I’m pretty sure I want to keep this baby’s gender a surprise, but my SO is terribly impatient and wants to find out. I love surprises, and there are so few of them in our life. I feel like finding out is a lot like peeking at [name_u]Christmas[/name_u] presents too early. I love the thrill of not knowing. I love the idea of doing old wives’ tales, guessing, dreaming, collecting bets and so on.
But my SO is the practical one, and he says it would be much easier to decide on nursery theme, coming home outfit, and names if we found out. What should we do? We still have a couple of days to decide, and I would love some opinions.
If your SO wants to find out, then can’t he learn the sex and simply not share it with you? It wouldn’t make deciding on a nursery, outfit or name easier, but it’d still be a compromise that’d make your SO happy. Good luck!
emmievis: This is actually a great idea! I am not sure how to do it, but we certainly can ask them to write it down on a piece of paper and just give it to my SO? Thank you!
We’re in the opposite situation as you. My husband never wants to know, and I always do. For our first we found out at the 20 week ultrasound because I just couldn’t handle not knowing. For me the biggest worry was having to figure out boy and girl name options.
For this one, my husband is getting his way, and we’re team green until the birth. I think it’s easier on me this time because we’ve figured out our naming style and it feels much less overwhelming to need options for both sexes. I always had a rule that either we both know or we both don’t, but even when we knew, it was a secret only for us (which was tricky but actually fun).
If you’re planning on more than one, can you do a compromise like this? If you’re not, I think the mom gets 60% of the vote.
I personally am high anxiety so not knowing until I give birth would make me go insane so I applaud you and your patience. I agree with above about possibly letting your SO find out and letting him keep it to himself so as not to ruin the surprise for you. Good luck!
We’ve always found out at 20 or so weeks and plan to again with this baby. I am too impatient to go the full 9 months not knowing, it would drive me insane, but awesome if you can! I think finding out at 20 weeks is a great halfway point in the pregnancy and something I look forward to. There is so much excitement and adrenaline when actually giving birth that meeting the baby is enough for me. I don’t need anything more than that. There are so many unknowns in pregnancy and childbirth and really, even knowing what it is ahead of time, isn’t really foolproof. There can still be a mistake. So take it with a grain of salt.
If one of you wants to know and the other doesn’t, then honour each others wishes and keep it to yourself. Then it’s a win-win.
With our son we found out, and I’ve always regretted it to be honest. If I have another baby, I don’t want to find out. As for the nursery theme, clothing etc, that was never an issue for us, because we were pretty gender neutral in that department.
I’m definitely with you on this one. I know when some friends have divulged the sex of the baby and the name chosen I felt that the only thing I didn’t know was the birth weight and TBH, the excitement of the baby’s arrival was lost. It is more difficult than one would think when one of you knows and the other doesn’t. When you are shopping or discussing names I think you will pick up on his heightened interest in one or the other, or it will slip as it did with friends that knew but were keeping it to themselves. I asked how she was doing and being distracted, referred to “her”.
I’m team not knowing, but maybe you could do like other people have said and let him know but not you? For nursery themes you can always go with more of like a yellow or character theme (I’m going with [name_f]Winnie[/name_f] the Pooh, personally…)
Thank you all! We had our scan today and decided not to find out the sex. I asked my SO if he wanted to find it out without telling me to but he refused and said he’s okay with waiting until the baby is born. [name_f]Glad[/name_f] we have found some common ground…
I’m sooo undecided on this. I’m newly pregnant and right now my present choice would be not to find out. But the 20 week scan is still a long ways away! If he and I can’t agree on names for both boy and girl then we may find out just to make that task easier.
DH doesn’t really answer these qs, like names and to find out the sex, because he’s just much more cautious and tentative about it. Maybe after the first scan confirms it then we can talk more concretely about these subjects. For now I’ll just peruse the name lists on my own!
I think the sex of the baby is a surprise regardless of when you find out. To each their own but I don’t see the point? Especially for those who decide to be “team green” and have to stress over picking out both a boy’s and a girl’s name.
We were so committed to team green, we painted the baby’s room green! The theme was baby animals and all the infant clothes were gender neutral. I didn’t want to color code a baby from birth. (Our daughter is 4 yo now and loves pink and purple, which is fine, her choice!).
If I ever have another I think I’d find out, and use the same nursery. I just want to know if I should keep or give away our closet full of girls clothes, lol.
I would love to be able to wait, it really does feel like peeking at [name_u]Christmas[/name_u] presents! But my husband is a ball of energy who could not possibly wait. He seriously wants to do a DNA test just to find out the gender, instead of waiting until 20 weeks. I put my foot down on that one, but he is incorrigible lol.
Also, @theofania I love your daughter’s name and your signature names!
I love the idea of waiting until the baby’s born and the excitement and surprise that comes with it.
However for me with this pregnancy, I feel like knowing the gender will help me connect with this baby and make it feel more real. And as one who deals with anxiety, I feel like the fewer surprises on delivery day will help me have a smoother more relaxed labor. So when we get the opportunity we plan on finding out the gender.
I agree with you. Finding out loses so much excitement and all anticipation. And really, there are so many gender neutral options that are seriously cute for the nursery and either girl or boy decor can be added later. Not a big deal. Recently, I was told by a friend that they were having a boy along with the name they had chosen and all there was left was to hear his birth weight, and TBH, those details aren’t a big deal so the excitement was gone.
My hubby and are the opposite! He wants it to be a surprise, and I want to know. I don’t care about nursery colours, clothes, etc… I just feel like it would help me prepare mentally. I don’t know what we’ll do when the time comes, because we’re both very stubborn on the point haha
We decorated the nursery in a gender neutral theme (rainbow colors!) before we found out at 18 weeks. I liked knowing as it cut the baby name search in half. And we picked the first name around 28 weeks so we were able to refer to her by her name. That made it all more real.
Either way is obviously fine though! [name_f]Glad[/name_f] you found a compromise
