to not understand why people find out the sex of their babybbefore its born?

[ChaosTrulyReigns]

Not judging, not sniping, just wondering.

I know we all do things differently and I like to live and let live and all that, but the emotions that I felt when finding out the sex of my baby after given birth were incredible and I can't imagine the emotions experienced when told at 20 weeks could in any way compare iyswim?

Obviously I understand sexing a baby if there's health implications.

As I said I'm not judging or sniping, just genunely curious as to people's rationale.

Is it a bit like the Evervest attitude?

we found out in order to prepare for gender disappointment! sounds dreadful... but read on...

we both would have preferred a boy.

i'm apprehensive about having a girl because i come from a deeply troubled family of girls, and my own mother had great difficulty parenting me. i would have less baggage interacting with a boy, i feel.

DH's apprehensive about having a girl because he comes from a country where girls/women are victims of crime and exploitation to a massive extent (MUCH more than in the UK, 100s of times more statistically), so to him, he is anxious about whether he will be overprotective, or underprotective, or not vigilant enough, or over-vigilant/isolating... or sexist without realising... so many things.

it's not about sexism or "not wanting" one sex or the other necessarily, for us anyway it's about being prepared and wanting to sort through personal issues at least a bit before baby is born.

and it's worked for me at least, i feel much more excited now and am starting to daydream about doing girlie things with LO!

For both my DC I didn't have the option of knowing the gender. I don't like the idea of someone else knowing and me not, but I didn't want to put too much emotional effort into the baby until he/she arrived iyswim. When DS1 was born I owned a dozen nappies, 2 sheets, 2 blankets, 2 babygros and a cardboard box - and a long shopping list for DH for if the baby was OK! I just didn't want to count my chicken until it was hatched!

Raven they included "oh, a boy, I don't know if I know what to do with baby boys. I'm not used to them." Totally illogical - I know. I don't play with DD in gender specific ways (that I'm aware of) and babies are just babies - you do the same thing with them. It was an emotional reaction and I was pleased I had the time to rationalise it.

Regarding choosing a name - its just personal choice. From my perspective I wasn't going to get to have any great insight into DD's personality in her first few days of life, and her appearance was going to change quite dramatically. So even if I had a desire to base her name on her appearance or assumptions about her personality I wouldn't have felt able to.

I don't think you can really raise a child in a GN way unless you live in a self sufficient bubble! IMO girls are more pigeon-holed today than we were when I grew up!

if raising girls and boys was a level playing field then the feminism boards would be very quiet!

rasing a girl today would terrify me! I would really need to get my head around it, it would be a far bigger challenge to me than raising boys.

I wonder when the real gender bias thing comes into play, as at the moment, when I play with DD (5mo) I look at her and think 'you could easily be a boy OR a girl at tme moment'.....she isn't 'girlie' or 'boyish'. Yes, with other people buying her stuff, they tend to pick pink, but I mean her character....it's neither boy or girl. It just IS.

DC1 - Hospital had a policy not to tell you

DC2 - Hospital had introduced paid scans to find out the sex, we wanted to know, we paid.

I am slightly ashamed to admit it but I really wanted a girl after DS and I wanted to know because we wouldn't be having any more, and I could then get used to the idea of having two boys and never having a daughter. As it turned out we had DD. So we could think of names, tell DS he was having a sister etc.

I haven't read all 13 pages of this thread - sorry! - but it seems no-one has mentioned what happens if you find out at the 20-week scan but at birth it turns out they were wrong... I know of 2 instances where 'a friend of a friend' was told the sex at the scan and the other sex appeared at birth; apparently they grieved for the boy or girl they had been expecting and never arrived. I imagine if you know the sex you get more of an idea in your head of what your baby will be like, and so this is partly the reason we didn't find out with either of our dcs. Presumably the scans are only 70-80% accurate at determining sex?...

Because I knew it would drive me & my family nuts when it came to painting baby's room, finding clothes etc. Fuck I hate magnolia or off White everything! Need colour!!

