With my first child, I went out of my way to avoid finding out the sex of the baby, which was difficult in a country where everybody found out. I thought it would be the most amazing experience to find out at birth, but actually, after a prolonged, terrible labour and EMCS, I didn't care. I was just happy to have survived and felt so strangely out of it and numb. It was such an anticlimax.
With baby number 2, I found out at 16 weeks and it was such a happy day. I remember going for tea and cake afterwards with DH and texting my family and friends and it was such a sweet, lucid moment. It was also a lovely lift around the halfway mark of the pregnancy and was so lovely. Good job I did it, as I had another very difficult delivery and right after the baby was born, I remember saying 'I don't feel well' while they put an oxygen mask on. I ended up quite poorly and am so glad that nice moment wasn't robbed from me either.
Baby number 3, there way never any question that I would find out. My friends, family and colleagues were all so excited gor me to find out and I loved texting them. It was so lovely to narrow down the names and have a better understanding of who this baby was. Because, really, if a sonographer could have told me the baby's eye colour, personality, hair type, if she had dimples or would look like me or my husband or be good at maths, I would have wanted to know all of that too. I wanted to know whatever they had to tell me because I was desperate to find out as much as I could, just because I was so insanely interested! Anod of course, right after birth number 3, baby was struggling to breathe and was whisked off the the NICU and I didn't see them until the next day.
So for me, each birth was arduous in its own way, and none of them had a moment afterwards where I could say 'ahh, finally, my baby!'. Either I was out of it or the baby's health was in danger in the first few moments after birth and I am so glad that I had that little moment for myself of getting to know more about my child while ai could enjoy it.
If I ever got pregnant again and somebody said they would organise a sex reveal and it would just be finding out by seeing if a cake was pink or blue, with my close friends there, would I say no? No, I would probably do it for a laugh! With my last pregnancy everyone was so excited to know and I imagine they would find it fun too, as a light hearted way to lighten the mood when things can be tough. If there was he slightest risk that I could possibly be disappointed then I wouldn't have one as I would need to deal with those feeling privately.