. I don’t exactly regret finding out what my twins were, but keeping it a surprise is such a whirlwind.
DH and I always said that we wouldn’t find out the gender and we didn’t with either of our first two pregnancies, neither of which I carried to term (miscarriage and stillbirth). Nothing was different the third time around, until we found out we were having twins and then we just HAD to know and found out as soon as we could.
The deciding factor for us was the multiples part, we just were too curious with there being two of them. I think the gender being a surprise is so great though. DH and I had so much fun speculating, and we even had a gray and white nursery for the second time around. It feels crazy and you want to know so badly, but it’s fun to drive your family mad with not knowing and I think gender neutral clothing is the cutest. I don’t exactly regret finding out what my twins were, but keeping it a surprise is such a whirlwind.
I know other TTC/childless Berries have commented thus far…may I as well? As someone who is currently TTC, this is a topic my husband and I have covered often. We are Team Find Out. Sure, a part of both of us loves the idea of finding out the gender when the doctor (or DH) announces it…but, in the end, that isn’t a huge desire for us. We’ve been TTC for a year and a half, and have official “infertility” diagnoses. Getting pregnant at all would be a miracle and that wait has been killer already…I think it would be okay for us to get to find out?
Other reasons:
*it is our decision
*I imagine it would help us bond to the baby more, especially my husband.
*it’s nice to just be able to have an idea
*I don’t think I could deal with the constant questions about knowing or not. I’d rather be able to just say what it is.
*we always seem to have relatives in ill health…it would mean a lot to them to be able to know.
One of the biggest factors in our decision, though, is that it truly is a surprise no matter when you find out. Either way, someone still gets to announce the gender. Either way, you will find out. It truly doesn’t matter and I love that I think women get pressured to do things the “right way” in every little matter…including this. There is no right or wrong. If you do it one way this time and plan to have another, maybe try one method this time and the other the other time, so you can make the comparison yourself
I’ve just been thinking about this! With my son we found out as soon as we could. I never had a desire to wait but recently I thought it would be fun if it were a surprise. With our next child we might wait, although I’m not sure if I can be patient enough to wait!
We are trying to go team green this round but we’ll see. We found out the gender with our first daughter but we didn’t tell anyone until the baby shower/gender reveal, and we got loads of neutral stuff, which was the whole point of the mini ‘secret’. We managed to make a neutral nursery, mainly because I love bedrooms in neutral colours, I find them more relaxed.
I found out with all 3 kids. Twice I was dissapointed… with Indira I had hoped she was going to be a boy, and with Ozzie I was convinced he was… well, twins, actually. Lol but I thought that pregnancy I was having b/g twins, and part of me still wonders about that other sister. I guess I was excited we were having a boy, but I was always a bit sad to miss out on the girl I felt/imagined.
I think for me it was good every pregnancy to know & then have that time to wrap my head around things, to plan and feel organized and ready. And get over whatever my expectations were.
We’re team green, almost certainly. I’m also about 7 weeks, so in a very similar situation to you. My husband and I have talked about this multiple times and he kind of wants to find out, but his reason is always ‘because we can so why wouldn’t we?’ That’s not a good enough reason for me, and I have real reasons for wanting to not find out, so at the moment we’re not going to find out. If he thinks of a good reason why we should, we might change that.
It doesn’t matter to me what gender it is. This seems obvious, but was really a big point for me in deciding I didn’t want to know - if it doesn’t matter, then why does it matter enough to find out? It shouldn’t make a difference at all.
I intend to raise my children despite gender. That’s not the same as gender neutral, but just means I want them to have every shot at choosing their own interests and skills and dislikes and weaknesses, and that should have nothing to do with gender. I was not raised like that, and I don’t want my own biases getting in the way before they’re even born. If they like gender-traditional things, great! But if they don’t, also great!
My in-laws are GIRL-CRAZY!! My husband has only brothers, and we have only nephews on his side of the family, and [name_f]MIL[/name_f] particularly is desperate for a little girl. She might get one, and if she does, I don’t want her being spoiled/extreme frill-and-pink-ified/shown favouritism over all the lovely boys in the family. The later we can delay that, the better. If it’s another boy, HOORAY! We have another beautiful healthy brilliant boy to add to the family! That should not be a disappointment. If it’s a girl, ALSO HOORAY! But she will be no more special or important than the boys.
This is all pretty gender-stereotype reasons, but that really matters to me. I was raised to think girls are fundamentally different to boys, and they’re just not. Or at least, not as much as I was taught. I might have made lots of different choices, had I been given scope to make them.
I just want to say my first reason again - if it doesn’t matter to me, then it REALLY shouldn’t matter to me. I can’t say it doesn’t matter if my baby is a boy or girl, but then be desperate to find out… because it doesn’t matter. I’m desperate to find out if it’s one baby or multiples, or if it’s healthy, but the gender is irrelevant. The only thing it will change is the name - and I can just plan a name for either.
We found out the gender with Ted and definitely will with any future LO’s as well. I can’t imagine waiting nine months to find out what I’m having and I don’t really see the point of doing so.
I am at 23 weeks right now and we are not finding out gender until birth. My husband would prefer to know for the sake of knowing, that’s really it. I personally feel, as an over organized planner and adult there aren’t as many surprises in life if you prepare for everything so I wanted it to be a surprise. It took us 13 months to conceive so it’s not like we were surprised by the pregnancy we had been hoping for. I’m also already completely over the over-sharing and constant advise from people and I just don’t feel like I want to give them anything else to “advise” me on that would be gender specific as I would like to raise my children a bit less stereotypically than others. My husband agreed that his reason was not strong enough to over rule my reasons and he can NOT keep a secret so this is to prevent him from spilling the beans to anyone else, otherwise he could have found out himself and not told me. I would have been fine with that. There is no issue in terms of finding names as we had already chosen 3 boy and 3 girl names, complete with middles and even if we found out the gender would not choose which name until meeting baby.
I also just have this deep rooted feeling like knowing would be somehow wrong for me. It is something I’ve never questioned and my husband; though a little bummed; understands and trusts my instincts enough to go along with my whishes.
With all three pregnancies we chose to find out the SEX of our babies, despite raising them gender-neutral as possible. It seems a bit weird or paradoxical, but knowing just a bit more about my child helps me bond… and it also helps us in the way of deciding the name. I suppose it’s important to add that the GENDER is something that the individual will find out/manifest later on in life.
I think women get pressured to do things the “right way” in every little matter…including this. There is no right or wrong. If you do it one way this time and plan to have another, maybe try one method this time and the other the other time, so you can make the comparison yourself