Boy/ girl - why do people care so much?

[pinkwaffles]

We've decided not to find out the sex of our baby until s/he is born. It's our first and probably only.

I appreciate I'm probably in the minority but I have been fascinated by people's reactions to this.

'How will you be able to buy anything?' being a big one.

'You won't be able to have a gender reveal!' being another.

Honestly - I don't believe in gender reveals or pink for girls/ blue for boys anyway - but even if I did - there are other colours!

I don't think my newborn is really going to care whether they are dressed in 'gender appropriate' clothes, and I'm certainly not fussed, in fact I'd rather they weren't.

It's just winding me up partly because my mum is desperate to know and is pressuring us to change our minds.

What do you think? To me it's kind of the least important thing - as long as I have a healthy baby, I'm genuinely happy and I cannot relate to the 'which would you prefer?' question. How can you have a preference before they are even here and you can't possibly know who they are going to be?

@mistyfields everyone should be grateful for having a child yes. Not everyone is that lucky. Unless you can afford to have ivf where you chose the gender there is going to be a 50:50 chance of either sex so it’s important to be aware of that. I don’t know what’s so “damaging” about saying people should be grateful for what they have.

you have turned my whole statement about having a missed miscarriage into an implication that I am insulting people who are fertile , and you have been so flippant and insulting too making statements like “ those of us who are fertile”

as I’ve said several times I have experienced both conceiving easily and infertility.

on your point about adoption it’s mostly girls up for adoption in a lot of countries.. because there is a preference for boys. Which is very sad also. Children should not have a value placed on them because of what is between their legs.

I’m not saying that at all. I’m pointing out that children aren’t like picky eaters, where if you have hardly any food you’re grateful for whatever you can get. Feelings around conception, birth, sex of the child, are more complex than that. People often find themselves confronted with feelings they didn’t expect. Just as an example, many women who long for girls experienced the loss of their own mother in childhood or adolescence: it doesn’t take a genius to work out why.

I don’t think anybody should be made to feel what they are feeling is wrong or shameful in some way, regardless of what someone may have suffered. It is both cruel and wrong.

We didn’t find out with either. I liked not knowing! All their first size things were neutral colours which I loved then they had various colours for bigger sizes. Both are boys, very happy with that. I definitely thought the second was a girl as I carried very differently but as soon as he arrived I though ‘ah, there we go then, boy mama!’ Some people do experience gender disappointment really badly. Not sure how you move past that.

@mistyfields so you think it’s ok for a grown adult to make a statement like “I didn’t want to risk having 2 boys but I was lucky and had 2 girls” Implying that their child is superior to other children because of their genitals. Sorry I find it disgusting and wrong and that person absolutely should be ashamed of themselves.

I also think you must be extremely sensitive over something mto have implied I think I love my child more than other people because I described my experience of a missed miscarriage . I have never heard anything so ridiculous. You should take a step back and listen to yourself , you sound absolutely ridiculous.

The two reasons I've opted not to find out are fear of being told the wrong sex (I don't have a gender preference now, but if I was told I was having one sex and chose a name, imagined the future with my son/daughter and that changed at birth that would be a bit upsetting - rare but happened to two people I know) and second because I don't like gendered expectations of babies and young children and just want to opt out of that conversation for as long as possible. I don't think that's me placing huge importance on it and I haven't gone out of my way not to find out either. The sonographer asked if I wanted to know the sex, and I said I didn't. The sex of my baby is really not something I think about very often - and it's either going to be a boy or girl anyway. As I said upthread, I get uncomfortable when people comment positively on my decision on to find out. I don't think it's virtuous or place any moral value on my decision. It wasn't something which was deliberated over for hours by me. I just made the decision which felt right for me at the time.

No, I don’t as it happens, but I don’t think it’s acceptable to say whether you have problems conceiving or not. I wouldn’t say it and I had no problems conceiving my children.

@mistyfields why the big long spiel about people should be allowed express themselves then ? This totally contradicts what you just said.

Sorry that you feel so precious about your life that you think people with ivf conceived children think they love their children more than you do. It simply isn’t true I’m glad to tell you. Although I suspect you are a troll.

@Darkdiamond We didn't find out because we literally didn't care about the sex, we wanted a surprise. We looked forward to meeting our baby so much and having that extra little sparkle at the end. We'd lost two babies already, literally a healthy, living baby was all we dreamed of. We had an NIPT done and had them password protect the sex result in case we had another miscarriage, so we even had that little bit of extra info, and we chose not to look. It drove both our mothers mad because they wanted to buy pink and blue crap, and we loved not knowing and having it drive other people mad. It was a perk of the decision.

We didn't get that dream, we got extreme premature labour at 19 weeks and being told our perfectly healthy baby had to die for no reason they could explain. We got a baby we would never bring home, and do you know what? That surprise was the only thing we could hold onto that would have been the same had our baby's birth been full term. The surprise was the only dream we got. We had a little boy and he was the most beautiful little person we'd ever seen. He was our little surprise.

I'm pregnant again now, and we'll be having another surprise. We will never find out the sex of any pregnancy. Some people really are just capable of neutral feelings. A live, healthy baby. That's all we want.

