The Joy of Being Surprised With Baby’s Gender

The decision to find out whether you are having a boy or a girl seems to be a really polarizing topic. For the moms who just have to know, they can’t understand how waiting until the birth of the baby. The same seems to be true the other way around. The families who opt to wait see it as the only way to go.

Well, I’ve been on both sides of the coin. With my first pregnancy, we waited to find out the gender. With my second, we found out at 14 weeks that we were having another boy.

If we ever decide to have another baby, I am 100% percent certain we would NOT find out the gender. After experiencing both, there’s just no question.

I’ve heard some people say that not finding out the gender makes it harder to bond with your baby.

For me, I will say this did not hold true at all. I loved our little baby more and more with every single kick I felt. It didn’t matter if I knew it was a boy or girl. I still dreamt about all the sweet things about being a girl mom, or how fun it would be if I was a boy mom. After all, there are so many unknowns about your baby before you meet them anyways. Will my child be funny? Quiet? An exceptional piano player? Not knowing whether it was a boy or girl was one more exciting thing to dream about.

I’m not exactly sure what made us to decide to not find out what we were having the first time around, but I will tell you this: It was the best surprise of my life.

In my birth plan, it said that my husband would be the one to tell me what we were having. When my baby was born, the very first thing I heard was my husband announcing, “Oh my gosh! It’s a boy!” My heart just about burst. It was the best moment of my life. It was also probably one of the most romantic moments of my relationship. Hearing that we had a baby boy from my husband, instead of an ultrasound tech who I had just met, made it that much more special.

The other thing I really liked about waiting was that I felt like I had a little bit more privacy during my pregnancy.

For whatever reason, there’s something about a pregnant woman that makes just about everyone around you have an opinion about your pregnancy. When people learned we didn’t know what we were having, it seemed to stop all their questions and judgments right there. If people asked whether or not we had a name, I could honestly reply that we didn’t because we didn’t know if was going to be a boy or girl. It felt a lot more free than my second pregnancy, where everyone had a thing or two to say about our favorite names.

I know that there are some out there that just couldn’t handle not being able to prepare for a boy or a girl.

After all, some of the best parts of being pregnant are preparing the perfect nursery and picking out the cutest clothes. As someone who is really (really, really, really, really) Type A, I’m surprised that didn’t bother me. I didn’t mind filling up our nursery with gender-neutral baby items. After all, we knew we wanted to have more than one child. Might as well prepare for both.

Plus, I think not knowing the gender saved our family a ton of money while I was pregnant. I wasn’t caught up buying a of bunch cute clothes that we really didn’t need. If this post makes you decide to wait, you can take me out for a fancy dinner with all the money you saved. 

I will admit, it wasn’t easy to wait. We were tempted so many times to find out. But, when it was all over, the excitement and anticipation of not knowing was totally worth it.

At the end of the day, it’s not right or wrong to find out the gender or not. Only you are able to say whether a decision is right or not for your family. But, if you are on the fence at all, my vote is to wait! It was the best surprise of my life and, after experiencing both, it is the only way for our family to go if we ever have another baby.