When I was pregnant with Clara, Tim and I decided that we didn’t want to find out her gender until she was born. I wrote about the reasoning behind our initial decision here.
Well, now we’re well into our second pregnancy, and we’ve once again decided that we don’t want to know the sex of our baby until (s)he arrives.
The decision was actually a no-brainer.
Here’s our reasoning for NOT finding out the sex of our baby until (s)he is born:
+ That magical moment. Clara’s birth was really traumatic for all three of us, but I will never, ever forget Tim announcing that “we have a little Clara Jane!” I actually tear up just thinking about it. I’m sure the moment would have been super-emotional no matter what, but finding out the gender, name, and seeing our baby for the first time… I mean, it was awesome and I cannot wait to do it again. (Except for the whole labor and delivery part, I would be okay to gloss over that whole ordeal.)
+ We enjoy keeping everyone guessing. I absolutely love keeping our families in suspense. I’m sure they would say they aren’t as excited about it, but I think it’s great! We did a poll at BabyHunch.com that allowed our family and friends to guess Clara’s gender, weight, date of birth, height, etc. and it was so fun to look through the predictions, especially after she was born! We’re definitely going to do the poll for Baby Beni, too.
+ We don’t need any baby gear. We received all gender neutral baby items for Clara, so we’re set for Baby Beni, no matter what gender (s)he is. A perk of not finding out Clara’s gender was that we received everything on our registry, since our family and friends stuck to the list instead of buying us cute, gender specific clothes instead of the more practical items we actually needed. Although I will say, I was more than happy to accept the girly clothes we received after she was born!
+ It doesn’t matter to us. Whether Baby Beni is a boy or a girl, we wouldn’t do anything differently to prepare. We aren’t even thinking about a nursery until after the birth, we aren’t going to shop for any newborn items, we have names picked out for either gender… you get the idea. A lot of parents-to-be or parents tell me they needed to know the gender because they’re such ‘planners’. Let me tell you, I’m a planner, too, but I really don’t see what that has to do with anything. I guess if a family really wants to stock up on all gender-specific things it can be helpful to know the sex ahead of time, but I’m not sure how much gender-specific planning needs to go into having a baby.
+ I don’t believe that knowing the sex of a baby will actually tell me anything about him/her. Will (s)he play hockey or be a runner or maybe a soccer player? Will (s)he love Clara or will they drive each other nuts growing up? Will (s)he be born healthy? Will (s)he take after Tim or me? Who will (s)he look like? Will (s)he love reading or will (s)he be too restless? Will (s)he get married and have kids someday? Will (s)he be a fussy baby or will (s)he be as cool as a cucumber? What will his/her interests be? We might be able to find out what anatomy Baby Beni will have at birth, but what would that actually tell us about him/her?
+ We don’t know what the future has in store, so we’re focusing on the present. I discussed this in my first blog post on this topic, but basically we have no idea what it’s going to look like to have two kids. I could never have predicted the joy and stress that Clara would bring into my life, and I’m sure Baby Beni will bring the same sort of chaos! All that we know for sure is that we definitely have no idea what we’ve gotten ourselves into. We’ve accepted our utter cluelessness, so we don’t spend our time attempting to envision or talk about our life as a family of four. Instead, we’re treasuring the time we have with Clara and are spoiling her with lots of attention while we can. I’m also enjoying a lot of ‘me’ time at night and during naptimes, since I know that it’s going to all but disappear in a few months. Not knowing the gender of our baby doesn’t make it harder for us to envision or plan for the future, because we simply aren’t trying to do that.
That about sums it up.
This list isn’t meant to convince anyone to not find out the sex of their baby via ultrasound or blood test. I totally understand why parents and people want as much info as possible about everything in life, including a family member. I mean, we did the first trimester genetic screening to potentially find out more information about Baby Beni, so I understand that sometimes it just feels better to know certain things, and I’m not about to try to convince anyone otherwise! However, this is a topic people constantly ask me about, so I thought I would share our reasoning behind our decision, in case you’re curious! In a nutshell, for our family, we love the idea of waiting until our baby is born to start getting to know him/her.
Right now I’m really enjoying focusing on this pregnancy and the miracle of creating life inside of me instead of thinking about the baby that will grace us with his/her present in a few short months.
(Also, I’m 100% certain Baby Beni is a boy at this point.)