Because people should be allowed to express themselves. It’s how they do that which is key. But you do just sound combative now.

So sorry you had to go through that @KittyFantastica .

@mistyfields the way you quoted my experience of a missed miscarriage as though it’s completely irrelevant to the conversation and meant nothing really insulted me and upset me. And your points since then have been really warped too.

Agree. I never found out with either of mine - there aren't many surprises in life and after arduous labours it was a lovely moment to hear 'it's a girl/boy!' Both DC managed extremely well in neutral coloured baby gros 😅

I didn't mind in the slightest what sex they were, I just wanted to know something about them.
Its a long time to live, growing someone and thinking about them and wondering what they will be like and I just felt like I wanted to know something.
Like I could sit and wonder if they would have my eyes or their dad's laugh and if they would be energetic or funny or anything but it was just nice to get to know the only thing I could while I was waiting to get to know everything else. I was excited and curious, thats all.

I don't care if I have a boy or girl, and I won't be doing gendered decor or clothes (maybe the odd bit)

My reason for wanting to find out is that pregnancy is such a long slog, any new information that can arise from the situation, any additional mile stones you can add to the process to celebrate, the better for me. It might be meaningless really, but im very inpatient, and to me having things like the private early gender scan, a baby shower all that jazz, just give additional milestones to look forward to to make the wait more enjoyable. It isn't for everyone.

I found out because I liked knowing, not because I cared whether it was a boy or girl. I never considered it certain anyway, as there is the possibility they were wrong. I still checked at birth to confirm.

I'll be honest though, I did want at least one girl in there somewhere.

We didn't find out with baby 1, and we found out but told nobody with baby 2! To be honest I found no difference. I felt equally as excited and prepared with both! I didn't feel like I knew baby 2 any more than baby 1 before they were born.

Incorrect. I haven’t implied my children are superior at all, especially not simply because of their genitals.

I am lucky because I only wanted girls, not boys. So I consider myself lucky that I got what I wanted. That doesn’t make them better than anyone else.

And no, I’m not ashamed.

I have done it both ways - didn't want to find out for my first.
Did want to find out for my second, as I had no names I loved of DC1's gender, and was relieved DC2 was the opposite, so I could have my favourite name for each of them.

I've found out with both of my pregnancies and not because I want a gender reveal (couldn't think of anything worse) or because I want garish pink or blue clothes (I don't!).

I found out because I think it helps me and my DH bond with the baby. When I'm pregnant I feel all the kicks, sickness etc. but for DH he only really 'feels' it when he sees a scan or feels a kick later on.

You know nothing about them other than they are (hopefully!) growing well. Finding out their sex is just a little bit of info that can help form a picture of who they might be, what they might be called etc. it helps me to picture them in their little clothes when I'm sorting their wardrobes and finding any excuse to sit in their room.

I only know one person who didn't find out, and she was desperate to know for the whole pregnancy but held on to wanting this big reveal when the baby was born. She said in the end, she didn't give a shit was the sex was, the moment totally passed her by, she was too in awe of her little baby and knackered from labour!

I think it’s unusual to only want one sex and absolutely not the other. Please don’t carry that preference on to grandchildren though as your daughters may only have boys. I keep on seeing threads here along the lines of ‘my mum is really disappointed I’m having a boy and it’s ruining my pregnancy’ and I feel so sorry for the posters.

I found out because pregnancy is such a slog and it was nice to have a nice bit of information at the halfway point. Also I had a difficult birth with my first and having a "surprise" would have literally been the last thing on my mind as I was pretty out of it. Also I had quite a few extra scans in both pregnancies which just felt like it would be let slip anyway!

I think it's great to not find out if that's what you want. I certainly find other people's birth announcements a little more exciting when there is a surprise. Some people are a bit smug about not finding out though, you don't actually get any medals for waiting another 20 weeks or so! It's totally a personal preference and surely a non issue.

Really not fussed about grandchildren. I’m not raising them. I just didn’t want to raise boys.

I totally see where you’re coming from. I had 2 boys and would have been delighted with a third. She’s a girl though and equally delighted, but also a bit pissed off for DS2 that people look at us and think we only had a third because he was a boy 😅

I do however think it’s just small talk for the most part - not when people close to you are banging on about it and saying ‘but you can’t have a gender reveal’ etc. But I asked a pal just the other day if they know/will find out what they’re having (a girl!) because after the ‘how are you feeling?’ etc what else is there to say really?

We didn’t find out with DS1 (sonographer messed up anyway though!) and did with the other 2 because it was nice to prep their siblings and envisage what was about to come.

Same - DS1’s birth was so shit that his sex was the last thing on my mind! Also it’s a surprise whenever you find out. Also is it ever that much of a surprise?? There are 2 options 😂

Absolutely! I have 4 girls and didn’t find out the gender of any of them - it is the loveliest surprise ever! I’ve also had lots and lots of comments about whether I would have a fifth to ‘try for a boy’ and even had someone say ‘never mind’ to me when my fourth daughter was born! I absolutely did not and do not care what sex they are.