to be annoyed that sonographer slipped up?

[JingleJelly]

Had a scan at 17 weeks due to some bleeding. They could see where it was coming from and told me it's nothing to worry about but to take it easy. Sonographer said that as I'm there they'd have a look at the baby to make sure all is okay. He was lovely and had a look at everything as I was very anxious and have had numerous miscarriages so wanted to reassure me. He said he was going to look at the genitals to make sure all normal and to look away. I did as we want a surprise. After this, he stopped referring to baby as 'baby' and started using 'he'. The assistant in the room glared at him and gave him a very 'what are you doing!' type look, and he reverted back to saying 'baby'.

I'm not going to lie, I'm annoyed. It's not the end if the world and I'm so pleased baby is ok, but still saddened that I'm fairly sure it's a boy. I haven't told DP and am not going to, as I would like at least one of us to have the surprise we wanted.

AIBU to feel miffed by this? Anyone had the same thing? First baby and a bit disappointed that's all...

I would make a complaint/ comment to the hospital. There are some cultures where one sec is preferred over the other leading the sex selection and even murder of the mother in extreme cases. He has to know the potential implications of his actions.

surely it’s something that is drilled into them to not refer by sex

Seriously? You think that's what a sonographers training should focus on

Some people have very skewed priorities. The sonographer is tasked with examining the feotus for serious abnormalities, their priority is the viability of the pregnancy and the health of the mother and unborn baby. Tip-toeing around parents desire to be "surprised" about the sex will be the least of their worries!

My daughter and her DH had agreed not find out the sex of the baby and told the stenographer. After a few minutes he asked my daughters DH if he was sure that he didn’t want to know. Her DH then said go on then and the stenographer mouthed the sex to him. My daughter was furious with both of them and spent the rest of the pregnancy wondering how many other people her DH would have told as he is absolutely useless with secrets.

Please don’t stress about it. YANBU at all and I would be miffed but also as someone who got to 19 weeks and started bleeding, to eventually have a scan to tell me my baby had died, it’s a small problem in the grand scheme of things.

Congratulations on your little baby, whether it’s a boy or a girl...doctors can sometimes be wrong anyway.

I hope all goes well for you over the next few months

I wouldn’t have took this necessarily as being 100% a boy & I would probably still have a little doubt. That’s just me. My sonographer often defaulted to “he”.
But I could see whilst you were upset but if someone hadn’t explicitly told me I would still let myself believe they’d be a surprise

I was told at 20 weeks on my 2nd, the sonographer said you know your having a boy don't you? I didn't and wasn't impressed she didn't check first but hey bigger things to worry about. I would have found out at the next scan anyway as apparently it couldn't be missed 😂

I thought I was having a boy as mine slipped up and said he. Turns out it was simply a slip up and I had a girl. Before I had a girl I only had 1 boy so was used to saying boy. I presume it was the same for them.

Similar thing happened to my mother when she was pregnant with my younger brother .Well actually it wasn’t similar at all as sonogrpaher asked her what she had at home ,she replied girl and he said oh you’ll be pleased then .
She had told him she didn’t wish to know the sex .yanbu but it was prob a genuine mistake .

I agree with all the previous posters who say it was not a slip-up just the preferred pronouns of the sonographer. They use his/her she/him because so many people would object to it being referred to as it. I was so used to using it to refer to my unborn child that I even carried on after the birth 😂

In my experience lots of medical professionals always use "he" to describe a baby as it eliminates the potential for confusion with the mother, who is always "she".

This happened to me at a private anomaly scan. But fear not! He was a lovely Daughter! We were told afterwards that the sonographer always used the word he or baby

Our sonographer slipped up the DAY BEFORE DD was born!
We had 3 DSs already and assumed number 4 was also a boy. I had to have a scan for OC the day before my induction to check placenta function and at the end f the scan the sonographer said 'Oh, she kicked me!'
Neither of us said anything to each other as we weren't 100% sure it wasn't a generic 'she' , but it took the shine off when she was born a bit.

