Finding out the sex

With Littles
We chose to find out Littles' sex prenatally, during her 20-week anatomy scan. Both my husband and I felt going in that it was a girl, and obviously, we were right!

At the time, the Internet wasn't full of all sorts of cute ideas to find out the sex like it is today. So the ultrasound tech just told us. It was... not all that exciting :) If we were going to find out the sex again, I think we'd have the ultrasound tech write down the sex and put it in an envelope, rather than telling us, and do an idea along these lines. Or even just open the envelope when it's just the two of us (and the older kids, maybe) -- just so that it's more of a family moment, rather than a medical moment.

A lot of people like to know the sex in advance to be able to buy gender-specific stuff or do a gender-specific nursery. But really, knowing Littles' sex didn't change a whole lot about how we prepared. One nice thing was that we knew the sex during spring garage/consignment sale season, so we were able to stock up on clothes for cheap. But we bought most of our big items gender-neutral so we could reuse them for future babies, and we didn't decorate the nursery at all. (We were living in a rental apartment, and ended up moving when she was 3 months old.)

With Noob
I hadn't really wanted to find out the sex with Littles; it was my husband who really wanted to know in advance. Since we did it "his way" with Littles, he agreed to do it "my way" with Noob.

So, we found out that Noob was a boy when he came out. And it was truly one of the most amazing moments of my life. To be honest, I felt through most of my pregnancy that Noob was a boy; I even told some friends a few weeks before the birth that I would be shocked if it was a girl. But "knowing" didn't make that moment any less intense. My husband yelled out, "It's a boy!" and you could hear the emotion in his voice. I cannot put it into words. Just incredible, and totally worth the wait. One of the highlights of my life.

Speaking of my husband's announcement, I always tell expecting parents who are "Team Green" (as opposed to Team Blue or Team Pink :) to talk through the announcement with their care provider. My husband definitely wanted to have the honor of announcing the baby's sex, and that is C's "default" anyway. Some providers "default" to calling out the sex as soon as they see it, which definitely would have taken away from our vision of that moment! And on the flip side, some parents want to have the doctor be the one to call out "It's a girl!" or "It's a boy!" right away. This is one area where a quick conversation with your provider can make all the difference in that moment living up to how you envision it.

As far as preparations, being Team Green was not a big deal. Most of our big items (car seat, stroller, baby carrier, swing, bouncy seat, etc.) were hand-me-downs from Littles and gender-neutral already. We did a gender-neutral nursery. We knew we'd need to buy a new wardrobe regardless of gender, since Littles was a summer baby and Noob was a winter baby, but it was easy enough to buy some gender-neutral basics to wear around the house for the first few days. Then my husband had a ball hitting up the thrift shops for clothes after the birth. Within a week or two, Noob had a full gender-specific wardrobe, for cheap.

With Q
Not surprisingly, I didn't want to find out the sex again. I hadn't with either of the other two kids, and the amazing moment of finding out Noob's sex at birth certainly hadn't swayed me in the opposite direction!

I fully anticipated that my husband would want to find out the sex, since he had with both of the other two kids. To my complete and utter surprise, when I asked him if we were going to find out the sex ahead of time, he looked at me like I was crazy and said, "No way!" I guess him calling out "It's a boy" with Noob was one of the highlights of his life, too :)

Keeping the sex under wraps was more of a challenge with Q, because she was diagnosed at her anatomy scan with a kidney issue. This meant I had to have a couple of follow-up ultrasounds in the second half of my pregnancy to monitor that. (With Noob, the anatomy scan was the last ultrasound, which made it easy to "stay strong" on not finding out the sex: If we decided to change our minds, we would have had to make a special appointment just to get an ultrasound.) The perinatologist who did the follow-ups always checked the sex, for some reason, but always made sure I looked away in time, and was careful not to slip about it.

As with Noob, not knowing the sex was not a problem in terms of preparations. We moved houses early in my pregnancy, so we ended up doing another gender-neutral nursery. Q was another summer baby, so we were all set for girl clothes. (Had she been a boy, we would have done another round of thrift store shopping.) And the older kids didn't mind not knowing, either. Honestly, I don't think they were even aware that we could find out the sex ahead of time. Littles expressed a bit of a preference for having a sister, Noob for having a brother, but we made it very clear to them that it could go either way. If Noob was at all disappointed by the end result, he didn't express it.

And that end result -- hearing my husband call out, "It's a girl!" -- was well worth the wait. Again.