I haven't a single white or magnolia baby item. I don't have a single baby pink or baby blue item either.

I have red and yellow, green and orange, turquoise and purple, black and brown - rainbows, stripes, stars, spots, patchwork. Farmyard patterns, fruit motifs, monkeys, dinosaurs and guitars and rabbits and owls and cars and flowers.

I know the sex of my DC but it has no bearing at all on what clothes it will wear, what room it will sleep in, what colours it is surrounded with. Not until the child is old enough to express a preference. My DD is, she likes bright red and bright green. Her bedroom is primary colours. She is currently wearing black, red, blue and green PJ trousers with an alien motif and a royal blue T-shirt.

I prefer primary colours and stripes/stars too
BUT thats all well and good if you can afford to buy new
if you need to buy mostly second hand you aren't always lucky enough to have sellers at nearly news that share your primary colour preferences so when buying second hand you often DO have to buy either boyish or girlish as they are the only choices if your local sellers have no taste!

Ironically I have rarely bought anything new either. It's all ebay and charity shops. The most I've paid for anything for my new baby is £4 (clothing wise). The majority of items have been under £1.

Failing that, keep calm and buy dylon.

I have plenty of things with flowers which a DS will wear and plenty of things with cars a DD will wear. And so on.

what really annoyed me was that after the 20 week scan, people ONLY asked whether we found out. I am of the understanding that the 20 week scan is for anomolies / possible medical problems, yet nobody even asked "is everything ok?" or "is the baby nice and healthy?" it was all gender.

ebay is fine for small items like clothes, but I don't like doing big items on ebay, so things like travel cot and stroller and booster seat (high chair type) etc are from nearly news and round here its often baby pink or baby blue and that's your lot!

(I wouldn't choose either buying new, nice bright reds, blues, greens, yellows etc are much nicer for children IMO)

that's kinda one of the benefits of finding out at 20 weeks Gnocci, I found scans so dreadful, I was in tears on the way my 12 week scan because if you think about what it's for....
but at the 20 week scan you can distract from that a bit, it's not all to look for horrible, terrible, nasty things, you can focus on something more trivial if you're finding out the sex

Ah well there you go then I've never bought a travel cot or stroller or booster seat . Although I did generally think the default colour for prams and things like that was a horrible kind of gunmetal grey!

nah it's oozed into everything round here! it's all pink or blue O Baby strollers!
the grey ones are usually the good ones that people try to sell for almost what they bought them for so I can't afford them LOL (like maclarens)

To prove my mother wrong (she won)

i have never bought a travel cot etc in pink or blue ie for the gender of my child, one i bought from toys r us as it was on offer and a good deal, it was green i think? and then one i was given by a friend i think it was blue and yellow and you know what even if it had been pink i would still ahve put a boy in it, like they give a shit what colour cot they sleep in?!! mine have all co-slept anyway!

my pushchairs have all been red or orange, so unisex i like the bright colours and dp thought the orange pushchair was better for crossing roads in the wintertime as it was bright and stood out more, i just liked the colour.

booster seat for table, ours is primary coloured, it was cheap from argos.

highchair, tripp trapp in plain wood and one primary coloured (green) foldable highchair.

basically all my baby equipment has been unisex and all my babies wore the same unisex babygrows etc from birth and then bought other stuff as they got older, they wore a lot of unisex stuff and lovely bright colours and patterns, dd has lots of lovely soft cord dresses and leggings etc but she also wears the boys old dungarees and is in bed having her nap wearing blue and green striped pjs with a monster on, i bought them FOR her, they were cheap in the boots sale and yes there were 'boys' but they looked cute and i liked them, ditto the blue and orange ones with robots on from gap again in the 'boys' section, but i still bought them for dd.

of all the reasons of finding out the sex, the thought of doing it so i could decorate the nursery pink or blue or buy colour appropriate pushchairs, cots etc, is one i understand the least, i would just never do that. i get what is practical and what i like, a baby doesnt give a dam what colour its pushchair or cot etc is and why should a boy not use pink or vice versa?