Why are you focusing on such a trivial matter? Be happy that your baby is healthy. You’re one of the lucky ones!

Happened to me with second baby, they didn't actually do sex screening, so I didn't even bother to ask. Definitely changed to He halfway through the scan. Was a boy. I wasn't invested in having either sex though, or a surprise, so wasn't bothered.

I can imagine it would be pretty irritating if you wanted the whole it's a boy/girl deal at the birth.

Then again I was just very surprised that it was an actual human baby with my first, nevermind the genitals

Good luck.

A similar thing happened to us at our 20 week scan. The sonographer asked us if we wanted to know the sex, we said no. Then after she'd done all the measurements and checks she said "it's very clearly a boy" before immediately recognising her mistake. She even gave us a complaints procedure for the hospital for if we wanted to complain. Sure, it was a shame we found out as both DP and I were keen to have a surprise on the big day, but we were so happy that the scan showed a healthy baby it really didn't seem that big a deal in the grand scheme of things. We still kept it to ourselves though and pretended we didn't know to family and friends! The important thing is I now have a very happy and healthy 11month old DS currently settling to sleep for the night

When I had my 20 week scan the sonographer started calling the baby 'he"

'He' has never been a 'he'

Sorry if this has already been said but sonographers are often trained to refer to baby as he to differentiate from referring to mum

My sonographer said “you’re not being very cooperative are you young man?” during my scan. I had a girl...

I had 4 scans all saying girl, out popped a boy! Trust me even if it was a slip up they don't actually "know" especially at 17 weeks

We had a surprise and looking back sonographers let it slip numerous times. I was so stressed after 8 miscarriages I didn’t pick up on it. I’m sorry this happened I would have been gutted if I had picked up on it.

I had a similar thing with my first child, although not until about 36 weeks. I had been advised to have an amnio as I was a geriatric mother, so they already knew the sex of the baby and at an ante-natal appointment, the midwife asked me “have you got a name for him” and then quickly added “or her”. I really wanted a surprise, so I was quite disappointed to find out before. Baby was indeed a boy.

I'm sure you're filled with disappointment at what happened, not because of the baby's sex but because you didn't want to know before the birth. It's completely understandable and no matter what anyone says it won't change how you feel. We were only talking about this subject today - I didn't want to know either - for the first few months I wanted a boy, then all of a sudden I wanted a girl - eventually I realised I had no control over the sex and let mother nature take her course. I thought about all the mums who had lost their babies and realised that nothing is for certain until you have that baby in your arms. I felt lucky that i'd become pregnant and carried the baby successfully, giving birth was absolutely awful but that's part of the deal. I did the spinning/swinging needle on my hand at about 5 months, old wives tale maybe, never told a soul, it was right.

Hormones play up and little things become big things (thanks to the sonographer) but wait til you have your baby in your arms, it is the most wonderful experience in the world xxx

I may have a different take on this. We didn’t find out what sex our baby was when we were pregnant as we wanted that “It’s a boy/girl” surprise. Then I had a very traumatic birth and was in quite a lot of shock afterwards. I didn’t care what sex our baby was and didn’t get to enjoy the surprise at all. I really wish I had found out before x

If its any help, my friend has 3 children - each time she was told it was a boy. She has 3 stunning girls. My sil was also told she was having a girl - out popped a much wanted boy x

I would have felt the same, we wanted to know ourselves but grandparents didn't, so we didn't tell anyone apart from each other of course. But we got pretty annoyed because when we were leaving the scanning room on our 16 week scan a neighbour of the grandparents had overheard a nurse saying "I bet you can't wait to meet him" and realised we were having a boy, and despite asking that they didn't tell anyone because it was meant to be a secret. Said neighbour announced live on Facebook and told the grandparents, then proceeded to say "oops you didn't want to know did you". I was livid so totally understand where you are coming from