Did you find out the sex of your baby?

[Ghosty]

Morning! Or should I say 'evening'!!
Just wondering .... I am having my scan on Monday ... will be nearly 20 weeks (can you believe it??) ... and DH and I just can't decide whether we want to know the sex of our baby ...
What I want to know is ... did all you mumsnetters find out and if so why did you decide to find out?
And those who didn't, why didn't you?
And ... is there anyone who didn't with their first and did with their second? And did it make a difference in how well you bonded with your baby??
I know ... lots of questions ... but I am interested .... feel really torn about whether to find out this time ...
Cheers ... your friendly cyberspace Ghost

I don't think anyone is saying knowing the sex actually detracts from the exhiliaration when the baby is born. But for me not knowing just heightened the whole thing and made it even more exciting. If that makes me seem ridiculous so be it.

I'm guessing those of you who wanted to know in advance are the same ones who poke and peek at your presents under the tree well in advance of Christmas morning

Webmum, I agree with you totally. Jasper, I'm not at all the sort of person who wants to know Christmas presents in advance, but I do want to know all there is to know about my baby - as someone else has said, a baby is not like a Christmas present. I'm a little surprised at the comments relating to disappointment at being told sex of other people's babies in advance, e.g. when s/he's born, "it's just a baby". Is the baby healthy? Who does s/he look like? What colour hair? There is much more to know about a new life than the sex. It seems to be much more important to people who don't find out than to those who do.

Azure you don't seriously think I was suggesting a baby is LIKE a Christmas present?
I'm not sure how you can conclude that is seems to be more important to those who don't find out than to those who do.
One of the reasons I did not want to know the sex was that it did not matter to me in the slightest. And as Ghosty who started this thread has concluded, she has decided not to find out the sex because in the scheme of things it is pretty irrelevant really.
Elliot and others said something similar.

I loved Bobthebaby's story of not even looking to check the sex of the baby for the first ten minutes following the waterbirth. That just sounds lovely and cosy, particularly as I had planned a waterbirth for number three and got to the hospital to find the hot water system had packed in .

Jasper - I agree with you. For me, waiting until the actual birth to find out what sex the baby is is part of the wonderment and joy of the whole process.

But it is personal to everyone, so I can totally understand why some people might prefer to know.

I think at the Glasgow hospitals they do not normally let people know the sex, (maybe because of the large Asian community, who might have issues with girls) so I wouldn't have been able to find out anyway.

Jasper

You are right - I do poke and prod at my christmas presents. In fact some of them don't make it to Christmas day before they are opened!!

Jasper, it's not so much I prod my presents, more that I prefer to choose them myself! Seriously, I don't like suprises, have enough stuff cluttering up my house, very rarely find that presents are 'exactly what I wanted' and would much rather my dh spent his hard earned and none too plentiful cash something I really wanted. What we usually do is go and choose things together or tell each other what we want. I find the whole Xmas gift analogy a bit funny though, as there is no comparison. My baby would have been just as wanted, boy or girl (after all, it's not that much of a surprise with only two options, surely ) and I too didn't bother to check the sex of my child at birth as I knew it already, so was already thinking about other things such as getting to know him as a person, seeing his beautiful face, feeling his skin, his hair, and giving him his first cuddle.
If you like surprises I can see why you would opt not to know. I don't think there's any moral high ground here.

Aloha I would be quite happy to do without presents altogether forever due to the clutter - unless they are edible/drinkable.
The Christmas gift thing was actually said to me by a friend who wanted to know the sex of her baby (incidentally I only have one friend in real life who did want to know as far as I am aware) and I took it to mean nothing more than she could not wait for any longer than neccessary to find out something she was really excited about, which was her reason for finding out the sex.

oh allright then, maybe an emerald and diamond eternity ring.

Well, yes, a few surprise diamonds wouldn't go amiss for me either... There's an exception to every rule, eh ?