I know I’m in the minority, but I really don’t want to know the sex of my babies before they are born. I mean I really don’t want to know. It would kind of ruin the pregnancy for me in many ways. Here are my reasons.
1. When you find out, you ruin Christmas. Waiting means there is more excitement for birth day. You’ll never get a better gift, and it really does ruin it when you unwrap that circular gift and it’s the pizza pan from your registry. There is no bigger deal than the birth of your child. That’s why I like to wait. It’s a big deal! Finding out cheapens it for me.
2. This baby has its whole life to be a girl or a boy. Soon enough, everyone will be expecting him or her to behave the way we think people with those genitals should behave. Few of us are good enough to avoid genderizing our children in any way. And most of the world will want to plop them into one of those narrow boxes right away. I just want the baby to be a baby for now. I don’t want to think of it as anything but my baby. Everyone thought my breech baby was a boy because it wouldn’t turn, no matter what I did. “Oh I bet it’s a boy. Stubborn little bugger, already getting into trouble.” Yeah, well, she’s stubborn alright.
3. Nature knows. I hope that I die in a natural disaster. Quickly, of course, but still. Preferably one where my body is just….gone. It seems like a good way to go, naturally, without a lot of breakdown. But back to babies– I feel that if we were supposed to know the name and sex of our babies before we met them, there would be a tell. Maybe when you are 20 weeks your pee turns blue or pink. Or perhaps your belly button would pop out only if it’s a boy. Nature would provide a tell. Pandas should not be surviving because it’s impossible to tell if the mother panda is pregnant and then she births this tiny thing she very often squishes. There’s no tell. Nature says no. Nature tells me I’m not supposed to know. (Now, mother nature, she can be a bitch (see also: ways to die, above)…So I’m not saying here that I would avoid any kind of intervention to help me or my baby on account of how nature knows things. Just that when all is well and especially when it doesn’t matter one iota, you should definitely consider the workings of ‘ol mama nature.)
4. Disappointment, avoidance of. Some people want a girl, some a boy. Some would give their husband’s right testicle for the outcome they desire. Maybe they are sexist. Maybe they have 6 girls and just want a boy. Maybe they have very excellent reasons for desiring a girl or boy. The deal is, when you find out ahead of time you set yourself up for disappointment. Many people spend a few weeks or the rest of their pregnancy–or lives–disappointed in the sex of their child. And often they feel guilty for those feelings. I think this is much less common when you find out by looking at your child than from the mouth of a stranger who recently squeezed goop on your stomach.
5. Forced neutrality. When I’m pregnant, I don’t know who it is inside me. The second I find out the gender, I have thoughts about what s/he will be like. Not knowing means I have a few months of not painting the nursery blue and buying pacifiers with hearts. As if newborn girls would turn up their noses at a truck bink. I think dressing a baby neutrally–or in whatever is clean–helps me to focus on finding out who it is rather than trying to make her into something I think she should be. For a little longer, anyway…
6. Dreams, premonitions, and intuition. I enjoy seeing what dreams come to me or others about my baby. I like asking the older child–or any child–what sex they think the baby is. I think it’s fun and calming to try to ‘tune into’ the growing baby to see if I feel any inklings. Slapping the medical diagnosis on the baby takes all that away, even if it’s wrong. (My good friend Megan’s mom was expecting her to be a boy.)
7. Less advice during pregnancy. I really hate gendered advice and warnings and wishes. I have two girls, and when I was pregnant with the second one people would say “If it’s a boy this and if it’s a girl that.” Mostly people with sons telling me how it was with boys. Granted, I don’t have any. But I’ve been around enough infants to know that they are, in behavior and appearance, exactly like infant girls. And I’ve been around enough toddler boys to know that there are all kinds. Some are more ‘like girls’ than my daughter is and some appear to have been raised on a steady diet of testosterone pebbles and baby ESPN. But this is a topic for another post.
8. If you find out, you have to tell people. Well, I would. Not that I couldn’t keep it a secret, just that when you know and people all ask you like you of course know, it’s almost rude to say “We’re not telling.” Then you’re just milking it, right? If you know, it’s not that you want a surprise, it’s that you believe the birth of your baby is a big enough deal to everyone else that you want it to be a surprise for them. I do want it to be a surprise for them, because I want it to be a surprise for me. Plus, when you find out the sex and tell people, and then maybe you decide on the name and maybe you tell that too, when your baby comes what do you say? She’s here. 9lbs 4oz! Yeah, it’s still great, a baby was born and she’s healthy. But much less cute and fun, say I.
