To wonder why many people don't want to know their baby's gender during pregnancy

[pearlsandpetals]

Hi all, this is definitely not a hateful post just a curious one that's all!
I'm currently 16 weeks pregnant and going to find out the gender soon. For me, knowing the gender means we can not only prepare better for the baby's arrival but also I think will make me have a closer bond with my baby before they are here, by being able to refer to them as my son or daughter and trying to picture what they will be like. I just wanted to know what reasons people have for not finding out the gender as I'm really interested!

Because I find the obsession with an unborn child's genitals disturbing

So many women who simply couldn’t have ‘bonded’ without ultrasound technology. Fuck me, what a load of old shite

I can't stand the sexist dismissal of women struggling with their pregnancy or post-pregnancy personally.

As stupid as saying that "women managed to give birth without modern technology and pain killers" until very recently

How are boy newborn babies different to girls?

A newborn baby girl has never pissed directly in my face

The main one is to give me a reason to keep pushing if I get absolutely exhausted.

If you get absolutely exhausted then nothing will help you push. But if you thought you could be motivated to keep pushing, isn’t the idea of meeting your baby whatever sex it is, motivation enough? Or would you be tempted to think “ah well, I already know what is, I’ll just dial back on the pushing”

@Wearywithteens I agree, how do they think their mothers coped without 'gender' scans?

Have to say it puzzles me when people announce the sex and name, get it monogrammed onto clothes and wallpaper etc when they are still mid-pregnancy. What if they change their mind! Or the scan is wrong!

DS was gonna be a William all through pregnancy, and when he was born I don't know what it was but we were both very "he is NOT a William"

I’m old enough not to have had the option of knowing. Midwives referred to DTs as ‘he’ all along but we ended up with a girl and boy. I wouldn't want to know in advance.

@DifficultPifcultLemonDifficult

Again, I’m sorry that your experience wasn’t ok. Neither was mine as it happens and even more so, neither was my child’s.

I'm sorry about your experience too.

Its really unfair to chastise people for wishing for a healthy child though. I definitely understand why people say it.

This - my experience of “not healthy” ended in a dead baby. I don’t think many people hope for a dead child, or that I was unreasonable in hoping for a live one in subsequent pregnancies.

Throughout history we have never needed to know. The whole pregnancy felt very natural and earthy (and I am not normally that kind of person at all). It was nice to feel a connection with evolution.

Also husband refused to find out 😂

Is that not the excitement of the birth though @Jellyred? Are you saying the excitement wouldn’t have lasted a couple of hours if the sex was already known?

My first was told it was a girl, out bubba came with a penis next 3 I didn't trust in being told correctly so we left as a suprise

I thought it would be weird that anyone dealing with my medical file (doctors, midwives, the lab technician) would know something significant about my baby months before I did.

The surprise was still a surprise just a lot earlier.

I also knew that while I would be grateful for any healthy baby I really really wanted a girl so I wanted time to get used to the idea if it wasn't a girl before the baby arrived.

(She is a girl)

@Rhystior

The main one is to give me a reason to keep pushing if I get absolutely exhausted.

If you get absolutely exhausted then nothing will help you push. But if you thought you could be motivated to keep pushing, isn’t the idea of meeting your baby whatever sex it is, motivation enough? Or would you be tempted to think “ah well, I already know what is, I’ll just dial back on the pushing”

Yes, the fucking excruciating pain and knowing delivery will stop the pain is the only motivation you need

I bonded perfectly well with my son despite not knowing whether he had a penis or a vagina! Ultimately they're your child, you don't love them differently if they're a boy or a girl!

Because it makes no difference.

Also to the people who need to prepare themselves if they weren’t having the sex they wanted. Honestly don’t think your are mature enough to be a parent if that bothers you. It’s frankly ridiculous and no one can convince me otherwise.

Family friend had a scan and thought it was a boy. After months of buying blue clothes, diggers and trucks later, turns out it was a girl.

