Skip to main content
Skip to main navigation
Skip to talk navigation

Active discussions

Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Unflip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Saved Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

Unflip

1 2 3 4

AIBU?

to not want to find out the sex of my baby?

88 replies

Saj30 · 11/09/2011 12:07

This is our first child, and I do no want to know the sex of the baby. However DH is insisting he does, but I don't want anyone to know. AIBU?? [CONFUSED]

OP posts:

Report

vmcd28 · 14/09/2011 13:24

Either you both find out or neither of you do. There's no way one of you could ever keep it a secret.

We found out with ds2, after 2 MCs and bleeding at the start of the pg (plus high risk of Downs) ,and it helped me bond and be excited, because he was no longer an "it". We did not tell anyone the gender, as we wanted to surprise everyone else.

As for the parents, it's a "surprise" whether you find out now or at delivery time. But if you think finding out the gender now will somehow spoil something when it arrives, you couldn't be more wrong. Nothing at all will detract from how you feel when you see your new baby.

Tinkerisdead · 14/09/2011 13:13

I didnt find out with dd but i just 'knew' she was a girl. This time i dont want to know, nor does dh. But dd is getting upset at the prospect at it not being a girl that im tempted to find out for her sake.

For me not knowing got me through the darkest moments, i had to keep going to get that final surprise. Days of labour and an eventual emcs. We still asked to find out the gender ourselves and i was baffled by everyone shouting my attention whilst holding this purple bawling mass in my face. A nurse said, the gender the gender. To which i yelled at dh, i told you it was a girl! He replied are its feet meant to be purple?

Was a fab moment that surprise amist the chaos.

minimisschief · 14/09/2011 12:56

To be fair if someone sees you ad rings you or vise versa and you look happy they are going to assume the baby is healthy and happy and when they ask if its a boy or a girl that is really the only thing relevant to them.

i also do not get this whole one parent shouldn't know. if you do not want to know the gender then why are you upset that you do not know if your partner does. just sounds a bit illogical to me.

thefirstMrsDeVere · 12/09/2011 19:30

It was very important to me to know the sex of DCs 4&5.
They didnt tell you when I had DCs 1 & 2 but I didnt really want to know. In those days you could actually buy unisex baby stuff - that seems impossible now (unless you like beige).

No one should pressure you into finding out. That is not fair.

LadyMontdore · 12/09/2011 19:27

A suprise is lovely! If you don't want to know that's up to you!

cheesespread · 12/09/2011 19:20

we didnt find out,we were asked at 20 weeks scan did we want to no as she could see and we said no

also had a 4d scan and we told lady doing the scanning we didnt want to no the sex of the baby,was amazing the 4D scan,some people dont like them as they say you no what your baby will look like before its born so its all down to personal prefrence really

we had a boy,i had EMCS and there was no better words than the midwife saying you have a boy !

its a tough one but i think id stick to my guns and not find out,by the sounds of it he s been pressurised by MIL and SILS,id sit him down and ask him why its so important for him to find out

HappyHippyChick · 12/09/2011 16:04

With ds1 dh really wanted to find out, but I didn't so I put my foot down using the 'my body, my decision' argument. After the birth he told me he was really glad we didn't find out, and now I'm pregnant with our fourth, he's even more pro waiting than me!

Also a guy I work with just (well his wife) had the baby he was told was a girl to find he was taking his son home from hospital in pink outfits to a pink nursery!

poppyknot · 12/09/2011 10:33

I had amnio with both so the sex was findable. DH was practical and said the info's already there so why not find out. I did not want to and we didn't ask.

However when I went into hospital for DD1, I was left on my own whilst DH found somewhere to park (QCH so nightmare....) and m/w had left me for a minute to get something. Me excited and emboldened by my first whiff of gas and air saw my notes on the bed and thought - have a peek. Didn't know what I was looking for but the page I saw said Gender - F.

So when DH returned I said in that slightly woozy g-and-a way we're having a baby F!

Poor DH was a bit bemused.........

TheNationalTruss · 12/09/2011 10:03

Slightly ot but there is absolutely nothing wrong with finding out anymore than there is anything wrong with waiting. I do find it patronising on these threads where anybody tries to justify their way as the better way. You find out or you don't. You're not wrong or impatient or any other thing. You do things your own way. It's utterly unlike sneaking a look at Christmas presents. For some people it's merely a statement of fact. In the same way that you idly read books/emails/forums which tell you 'your baby is currently the size of a plum', or 'the baby has fingernails', some people are curious to find out what sex the baby is. Purely because they can. It's feck all to do with gender stereotyping for me too. If you believe gender stereotyping is that all pervasive (and I agree in some ways it sadly is) then you're going to fight that battle anyway. If YOU don't plan to stereotype then it matters not when you find out, your child is still your child, you just happen to know what's between its legs.

And the op and her dp are having the very problem reflected by this thread. If you want to do it one way, you believe that way to be better than the other way and are in the business of convincing other people you are 'right'. But as it's not theoretical and you do have to make the decision, I'd suggest you have a very frank conversation about him respecting your ability to make a decision for a start. It sounds like he's bullying you.

fedupofnamechanging · 12/09/2011 09:41

OP, if your dh does find out, make sure he doesn't go blabbing to his sisters. I would be mightily pissed off if all my relatives knew something about my my baby that I didn't know. And one of them is bound to let it slip.

downpipe · 12/09/2011 08:26

YANBU
I had it the other way round with DS1.I wanted to know ,DH wanted a surprise.So I found out and kept it a secret from everyone,only person who ever knew was the Ultrasound lady.It made talking about names a bit harder as I didn't want to give it away,but I respected his desire for a surprise.So it is possible but could you trust DH to keep it a secret?
With DS2,we both found out at 20 weeks as DH decided it didn't make that much difference knowing or not knowing and it meant I could get all the blue baby clothes out again!Name conversations were also a lot easier.

