is it possible to tell the sex of your baby at the dating scan?

[mabel1973]

I had my dating scan on thursday, I am 11 weeks and 2 days pregnant.
We are absolutely convinced that we have been able to tell that the baby is a boy ( I already have 2 boys....and have convinced myself that I can't make girls!)
DH was looking all through the scan and reckoned he could tell it was a boy, It didn't occur to me to look at that, but when she printed off the picture we were sure we could see something that looked remarkably like a willy!
I have tried doing some research about whether the genitals are fully formed at this stage, but it is a bit vague and just sayd they are formed by the end of 12 weeks.
Anyone has any experience of this....and been right?!
By the way....I am not bothered one way or another really, but intrigued really!

bump

I'm pretty sure you can't, what you saw was probably the umbilical cord. Given how hard it is to spot at 20 weeks I would say it'd be nigh on impossible to spot at 12!

The problem is that at 12 weeks the penis and clitoris look identical. The only way to tell is that the penis is more likely to sit up like a cherry on a cupcake, while the clitoris is aligned with the spine more, so pointing off to the side. And it really is just a cherry - if you saw a penis that early, it's likely the cord I think.

I discovered this at our nuchal fold scan at the Fetal Medicine Centre; they said we were 70% likely to have a boy, but at that stage it's imprecise, even for a doctor.

This site is great: www.baby2see.com/gender/external_genitals.html

As Qally says, genitals look almost identical at that stage, you'd really have to know what you were looking for, so it's still 50/50, sorry!

Did you get a print of the fingers? You can tell more from that! Is the ring finger the same length as the forefinger? If so, probably boy.

it is possible if u really know what to look for and baby is in the right position. But at this stage they are both very similar and even experts find it hard so dont say or try to guess in case they get it wrong. Even at 20wks mistakes can be made. Only 100% way of telling is through CVS or amnio because they can tell through the DNA, although I have heard of a girl who had the boy chromosomes but developed as a girl due to a lack of testosterone.

my consultant told us at 12 weeks that we were definately having a boy

I argued that I thought it was a girl but he said he was 100% right and he was

So I guess if you know what you are talking about it is possible

thanks for the website - it's great!
and I can clearly see that boys and girls do look exatly the same at this stage, so what I thought was a willy could just as well be girly bits!
I guess i'll just have to wait and see like everyone else!

I just read in my handy dandy commercialized booklet that the doctor gave on my pregnancy (I got the feeling that she wasn?t interested and really had quite the spiel) that determining the sex is at 18-20 weeks.

You can tell (Qally's link is the best) but at 11 weeks it is pretty reliable - far more reliable from 12 onwards (look at the studies on the link). My baby was a boy at 12w and was more clearly one at the next scan! But mistakes are made at all stages.
I think a boy is easier to tell from the tubercle angle even if you're looking early.