In previous generations there used to be a reluctance to knowing when so often pregnancy did not have a happy ending.
There was also a superstition about not having the pram in the house before the birth. Which we followed, for our first.

{Apologies if this has been posted}

Wanted a suprise!

I cannot understand people wanting to know the gender and since I had my children it has become a thing.
A big part of the excitement is the not knowing and surprise. As for it helping prepare for a baby, at the end of the day a newborn needs very little.

I didn’t find out with any of mine because it didn’t actually matter.

All the clothes I bought for DS1 were brightly coloured or neutral (red, orange, multi coloured zoo animals, black and white zebra/cow print, brown teddy bear fleece with ears etc ), and all 3 of them wore them.

Their rooms were decorated similarly in bright colours - zoo animals, koi fish in red/white/orange/black on pale blue, or black and white patterns with red accents, so totally suited to either sex.

Funnily enough as soon as DD was born (and we were inundated with pale pink stuff!) everyone said how happy we must be to have a girl after two boys. I’d have been perfectly happy with 3 boys tbh. They’re all unique and different, none of them conforming to the norms - gender or otherwise - in any way! Obviously during her nursery days DD loved dressing up in the princess dresses (as did a couple of the boys in her group) and she would choose the pink version of anything where there was an option, but I’m not daft enough to think I can hold back the pink tide with a single hand. It’s everywhere.

I honestly can’t understand why anyone would experience “gender disappointment”, as what sex a baby is has so little to do with anything these days. I can imagine that back in the days of Downton when it meant you wouldn’t inherit your family’s estate then it might be an issue, but really what bloody difference does it make?! My most cuddly and loving child is a boy. The one who takes the longest to get ready and is particular about their hair is a boy. The one with the most aggression - actually that’s a toss up between DD and DS1! I don’t really know much about the so called differences between boys and girls because it’s just not my experience of them. And they all still wear hand me down clothes with the same band-t shirts and jeans working their way down the family.

The only difference in the lives that lay ahead of them is that one of them may have to factor in having babies and the impact that has on her career path, so she has been taught from a young age about the importance of bearing that in mind, but thats the last thing I’d have thought about when I was pregnant.

Otherwise I can’t see what a sex/gender scan could have told me about them - other than using the word son or daughter when I talked about them, instead of Tiny or Baby.

Given that none of them even had a name until a week after they were born, as I wanted to wait and see what they felt like, it wouldn’t have even helped me there!

That’s quite dismissive @cinammonbuns. You have no idea what the reasons are for people wanting one sex over the other. It’s not always because you envisage “girly shopping trips and spa days”. That want can come from a place of difficult emotions

I think you imagining what it will be liked is setting yourself up for disappointment. Babies are all different and children are never as you imagine. I have a boy and a girl and there really isn't any difference in the first year apart from how you choose to dress them. Then they develop their own passions post one, but they can only like what they are exposed to.

I didn't find out the sex before they were born. I felt that DC1 was a boy and he was. I also felt DC2 was a boy and turned out to be a girl.

It’s a lovely surprise.

We didn't want to know and my absolute favourite memory after giving birth was the midwife filling in the paperwork and saying 'oh, what have you had?!' When I'd been cuddling them for about 15 minutes already, looking under the blanket and finding out he was a boy!

@Rhystior

Is that not the excitement of the birth though *@Jellyred*? Are you saying the excitement wouldn’t have lasted a couple of hours if the sex was already known?

Not at all, of course the excitement lasted weeks.

But we did get the additional, ‘ohhhh is it a boy or a girl then?’

We are a bit odd though, - billy didn’t have a name for 2 weeks or so we made no concrete prior decisions as with my history I didn’t fully expect to bring a live baby home.

Personally I can’t understand the desperation to find out. I didn’t bond with my babies any less than I would have had I known their sex. I knew I was having a baby, so bonded regardless.

When people find out the sex, they often have a name already. So they have their baby and it’s all a bit meh! IMO anyway.