To be upset with professionals for revealing baby’s sex

[LittleDog92]

I have managed to get to 33 weeks without finding out the sex of my baby. My partner and I were really looking forward to it being a surprise, and we had hoped that he could announce the sex when they are born.

However, I had a routine scan yesterday and the sonographer seemed to slip up and say it was a boy. I had said at the beginning of the scan that I didn’t want to find out (especially seeing as my partner hasn’t been to a single scan, so wouldn’t want to find out without him there). She was a really lovely sonographer, but part way through she seemed to accidentally slip up and used ‘he’. I think she realised, as her sentence trailed off and she sort of mumbled sorry. Neither of us acknowledged what she had just said.

After the scan I told my partner that I thought I knew the sex, but wouldn’t tell him unless he wanted me to. As of today, he still hasn’t decided whether he wants to know. I completely understand that he might want it to be a surprise, and we have joked that we will likely not make it to the baby being born without him finding out!

Fast forward to just now. I had a call from a consultant (I’m having extra scans and consultant-led care because of raised BP). The call lasted all of two minutes, him asking me nothing about my blood pressure or physical health, but he did say ‘and you’re having a little boy?’, to which I replied ‘I don’t know, I’m not finding out’. He didn’t respond to this and just moved on.

I am so happy that I am due a healthy baby, and I know that this is not a big deal, but I feel gutted that two people have told me the sex of my baby against my wishes. I would never dream of making a formal complaint, but would it be unreasonable to mention what happened? At the moment I think I’m still reeling from finding out, and just feel like opting out of consultant-led care. My baby has been fine the whole way along, and I just feel angry that these extra interventions have contributed to me finding out the sex without my wanting to!

Sorry for the rant!

They are professionals and only care about the health of the baby and you. Atleast you husband will have a suprise though.

In my experience they always use he during the scan as the default. But it was weird the consultant made that comment about having a little boy on the phone. YANBU to be annoyed about that, I would be too. But it’s silly to say you want to opt out of consultant led care when you’re obviously under a consultant for a reason.

@Aspergallus

Knowing the sex/not knowing the sex are icing on the cake issues.

The NHS doesn’t do icing on the cake. It does basic, necessary health care delivered by underpaid, overworked individuals who are (rightly) more concerned with looking for abnormalities in your baby’s entire body, abnormalities in your uterus and it’s blood supply, the placenta and your cervix to ensure you have the healthiest pregnancy and birth outcome possible.

The pregnancy industry gives people false expectations...this is where you should direct your annoyance, not at the professionals doing their jobs. You were never actually entitled to this sex “surprise” no matter what you felt led to believe.

Would you really want professionals involved in your care diverting their energy trying to keep up with “does this one know, want to know? Have I mentioned it? Argh!”

The idea of being entitled to various experiences in pregnancy comes from outside of healthcare and is just that, an idea. People come for the 20 week anomoly scan (timed to look at the vital organs and their development, a time when many people receive terrible life changing news) calling it a gender scan. They arrive with a plan for a “birth experience” rather than recognising that it’s the most dangerous time in their child’s life and focussing on that instead...like planning for a wedding rather than a marriage (though lots of people do that too).

Think about where your expectations were raised before you express your annoyance. I’d put good money on you never having had any promises made (or broken) by the HCPs involved in this.

This is a perfect summation for me. I particularly agree with your comparison to wedding/marriage.

The fetishisation of pregnancy and birth just supports yet another money making opportunity for ‘entrepreneurs’ to monetise every aspect of a normal life.

You would be entitled to be ‘reeling’ OP if you’d suffered the devastating experience of Strewlish to whom I offer most sincere condolences. I hope you are recovering from that life changing experience. 🙏

Scweltish

I do apologise for misspelling your user name in my last post. 💐

My goodness. Get a grip!!!! And bring your Son up NOT to be a snowflake.

What’s with all the suggestions that the OP is disappointed she’s having a boy? She hasn’t suggested that anywhere.

As it happens, I was initially disappointed that DD was a girl (and this was after she was born) as I wanted boys but it didn’t last long and I don’t love her any less in any way than I love her brothers. But I’d still have been upset if I was told at the scan as I’d told them I didn’t want to know.

YANBU OP. I'd be gutted at that.

I understand you’d be disappointed to not get your wishes but to be ‘reeling’ feels over dramatic to me, as a parent of a baby with disabilities. There is much worse news you could have been told in that scan than accidentally hearing the sex of your baby.

Op I haven’t read the entire thread I’m afraid (too tired).
With my first FT pregnancy I didn’t want to know the sex of the baby. My DH was furious after the scan because he decided that the sonographer had said “she” during the 20 week scan - she hadn’t. She said “she/he”.
Ironically, that same sonographer had asked if we’d chosen names. We said we hadn’t got a boy’s name but if we had a girl we’d call her Grace. The sonographer’s name was Grace too. I “comforted” my DH by saying maybe she just responded to what we’d said about the same name.
Just before the end of the pregnancy a doctor I’d never seen before did my regular 38 week check and said the baby seemed small. She was in a transverse position. I’d been chatting about whether that meant I’d need a c-section because my DS’s first DD was also a transverse lie.she said “do do you know you are having a girl”. Now, that was solely because she wasn’t listening. I called her on it and she said “I thought you said you were having a girl”...
My daughter died in utero less than 2 days before her due date. I nearly died too. We called her Grace.

