Sonographer said 'he' when we didn't want to know...

[Fuzzyduck21]

Had 20wk scan yesterday and she referred to the baby as he on two or three occasions. I thought it may have been because I was referring to it as a he but then other times she referred to it as baby! We found out what we were having with ds and wanted this to be a surprise but now I feel she slightly gave the game away and I'm a bit disappointed that I think I know (Not disappointed with the prospect of another ds). I asked at the end if she knew as I thought she may not know and may just refers to babies as he but she said she did know which made me feel even more sure she'd just let it slip! I guess it'll still be a bit of a surprise as we don't know for sure but I can't help feeling a bit deflated... on the plus side it'll push us to look more into boys names of which we have none! Has this happened to any one else? She said she had been doing it 25 years which makes me even more surprised!

Sheila2018 I don't recall saying I was upset.

Thank you everyone I guess it will be a surprise after all x

Will definitely still be a surprise - my local hospital also has a policy of not calling baby "it" and uses random pronouns regardless of whether they actually match the baby!

Our sonographers referred to DD as 'he' and 'baby' before they could have a look properly at her 20 week scan as she was squirming, it took about 40 minutes! They knew we wanted to know but said that would be at the end as I was included in some studies so they wanted to get all the other measurements exactly right. Brcaof the 'he' comment I spent about half an hour thinking we were having a boy, which was what I had a feeling the baby would be, and was totally wrong! So it could have just been like that with your situation OP. Sorry that you've had the wind taken out of your sails a bit by it though.

Fuzzyduck21 sorry I just think you're making a fuss about nothing...

Making a fuss would probably be lodging a complaint with my midwife! I'm not overly bothered as i am grateful it is healthy I was just a bit deflated to have thought I'd known the sex when we said we didn't want to but like these lovely people have said it's likely to have meant nothing. Sorry if I have peed anyone off but it's a reminder to me why I should never bother posting on here as someone always seems to get the wrong end of the stick!

Would definitely agree that a lot of sonographers just pick a pronoun and stick to it when you don't want to know, so I wouldn't take it as a given x

This will make you laugh - when we had DD, we asked to be told at the end of the 20 week scan when we knew everything looked ok. Had to go for a way halfway through as the little pest simply would not move. And DP said, "I think it's a girl!!!"

"Why?" I asked.

"Because it says Rebecca Slicker, Female" at the top of the screen!"

I did question my choice of baby daddy for a moment there 😂😂😂

• a walk

I thought the default was he in case of problems if they say she it automatically refers to the mother.

I've had the same situation op and 'he' was a 'her'.

'She' even 😏

At our 20 week scan the sonographer said ‘her’ once...when we got to end and she asked if we wanted to know she looked and said it was def a boy. So maybe, like others have said, it was just habit and doesn’t necessarily mean it’s def a boy.

ive heard from other sonographers that they refer to the baby as he sometimes, but that's just because it's better than 'it' - mine said not to assume it meant it was a boy

With my dd the sonographer told us prior to the scan that she refers to all babies as “he” regardless of the sex.

With my ds however the sonographer did accidentally tell us his sex but this was because she misheard us saying we didn’t want to know

In your case I’m sure she just refers to all babies as a “he” by default.