PicaK · 12/09/2011 08:17

I really wanted to know. Unlike the other poster who had ivf - for us it felt v important to know and to help us believe the baby was on its way.

The birth was a crash c-section under GA - so no place for a beautiful reveal moment anyway.

That said i'd heartily defend anyone who didn't want to know. And I hate to say it but if you're going through all the hard work of having the baby then this once your feelings are more important.

diddl · 12/09/2011 07:59

No, they can´t both have it their way.

So in this situation, someone´s wishes take precedence.

Whose should that be?

Like I said earlier, we didn´t want to know-but policy was not to tell anyway.

CustardCake · 12/09/2011 07:55

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

diddl · 12/09/2011 07:36

"I think it is unfair to not let him know. You aren't the only parent."

True-but why is his wish to know more important than OPs not to?

Or the other way round?

Perhaps if he didn´t sound so nasty I might have some sympathy-plus it sounds as if he´s siding with his sisters.

Can´t help thinking that OP has to wait for the birth-won´t hurt him to wait to find out the sex.

Flowerista · 11/09/2011 23:20

Our baby was IVF and frankly the only thing about his birth that we didn't "control" was his sex, so we decided we wouldn't ask beforehand. I'll never ever forget the moment my DH said it's a boy.

deviladvocate · 11/09/2011 23:12

We didn't find out with our first two and there was something so magical about finding out at the birth. We did find out with our third, simply for practical reasons and to set the kids expectations - however there's no guarantee that the sonographer will get it right!

Think about when you've found out about friends/families babies - it's so exciting to find out the sex then rather than "oh, he/she's arrived then, all ok?" I'd much rather not know.

fedupofnamechanging · 11/09/2011 23:10

Glad your little girl is okay chipmonkey. That must have been so frightening.

chipmonkey · 11/09/2011 23:05

YADNBU and your dh is being an arse and a sexist arse at that! Women are incapable of making a decision during pregnancy are they? Well, I don't know how I coped with running a house, holding down a job and running a small business through five pregnancies then!

FWIW, the only time I ever found out the sex was on ds4. I already had three boys and was kind of hoping for a girl. So I found out he was a boy and spent the next 11 weeks crying and feeling hard done by. Then he was born and it really didn't matter what gender he was, he was a gorgeous baby and is still absolutely adorable three years on.

This time, I refused to find out. At the 20 week scan, I told the sonographer that I didn't want to know and that was that.

Then at 28 weeks, I had a crash caesarean section and hysterectomy. She is a little girl. BUT after the shock I got (placenta accreta, massive bleeding, life-threatening) I really didn't care what she was, so long as she was OK and I was so thankful that my obs saved her life and my life. For days I called her "he" as to me, babies were boys! I did find it odd, that knowing that she was so premature that peoples first response was that I must be over the moon that I had a daughter but when you see your baby in an incubator, with wires and tubes coming out of his/her tiny body, you do not care about gender. Thankfully she is doing well now. And I am very glad that I didn't find out!

minimisschief · 11/09/2011 21:46

you know if you find out at the scan or on the day it is still a surprise. know what i mean? So why wait?

I think it is unfair to not let him know. You aren't the only parent.

PublicHair · 11/09/2011 21:41

your dh sounds like a twat.
we never found out with any of ours, although a friend came to a late scan with dd2 and said 'you do know what you're having don't you' so i said 'nope' (she thought we'd found out and not told) anyway, she knew for the last 8 weeks that i was having another girl.

Indaba · 11/09/2011 21:31

IMO YANBU

someone once told me if God had wanted us to know in advance....God would have put a window in our tummys

didn't want to know for any of ours...was convinced 2nd was a girl.....took midwife a good 10 minutes to stop me calling him her!

Don’t want to miss threads like this?

Weekly

Sign up to our weekly round up and get all the best threads sent straight to your inbox!

Email address

Log in to update your newsletter preferences.

You've subscribed!

fedupofnamechanging · 11/09/2011 18:58

Well I found out the sex of all 4 of mine before they were born and I can honestly say it took nothing away from the excitement and joy I felt when each of them was born. I was finally getting to see the little person that I'd been waiting for. I didn't feel the experience was diminished because I knew if they were boys/girls.

That said OP, if you don't want to know, you are the one who is pg and yes, I think that trumps what your 'd'h wants. He is coming across as a bit of a bullying arse tbh. If my husband told me I was incapable of rational thought because of my hormones, I'd have his knackers in a vice.

doublestandard · 11/09/2011 18:51

It's funny isn't it, how we see things from our own point of view and make assumptions about a different one? I'm not having a dig at anyone btw, just having a small philosophical ponderance

I find the whole find out sex before/not find out before thing to be like Marmite. You either are are, or aren't in favour and it's hard to understand the other viewpoint.

diddl · 11/09/2011 18:44

For me it would be the other way round-that if you want to find out then the sex of the baby is all important.

Unflip

1 2 3 4

Please create an account

To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.