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Original poster

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

806 replies

pearlsandpetals · 08/07/2021 14:53

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!

OP posts:
Bigassbeebuzzbuzz · 08/07/2021 18:50

For me personally when other people told me what they were having I lost some of the excitement for them, I didnt want that for myself. So chose not to find out.
If I had another I wouldnt find out again either.

Although I dont understand people who say they need to know to sex to be prepared? What is there you could buy for a baby that wouldnt be useful for either sex?

Terrazzo · 08/07/2021 18:54

@Bigassbeebuzzbuzz

For me personally when other people told me what they were having I lost some of the excitement for them, I didnt want that for myself. So chose not to find out. If I had another I wouldnt find out again either.

Although I dont understand people who say they need to know to sex to be prepared? What is there you could buy for a baby that wouldnt be useful for either sex?

Choosing names was a big one. Too much choice 😄

Preparing older siblings.

Visualising how your family will look, can be a really big help for some people.

You do you!

LittleBlackCat22 · 08/07/2021 18:56

Although I dont understand people who say they need to know to sex to be prepared? What is there you could buy for a baby that wouldnt be useful for either sex?

Because all the neutral clothes ive seen are ugly.
Because I wanted to know if I needed to keep all my girls old stuff or buy new.
So I knew if I needed to try harder on finding a boys name as we really struggled and I’d we were having a girl we didn’t need to bother.
And despite people saying there is no difference in parenting boys and girls, there is. The way that babies are treated right from day one by society is very different depending on what their sex is and me and my husband want to be prepared to counteract that.

elliejjtiny · 08/07/2021 18:58

We wanted to experience knowing and a surprise so we found out ds1 was a boy and we didn't with ds2.

With ds3 we wanted to make him seem more "real" for our older dc so we found out at the 20 week scan. By this point we were getting comments about whether we would be "trying for a girl" or "hoping for a football team" etc. Ds4 had a medical condition diagnosed at the 20 week scan so we found out because we wanted him to have a name and an identity before he was born rather than "baby with x syndrome". With ds5 we found out because we knew he was likely to be early. I'm really glad we did. When ds5 was rushed out of theatre to nicu to be ventilated he had a name and I already knew he was a boy. I wasn't in any fit state to take in any new information for about 4 days and couldn't have made an important decision like naming a baby for a couple of weeks. I wouldn't have wanted him to be nameless for that long or for our entire extended family to know the sex before me.

owlbethere · 08/07/2021 18:58

Mostly because I wasn’t bothered about knowing, I don’t think it affected my bonding with babies in any way.
Secondary reason, I had a couple of friends be incorrectly told the baby’s sex.

LadyMonicaBaddingham · 08/07/2021 19:03

Because an ex-colleague's daughter was told she was having a boy. They bought all the blue clothes with daddy's boy, mummy's boy, best boy, chose a name, decorated the nursery, beautiful handmade nameplate, etc.

She had a girl.

I would never have trusted the scan, plus, to paraphrase a pp, it's one of the only guaranteed nice surprises in life!

MagnoliaBeige · 08/07/2021 19:03

I found out the sex in some pregnancies but not others, the surprise was equally as lovely whether it happened at a scan or in the delivery room.

JaninaDuszejko · 08/07/2021 19:05

The sex prediction from a scan is not 100%. I'd rather know I didn't know than think I did know.

I have a friend who was told twice she was having a girl. She has two sons. Luckily she was not the type to go all blue for a boy or all pink for a girl.

Thewinterofdiscontent · 08/07/2021 19:06

But it's meaningless when they're born, too. If it's just information to you, then why actively wait?

I wasn’t even asked that I could remember, although I think it was too early to be reliable. Only had the one scan.
So I waited because I wasn’t bothered about knowing.
If the Op asks and they can’t really see what happens then?

romdowa · 08/07/2021 19:14

@Changechangychange

Those of you who didn’t know - did you close your eyes during the scans? Because it was extremely obvious that DS had a penis and scrotum. Particularly on later scans. I didn’t need telling by the sonographer, I could see it for myself.
Yes the sonographer told us when she was going to scan that area and told us when to look away and when we could look back again. Weirdly she is probably the only person in the world who could know what sex our baby is
Livpool · 08/07/2021 19:15

I didn't find out - I wanted the surprise. It was nice not knowing

usernameXYZ · 08/07/2021 19:17

2 reasons
1 you aren't bothered if it's a bot or girl aslong as their healthy

2- it's truly the only supprise in life that you'll get...

TattyDevine · 08/07/2021 19:19

Each to their own but I chose to find out.

People who criticise you for doing this (and they do, loudly, to your face, because you are fair game and public property when pregnant apparently) say you spoil the surprise.

It's still a lovely surprise (as much as a 50/50 odds can be) when you find out before the baby comes out. It is not somehow lessened by the fact you are not lying there waiting to deliver a placenta or being stitched up or being rushed in theatre to fix a massive haemorrhage or whatever.

With my first I would have been the last to know as I had a crash section under GA and didn't properly gain consciousness for a few days so I'm glad I had that nice, yes, SURPRISE before the unpleasant experience of getting the dude out of me.

