Should I find out the sex of this baby

[momtoS]

Just a quick vote...

[nova22]

My vote: flip a coin. Heads - find out. Tails - don't find out. If you're disappointed by the results you get, do the opposite. That's how I make all the really tough decisions.

[plenilunio]

i did not find out for DS (baby #1, now 4yo) but i did find out with #2 (due 01/08/2010) so i could prepare DS.. that was the only reason i found out. but now i am having so much fun buying baby girl clothes!

[laughymama]

We found out with DS. We did not find out with this one. It's made the wait ten times better for us. We won't ever find out ahead of time again.

That's totally personal preference though. I like the surprise.

SO I vote wait.

[IdentityCrisisMama]

I did have a mid-pregnancy ultrasound (suspected placenta previa) with DC#1 but didn't find out the gender. What a waste, in retrospect! Of course you can't ever know what it would be like to experience the opposite thing for your first pregnancy but I thought birth and a real.live.baby was way, way exciting enough and the gender got lost in the shuffle. If I have an ultrasound this time I'm finding out for sure - heck, it may even be my main motivation for having one.

[MaerynPearl]

Why?

Why would you want to?
Why wouldn't you?

Leave it up to surprise...
special moment after birth finding out gender (Pro... but honestly I dont think its necessary, birth is extremely special to begin with!)
not having to deal with gender stereotypes until after birth (pro... though some people will still be telling you they hope its a... or they bet you/hubby hope its a...)
people will bug you about what the gender is and be shocked when you don't know... then ask what your guess is, give you their guess, give you various old wives tales and swear they work 100% of the time though none do (uh... this is either a pro, if you like attention... or a con, if this sort of thing would get annoying)
people will not know what to buy you and unless you REALLY like brown/green/yellow you are probably going to get very sick of those colors (pro if you like brown/green/yellow or dont want people buying you gender specific things... con if you are on the other side of that coin)
possible gender disappointment/shock? (con, but only if you have your heart set on one or the other... or are convinced its one or the other...)
No risk of being told an incorrect gender (pro... at least, not by anything with any degree of accuracy over 50%)

Find out-
being able to get everything ready ahead of time if you care about having anything that is not gender-neutral (pro... if you care about having anything that is not gender neutral)
only really having to come up with one baby name (pro... unless theres two! LOL )
being able to start calling baby by their name before they are born (pro? maybe?)
Chance of it being wrong and having a whole lot of baby stuff for the wrong gender and/or no name (con... granted the chance of being wrong is fairly small... it does happen sometimes)
no surprise at birth (con? but honestly, birth is pretty darn special without that surprise, you still have the surprise of what baby looks like... hair color... whos eyes they have... etc.)

I personally wanted a surprise this time, DH did not (its his first) so we found out and have agreed next time will be a surprise!

[MegBoz]

Find out!
Everyone talks about wanting to be surprised... um... it's still a surprise when you find out at 19W gestation! As a PP said, the birth is exciting enough, so it's not as though it's, ya know, a let down or something because you already know the sex!

DH & I are too lazy to put time into picking 2 names & I certainly wouldn't want to pick the name post-birth! (Seems really silly to me to wait days to name a baby, but I wouldn't want the stress of picking something within a day or 2).

I also have a DS now, so if this turns out to be a DD, I'll want to have some girly clothes. Not a deluge of pink, mind you, but a few pink/purple/flowered items would be nice.

So, lots of reasons to find out, not enough reasons not to, for us.

[MaerynPearl]

Also... despite already knowing... we STILL check at birth and get excited that the ultrasound is right.

Even after 3 ultrasounds (including a 4d) confirmed this little ones a girl... I will still be checking as soon as she is born!

[Katie T]

Not pg but saw in new posts. I found out with my first 2 and with #3 Ihad them put the gender on a card in a sealed envelope. It was easy to wait (I never did peak!) and made the birth that much more exciting IMO. We brought the envelope to the hospital and let my SIL open it after her birth. If we ever had another that is what we would do again!

[BeanyMama]

My vote is for find out It's exciting and surprising to meet your baby even when you know the sex. But then I'm awful with surprises. They're torturous for me. Also I need help with name narrowing. But I know lots of people who love waiting, there must be something to it!

