
31 weeks! Single-digit weeks, people! Hold me.
I've always thought not finding out the baby's gender before he/she was born sounded so fun. That's what my parents did for all four of us, and I have had a handful of friends who have done it over the last couple of years.
When I was pregnant with R in 2015, gender reveal parties were only really starting to be a "thing." Now it seems like everyone does them! I personally don't have any desire to host one myself, but I love attending them.
For both R and J, Jordan and I found out together in the ultrasound room during our anatomy scan. We kept it a secret just the two of us for a few days until we could see our families in person to share the news. I loved finding out during the ultrasound! After we told our families (through a balloon pop for R and a colored streamer pop for J, both so fun), we texted/called other family and our close friends.
We have friends who have done it where the nurse writes the gender down on a paper, and then they go out to eat later and open it together. Other people give the envelope to a close friend and have them plan the gender reveal for the couple to find out for themselves in front of everyone at a party. Some people do the early blood test, and I've had friends go to one of those third-party ultrasound places and find out before the official anatomy scan.
There's truly excitement about finding out the gender of your baby whenever and however it happens. Everyone has their own preference, and there's absolutely no right or wrong. I don't regret finding out about R and J the way we did it, but I told Jordan that if we were able to have a third baby, I wanted to wait until delivery. I think it was a lot easier to make that decision since we do have one boy and one girl, and Jordan was totally on board. (Not that he really had a choice since I'm the one growing and pushing out this baby LOL ;) But I did want us to be on the same page about it.
Even though I always thought it sounded fun to wait, I also thought it sounded really hard to wait so long! Who is in there? What's his/her name? Nine months is a long time!
But guys, I'm telling you, this is the most fun ever! I love it!
For one thing, it's so nice to not have people constantly asking me what the baby's name is going to be. We chose not to share the name with anyone other than immediate family for R and J, and maybe I'm just overly grouchy about it, but I found it so annoying that people acted so weird about us not sharing. Don't get me wrong, a lot of people were fine with it, but a lot of people also acted semi-offended we would dare to keep such a secret from them. Even strangers! Good grief. But since we don't know the gender, whenever someone asks what I'm having, I say "We are waiting to find out," and then people get so surprised that they don't even bother to ask if we have names chosen yet. It's the best!
It also seems like in general people ask me way fewer questions. I think they just get surprised I don't know and don't think to ask anything else. Like, I still do know my due date and how far along I am, but I rarely get asked about it!
It also seems like in general people ask me way fewer questions. I think they just get surprised I don't know and don't think to ask anything else. Like, I still do know my due date and how far along I am, but I rarely get asked about it!
I am loving the extra anticipation. Obviously you're excited and anxious and anticipating the birth of a baby either way, so I'm not saying it's necessarily more exciting this way, but it's just an added layer of fun. And since I'm emotional about all the things these days + mildly panicking about giving birth again (I cannot for the life of me decide if I want to get an epidural or not; that's another post for another time; also yes, I'm nuts. don't @ me. I know epidurals are the wonder of all modern medicine. I HAVE MY REASONS), it's nice to have the excitement and unknown of whether this baby is a boy or a girl to look forward to.
It's actually strange to think about people knowing the gender of their babies, and thinking about how we knew that R and J were a girl and a boy before they were born. A friend of mine is due a few weeks before me; she's having a girl, and she was talking about her baby moving and said, "She's been moving a lot lately." It took me a minute because I got so confused by the reference to "she." I said, "Oh! I forgot you know you're having a girl." That was so funny to me.
The last thing I'll say is that it's actually not as hard as I thought it would be. Unless you have a high-risk pregnancy and are going in for ultrasounds every week, after you don't find out at the anatomy scan, it's not like there are a ton of chances to change your mind. It's not like I have a picture hidden somewhere in my house or a word written down on a piece of paper, and I'm not going to take off work to head to our nearest Peek-a-Baby, so really now I just have to deal with it even if I wanted to find out!
This post is not an attempt to convince you that you should wait to find out the gender of your baby! Like I said, it's super exciting no matter if you find out at 10 weeks or 40 weeks. But I will say that I'm loving the suspense this time and recommend it if you're considering! It's so fun.
How and when did you find out the gender of your baby?
What do you think about gender reveal parties?