“Are you hoping for a girl this time?” … “ It’s probably a boy, you’re going to be a boy mom for sure.”

On the way home from our most recent ultrasound, the one where you can figure out the gender of your baby, I asked my husband if he thought we were weird for not finding out. To which he responded, “I don’t think we are weird, I just think that more people are finding out these days so maybe us not finding out seems different.”

It’s funny how we tend to second guess our choices when we realize that they don’t seem to match up with what “everyone else” is doing, in other words, the social norms. It’s as if we seem to wonder if what we are doing is right or wrong because there is so much happening on social media and in the world around us that we have a hard time making choices that are just our own, and not influenced by someone else.

We didn’t find out for either of our boys and when we made those decisions we didn’t really think anything of it. This time feels a bit different though as if we should know, because it matters more now or something, but in reality, my focus has always been on the health of our little ones and we’ve never felt that knowing the gender would help us in any way with the planning process; we have a bassinet, lots of gender neutral onesies, bottles if needed and a crib when the time comes… what more do we need to prepare?

To be honest, we aren’t really huge “life planners” to begin with, we plan our days, weeks and months as much as we possibly can (there are multiple calendars in our home and we try to stay on top of the important things; bills, groceries and budgets) but trying to plan out our distant future hasn’t really ever been on our radar. In that sense, it didn’t really make sense for us to decorate the nursery a specific colour in order to feel “more prepared” for baby number three and to be honest, the fact that we’ve always had so many neutral items has made things a little bit easier in terms of reusing things like the crib set, linens and clothes. So, after some thinking and quite a few “ heart-to-heart” conversations with my husband, I’ve come up with a few reasons why we aren’t finding out the gender of our baby.

 

1. We Didn’t Find Out for the First Two

For our first we were 100% certain about not wanting to find out the gender. We were excited about the surprise and wanted to keep it that way until the very end. As we approached the time when a gender reveal was possible for our third we thought it over a lot more as a result of some outside pressures. “Are you hoping it’s a girl this time?” or “ It would be nice if you had a girl to balance things out. ” were just some of the comments that were coming at us this time around and while there seemed to be a lot more outside pressures this time, our decision is one that we are happy with, because it’s one that we’ve been happy with in the past.

 

2. We didn’t Want Gender to be our Focus

There are so many other big decisions that we’ve had to make when we realized that we were becoming a family of five, well six if you count our puppy, that focusing on what colour onesies our new baby was going to wear or what colour sheets would go on the crib didn’t really seem to be a big deal. First of all, baby’s health has been our main concern the entire time, and leading up to our ultrasound appointments and checkups that is always what’s on my mind. Other things like preschool arrangements for our oldest, or making sure all the home renovations were done became top priorities. I can’t wait to decorate the nursery, but I am more than happy to meet baby first and then start the process of adding decorative touches that work in terms of gender.

 

3. The Questions and Statements About the Baby’s Potential Gender Started to Become Overwhelming

As soon as we started to tell people that we were expecting baby number three the gender questions started. “Are you hoping for a girl” or …”If this baby isn’t a girl will you try for another one?” And then the statements and opinions began, “It would be so nice if this baby was a girl” or “ I hope this is a girl for you, three boys is a lot.” At first I didn’t know how to respond to these questions or statements, but now having some time to absorb it all  and think it over, I would say that “ three babies is a lot no matter what the gender” or “ I am hoping for a healthy baby.” I also started to think what if we did find out?… would people then begin express their excitement or disappointment? So, I decided that not finding out meant that when the baby was born we would just be happy and I think people were a lot less liking to express those opinions; positive or negative once baby was here.

 

4. The Element of Surprise

I am not going to lie about this and say that I was focused on the gender at all in the delivery room with either of our boys, because let’s be honest, the pain, fear and excitement of baby being born clouded all of that gender talk. However, once our babies were born and we discovered the gender, my husband could tell before I could, his reactions were kind of priceless and you can’t really top that kind of excitement.

 

So if you are wondering whether or not to find out your baby’s gender, I would say go with your gut, do what feels right and try to tune out the noise. In the end you want to be happy with your choice and not feel pressured by outside influences.

 

Maternity Clothes Featured in this Post

Dress: Pink Layered Ruffle Sleeve Dress- Pink Blush Maternity 

Bathing Suit: Mauve Solid Wrap Tankini Top – Pink Blush Maternity 

 

xo

Vanessa