[WifeofAnt]

Before we found out I was torturing myself trying to come up with the perfect girl's name. Good thing we're having a boy! I still have a back-up name just in case though.

I think there are so many surprises still ahead of me that knowing our baby is a boy isn't going to ruin anything. I want to know if he's a redhead (it runs in both families). I want to know if he's going to be a bald little baby. I want to see whose toes he has... I love my monkey toes, lol. The biggest question though is what his face looks like. Just trying to imagine a being half me and half DH is so overwhelming that I can't wait to see him for myself.

[nadia105]

I like knowing better myself. I found out with my first 2 and had #3 be a surprise, but it didn't have that SURPRISE! feeling to it that I thought it would, even though I thought he was a girl! I'm finding out this time b/c waiting didn't turn out to be more of a surprise than finding out did.

[pollyanna123]

We're going for the surprise at birth this time.

Personally, I think the pros outweigh the cons of finding out early. I definitely enjoyed knowing my first was a girl. People were VERY generous at showers, and I enjoyed setting up her nursery and having all her cute girlie clothes washed and ready to go. I even had the letters that spelled her name on the wall and my BF IRL and I had a great time putting those together. I never regretted knowing ahead of time that she was a girl.

The second time, we decided to find out, but I didn't feel as strongly about it. I didn't have a gender preference at all, but there was still the preparation factor. I decided to find out ahead of time, and again, people were very generous with the gifts so we were all prepared with boy-specific clothes, etc.

This time, we're not finding out because there's no reason to other than curiosity (which is legitimate, of course, but not compelling enough for us). I have everything we could could possibly need for either gender, and we have NO gender preference. We haven't set up a nursery since our first because we haven't had the space and we never used it anyway.

So for us, it boiled down to the preparation factor. If that's a big deal to you (which it is to me), then I'd find out. If you don't really care, I'd wait.

[Aliy]

I'm one for the waiting side. one of the few surprises of birth and it prevents any extra unnesscary u/s. ( i don't know if you clinc the does the reg medical ones tells gender they usually don't where i am)

I always have my baby showers after the baby, casue then there is a baby hug see and i like it that way. So i prevent all the nuetral stuff for the most part.

there wasa tiny part of me that maybe wanted to find out this time but we decided to not

[zinemama]

No. Don't do it. This is the only time in this child's entire life when you (and everyone you know) gets the opportunity to think/dream/envision/pray for/fall in love with him or her without doing so through the restricting lense of gender with all its expectations and assumptions. For this one and only period of time, your baby is simply a baby.

Imo, there are no practical considerations to the decision at all. Babies don't care what color you dress them in or what's on the walls.

[CherryBomb]

We found out with 3 of our 4. I prefer to know.

There was nothing special about finding out at dd2's birth, but probably the fact that she was dying and had to be rushed to the NICU where she spent two weeks overshadowed finding out her sex.

[happythistle]

don't find out! We loved the 1st delivery surprise and are on surprise #2. :-)

[Smokering]

Do you craft? DD was a surprise, but I'm kind of leaning towards finding out next time... simply because I sew and knit now. Most of the baby clothing styles I favour are not gender-neutral, and I don't want to "waste" half the clothes I make (well, fewer if it's a girl, maybe), so... we'll see.

It was pretty cool finding out DD's sex at birth, though.

[pollyanna123]

Originally Posted by zinemama

:
Imo, there are no practical considerations to the decision at all. Babies don't care what color you dress them in or what's on the walls.

I seriously doubt anyone would argue that the baby has a preference... but some parents do and that's okay!

[donutmolly]

Wait!

We have with all 3 and will for #4 too! (Although, since we have all girls, I think we'll both fall over from shock if it's a boy!) I didn't feel the need to prepare for either gender, and I prefer to avoid the U/S if possible. Yes, of course it's still a great surprise whether you find out at 20 weeks or at birth, but still there is something special about sharing that moment when your baby is in your arms.

My favorite quote from DH at DD2's birth when baby is just out and cuddled in my arms, Dh to MW: "Is it a boy or a girl?" MW: "I don't know, why don't you look?!"