All is well, he's 14 now and an absolute teddy bear and the 2nd spawn was a girl who is getting a little bit salty with the hormones but she had a much nicer more peaceful birth at least 👍🏻

Overthinker19 · 08/07/2021 19:20

“I also think it’s good not to have pre-conceived motions of what the baby will be like built up before they arrive.”

^100% agree. I also worried about having such thoughts and then experiencing a loss

cookiecreampie · 08/07/2021 19:21

I think the opposite, most people do want to find out. I think there's understandable reasons for both, some like a surprise and others like to prepare themselves for what they're going to have. All babies have the same need regardless of sex, but sometimes it's nice to just know and you can form the mental picture. I've always been too impatient when it came to my own pregnancies and wanted to know as soon as possible, not because I preferred any sex over the other but just because I had the urge to know. Most of the people who didn't find out the sex did it because they wanted the surprise.

Snowpaw · 08/07/2021 19:21

We had to have IVF to conceive and the whole process felt so medical, invasive and controlled that I wanted to have at least some of the “natural” / laid back experience of having a child - a part of the process that didn’t involve medics and science. I wanted to experience the ultimate surprise, like women did in the olden day’s! It was such a lot of stress just to get pregnant and honestly all I cared about was having a healthy baby, and I wanted to have the reveal to look forward to after the ordeal of birth. I had a c section as it went, and I will never ever forget the huge jolt of electric joy that went through me when they told me as I was lying on the table that it was a girl. And the look on my partners face. Such a special moment.

onlyhereforthecake · 08/07/2021 19:23

I never understand the "it spoils the surprise" when applied to anyone else than the parents.

First, parents knowing doesn't mean they have to share the details anyway

but even if they do tell? So what? It's not your baby, who cares if you are not as "surprised" because you didn't found out in a text after the birth? Nothing to do with you Confused

aSofaNearYou · 08/07/2021 19:24

@vdbfamily

I just never wanted to know. I wanted it to be a surprise completely. It always seemed odd to me when people not only know what they were having but had named the baby too way before it's born.
I find it odd when people don't have a name picked out. Like, you have nine months to prepare, what's the logic in waiting until the last second?
Sleepyquest · 08/07/2021 19:25

I wanted a surprise and it was the best surprise ever Smile I don't understand why people are so keen to plan everything and buy everything in pink or blue!?

DeRigueurMortis · 08/07/2021 19:26

I wanted to know simply because it reduced the angst of choosing a name by 50% - especially as DH and I had massively different potential name choices.

I was into more traditional/old fashioned names and he liked "cool" 😂 names.

I won out and DS has a very old school name 😀 because I declared if I'm carrying this child and pushing it out of my fanny I get a a bigger share of the vote. My only concession was he could veto any name he hated. He since agreed DS's name is much better than any of his choices.

NoIDontWatchLoveIsland · 08/07/2021 19:30

The surprise on the day is great.

I wouldn't buy heavily gendered clothing for a newborn anyway and my ability to bond with both kids had nothing to do with their genitals.

onlyhereforthecake · 08/07/2021 19:30

What I really don't understand if people who haven't picked a name days after the baby is born!

Wanting to see the child to know if he's a "George or a Louis", why not...
But "the baby" and being unable to name them is weird. It makes it sound like a real person somehow. And yes, you had around 8 months to pick a couple of names...

nildesparandum · 08/07/2021 19:30

Back in the good old days before scans were invented it was impossible to find out your unborn baby's sex, we looked forward to the surprise.
I was one of those we bought clothes in neutral colours and chose two sets of names.
I do not think it helps you bond better.I know of cases when the unborn baby was not the desired sex and people have moaned for the rest of the pregnancy that they were having another girl or boy.I have even heard some people saying they would not continue with the pregnancy if the baby was not the sex they desired.
The original purpose of the pre birth scan was to detect any abnormalities so they could be treated as soon as possible.The sex of the baby was not always told to the prospective parents.I do know that sometimes knowing the sex before birth was important in certain inherited conditions like haemophilia which is only suffered from by boys.This enables a test to be done immediately after birth to enable to discover if the child does have the condition.
I can remember overhearing a conversation on a bus when a pregnant girl was going for her first scan.Her relatives were informing all the other passengers that she was going to see what she is getting.I felt like saying that she was getting a baby.

DaisyWaldron · 08/07/2021 19:31

I didn't want to find out for pretty much the same reasons that you did. I didn't want my DC to be born into expectations of what they would be like just because if whether they had a penis or a vulva. My in-laws in particular tend to make of assumptions about what a girl or boy grandchild would be like, and I wanted my children to be able to avoid as much of that as possible. DC1 was a girl, DC2 was a boy who I dressed in every single piece of babywear which had been given to his big sister, including the "pink to make the boys wink" top.

NakedAttraction · 08/07/2021 19:32

All babies have the same need regardless of sex, but sometimes it's nice to just know and you can form the mental picture.

But it’s building a mental picture based on one fact alone, the sex of the baby.

It would be really interesting to understand whether children born to parents who found out the sex conform to more of the typical gender stereotypes.