Not finding out the sex of the baby

[WolfMother326]

Hi all,

My DH and I are considering not finding out the sex of the baby, we kind of want it to be a surprise. Has anyone else done this? Was it tricky with scans to not see anything you shouldn't? How did friends and family react? Did it make planning baby clothes etc really difficult? We're thinking we'll just go for neutral nursery colours and clothes, like yellows and greens.

Thanks!

I didn't find out with DD. I can honestly say finding out just after her birth was one of the greatest moments of my life.

I didn't have a problem with scans. Most sonographers asked at the start if I wanted to know what the sex was, and would tell me to avert my eyes should anything revealing be on screen/when they were checking the relevant bits. The only one who didn't almost gave the game away. I was referring to baby as "he" (as that's what I thought at the time) during the scan. During the scan, the sonographer realised the opposite and gently asked if I had found out the sex. Fortunately, I didn't click on until months post partum (hooray for baby brain!). For any future pregnancies I will make a point of saying I don't want to know if the sonographer doesn't ask first.

Baby might have their own idea as well. The sonographer put the probe on my sister and instantly got a full potty shot view. Fortunately they wanted to find out, but it was fairly obvious.

Friends and family respected my choice. A few couldn't understand why I didn't want to find out. I just explained that while I did want to know (who wouldn't?!), I just wanted to find out at the birth. Some did go on to say that there was no way they could wait, but that was them. Everybody had loads of fun guessing what I was having throughout my entire pregnancy either way.

Baby clothes was super easy. Just got loads of neutral stuff. There's plenty of it in the shops. As with a PP, I do love a newborn in white. Even if it doesn't stay white for long! Nursery was already painted neutral colours, so we didn't have to change anything.

We did this. It wasn't an issue at all and I ended up with pre eclampsia and was in hospital for a while beforehand on bed rest and tons of extra scans and never an issue at all. It makes it a bit more fun I think .

I am currently doing this right now! I am 38+2 weeks pregnant and have no idea about the sex of the baby.

Everyone around me thinks I am crazy for not knowing but it is soooooo exciting.

This is my second child. I wanted to do the same with my DS, first child, but the doctor slipped up at one of the visits. I wasn't too upset because my DH was hoping for a boy, so seeing him happy balanced it out.

I will say this, you will have a closet full of white, grays, and beige, so be prepared!

But if I were to have a 3rd, I will not find out until the end. It is a genuine surprise you can give yourself :)

We didn’t find out, and it made the birth so lovely. There was an added element of excitement and anticipation, and my husband got to tell me we had a son. I also loved that there weren’t any gendered expectations of the baby before they were born, and we weren’t inundated with overly gendered clothes.

The scan wasn’t an issue. At 20 weeks our sonographer told us when to look away, but I don’t think I could have worked it out anyway.

People were generally excited for us and enjoyed the speculation (even though it’s a 50/50 chance...). My mum would have preferred to know because she’s one for gendered clothes, but she certainly didn’t make a fuss about it. I like that all the baby clothes we bought will do for a second baby regardless of sex. We went for a real mix of colours - red, blue, white, green, purple etc. Our nursery is mostly white with pastel rainbow elements and it’s lovely.

Didn't find out with either. It made no difference to anything we bought. Painted nursery a nice duck egg blue which didn't seem particularly boyish to me. Clothes in all kinds of colours and patterns.

We didn't want to find out sex of first baby unfortunately Sonographer started doing leg measurements and didn't tell us to look away. It was very clearly a DS! She then also said 'he' several times.
Current baby, we will be finding out otherwise I'll drive myself crazy looking into the skull and nub theories again!

We’ve never found out the sex and are expecting our 3rd. It has never been an issue at scans and I’ve had extra scans for various reasons in each pregnancy. Sometimes the sonographer asked did I know the sex other times it wasn’t even mentioned, as I was being referred for growth etc the sex wasn’t something I thought about. I have to say I have never googled what a boy/girl looks like on a scan though so that I had no idea what I was looking for.

As for not finding out, my parents and in laws were very happy we didn’t, but they come from the generation you still couldn’t find out the sex, so it’s basically what they did. No one else cared either way!

As for planning clothes etc, we bought white newborn stuff but not that many items really, people buy tonnes of stuff in the stereotypical colours anyway, so we didn’t need to go out and buy piles of pink/blue. Any big equipment was bought in neutral colours anyway so that it could be used with the next child, we had a girl and then a boy so good job we did.

We didn’t decorate a nursery until our first was about 8 months old, we didn’t need the nursery as they slept in our room. You can always paint in a neutral colour whites/greys and then accessorise in your boy/girl colours once the baby is here.