And, my second 20 week scan with my second daughter (ironically we asked to know the sex, just to make it different as much as we could from the past experience) we couldn’t find the sex out because she was physically disabled.
We had numerous scans throughout that pregnancy. Every time we asked if they could tell us the sex. The leading experts in foetal scanning couldn’t tell us.
Because of the disability factor I wanted a boy (I had the idea that disabled teen girls would really suffer).
It was a girl (she’s very much alive and amazing, though severely disabled).
I suppose what I’m trying to say is... try to get perspective.
And congrats on having a perfectly healthy baby!

I didn't want to know the gender of my baby. The sonographer said 'he' so I asked her about it. She said she hadn't looked at the gender. She always used 'he' unless she knew otherwise. My baby turned out to be a girl.

@Starksforthewin OP has also suffered a loss in the past. You should at least read all of the OP’s posts before commenting. Even if your huge insensitivity was accidental, it still has the potential to be hugely upsetting to the OP.

Lavacake

No idea why you chose to attack my post amongst the vast majority of posters who agree with me that the OP is not entitled to be ‘reeling’ about an accidental gender reveal, if that is indeed what happened.

Having previously suffered a loss, along with numerous other women on this thread, does not make any difference to the basic premise of the thread, which is about the sex of the baby, not about it’s health.

I’ve read every post, not just the OPs, so you’ve made another fundamental error there.

Now, go and take your boring sanctimonious attitude somewhere else, and pick on another poster, as inaccurately as you attempted to correct me. What an embarrassing fail for you. 🙄

I am sympathetic really but the sentence 'first world problems' really springs to mind. Currently TTC and would love to have this 'problem'. Write to the consultant if you think it helps but sounds like a genuine slip up.

People hear what they want to. I’ll say “there’s it’s legs” and they say “you said ‘his’ legs” or “there’s a leg” and they say “you said her leg”. We can’t win!

This happened to me too. It was a bit annoying but at the end of the day a healthy baby was all that mattered and I was still surprised to meet my baby.

OP, apparently it’s standard language to refer to the baby as ‘he’ in order to differentiate between ‘she’ the mother. Just for ease of language between the HCP.

@Aspergallus has written the most eloquent post here.

YABVU and really stupid to consider opting out of consultant led care... All because someone MIGHT or might not have told you what genitals your baby has.
As for a PP saying you need time to "mourn the loss of your surprise..." Wow. Just wow. It actually made me laugh as to how silly it is!

Give your head a wobble OP and find something else to get annoyed about. This really isn't worth it.

Thanks for not doing a gender reveal party... hate them.

Oh nooooo!!!! That's awful OP

How unprofessional?

[quote MoreCookiesPlease]@Aspergallus has written the most eloquent post here.

YABVU and really stupid to consider opting out of consultant led care... All because someone MIGHT or might not have told you what genitals your baby has.
As for a PP saying you need time to "mourn the loss of your surprise..." Wow. Just wow. It actually made me laugh as to how silly it is!

Give your head a wobble OP and find something else to get annoyed about. This really isn't worth it.[/quote]
Totally agree.

Give yourself a bit of time to mourn the loss of your surprise when you wanted it.

There's nothing to mourn! Mourning is something you do when your baby has died, not when you've possibly discovered the sex of your baby a few weeks earlier than you'd expected!

@Starksforthewin I picked on your post specifically because you said ‘You would be entitled to be ‘reeling’ OP if you’d suffered the devastating experience of Strewlish’. If you had indeed read the OP’s post about how she suffered a pregnancy loss, why would you ever make a comment like that?

You can talk to me about sanctimony and embarrassing fails when your not lecturing a woman who has experienced pregnancy loss about pregnancy loss.

@Aspergallus

Knowing the sex/not knowing the sex are icing on the cake issues.

The NHS doesn’t do icing on the cake. It does basic, necessary health care delivered by underpaid, overworked individuals who are (rightly) more concerned with looking for abnormalities in your baby’s entire body, abnormalities in your uterus and it’s blood supply, the placenta and your cervix to ensure you have the healthiest pregnancy and birth outcome possible.

The pregnancy industry gives people false expectations...this is where you should direct your annoyance, not at the professionals doing their jobs. You were never actually entitled to this sex “surprise” no matter what you felt led to believe.

Would you really want professionals involved in your care diverting their energy trying to keep up with “does this one know, want to know? Have I mentioned it? Argh!”

The idea of being entitled to various experiences in pregnancy comes from outside of healthcare and is just that, an idea. People come for the 20 week anomoly scan (timed to look at the vital organs and their development, a time when many people receive terrible life changing news) calling it a gender scan. They arrive with a plan for a “birth experience” rather than recognising that it’s the most dangerous time in their child’s life and focussing on that instead...like planning for a wedding rather than a marriage (though lots of people do that too).

Think about where your expectations were raised before you express your annoyance. I’d put good money on you never having had any promises made (or broken) by the HCPs involved in this.

This x100. There was a survey in which it emerged that 60% of patients at one hospital thought the purpose of the 20-week scan was to discover the baby's sex, not to check for anomalies! It needs to be emphasised that it's a medical procedure.

You're slowed to through yourself your own private pity party over anything (I had a hot chocolate this morning but it wasn't frothy enough ) but just keep that annoyance to yourself and partner

I had a MW once looking at my cervix, I told her I didn't want to know the sex. She announced later in the scan "I can tell the sex" I was a bit why she had even checked tbh. Esp as baby was a girl and to sex a girl properly you have to look really hard.

I didn't want to know the gender of my baby. The sonographer said 'he' so I asked her about it. She said she hadn't looked at the gender. She always used 'he' unless she knew otherwise. My baby turned out to be a girl.

This was the case for two of my friends; too. I think he is just default, rightly or wrongly. “It” sounds quite wrong when referring to a baby.