We just had our first child. My wife wanted to know, I would have been open to it being a surprise, but since she wanted to know I didn’t even propose waiting for it to be a surprise.
Her dad passed away early on during her pregnancy so it actually was a fun reveal to share with her side of the family when we gathered for the funeral service.
From my perspective: helps to plan and decorate if you choose to do so. Also, you may find that friends, family members, and colleagues may be eager to bring you hand me downs especially clothing and toys. So if they also know the gender they may be more eager to give you hand me downs.
I think it would be incredibly exciting to wait to find out the gender at birth as well, but the whole expertise exciting even if you know the gender ahead of time.
We're waiting. We figured since it's our first, we wanted the ultimate surprise. We have lots of neutral colors, but the wife has also bought some gender specific things that she thought were cute.
We chose to find out. My wife was certain from the first at home test that it would be a girl and it was. She was our first child and we figured it would be better to know so we can prepare a bit better like getting girl stuff instead of boy stuff or gender neutral. If we had a boy and girl already then I wouldn't want to know and it wouldn't be a big deal because we have both boy and girl stuff already.
Edit to add: Naming was also a very important factor in knowing ahead of time.
Just out of curiosity what do you mean by boy stuff vs girl stuff? Is there a functional difference or just pink vs blue? Honestly asking in case I’m missing something
No, just pink vs blue. I'm well aware it doesn't matter at all and we even have blue onsies that she wears but that was kind of our thought process. Everything is literally the same for each gender except color at that age.
I appreciate that I was just curious had a moment of the pre dad panic of thinking I was missing something. So yeah no judgement by any means just irrational concern of missing details.
No worries. I edited my first comment to add that naming was also a very important factor for us. At least for my wife. She didn't want her to be called "baby" for a week without a name, even though now I exclusively call her baby lol
We did the sneakpeak test for my son @ 7 weeks. He's definitely a boy. Have another on the way now. Did the same @ 6 weeks. Little girly comin in hot :)
What's the point or fun in white knuckling the gender anticipation? Its great to know so early, you picture it all in your head so much more clearly with more excitement.. Idk, just me
I'm a huge proponent of waiting. 3 kids, first and third were surprises, second we accidentally found out from an online test result (but didn't tell anyone that we knew). Not knowing is the perfect defense against the cringy hyper-gendered gifts, it is a satisfying way to shut down the inquiries of nosy strangers, and most importantly it is one of the most exciting and anticipated surprises we've ever experienced. Getting to announce the sex to my wife in the first seconds of baby's earthside existence was special for me too.
My wife knows. I don't.
I fully understand her need to know. I'd want to know if there was a little penis inside me, too.
But for myself...
There are few surprises left. Enjoy perhaps the greatest remaining one.
I don't believe learning from a fuzzy screen is remotely close to learning as the endorphin rush of the delivery room hits you. That's an experience. Don't take any element of that experience away.
I want every ounce of that: "BOOM. This is my _____. Mine. I will work the rest of my life for them. I will move mountains to protect them."
We’re waiting - simply because we’ll be equally happy either way. i’m non-binary anyway so i’ve never been too fussed about gender roles (though i will be referring to them as a girl or boy until they’re old enough that they feel like correcting me!)
We chose to find out when the testing for other stuff happened so earlier than finding out at the scan.
I guess you could wait but then it might still get spoilt.
And I am of the opinion that if you are truly hoping for one or the other, you should do it as soon as you can because there's a chance it won't be what you're hoping for and the sooner you find out the sooner you can work through your stuff.
We had a little gender reveal and it made looking for baby clothes more fun as we weren’t just looking for neutral baby stuff any more.
Everyone told me I was going to be a girl dad I was genuinely shocked when I saw blue and it felt so real not calling him bump anymore and calling him billy
There's no right or wrong answer.
We found out at 20 weeks (UK) but we suspected from 12 weeks it was a boy because the person doing the scan laughed and said he can't tell us but he's pretty certain he knows what the gender is.
I'm a bit of an anxious person and like to have control and order of what's possible - the pregnancy is so unpredictable and out of control that it felt right to at least have one fact at our disposal as early as possible.
We bought a house which had the nursery bedroom painted pink. We have changed it to yellow.
We have bought boy clothes (lots of it is pretty neutral but I doubt many are going to buy princess dresses for a boy for example) people do buy clothes for when they're older a bit as well.
I want to have this child nice and healthy first but if we ever choose to have a 2nd, I think we'd find out again.
We found out. We didn’t see the benefit of waiting. The blood test was already done, so why not just find out. Why forgo the technology/advancements to medical science over the last several decades? There will be enough emotion in the room already.
It’s a surprise whether you find out early or wait. I want to have the surprise earlier hah.
Huh. That's an interesting way to look at it I hadn't considered before.
Neither did I and I like that idea.
Exactly the way I see it lol.
We just had our first child. My wife wanted to know, I would have been open to it being a surprise, but since she wanted to know I didn’t even propose waiting for it to be a surprise. Her dad passed away early on during her pregnancy so it actually was a fun reveal to share with her side of the family when we gathered for the funeral service. From my perspective: helps to plan and decorate if you choose to do so. Also, you may find that friends, family members, and colleagues may be eager to bring you hand me downs especially clothing and toys. So if they also know the gender they may be more eager to give you hand me downs. I think it would be incredibly exciting to wait to find out the gender at birth as well, but the whole expertise exciting even if you know the gender ahead of time.
We are choosing to wait! This will be our first child.
We're waiting. We figured since it's our first, we wanted the ultimate surprise. We have lots of neutral colors, but the wife has also bought some gender specific things that she thought were cute.
We chose to find out. My wife was certain from the first at home test that it would be a girl and it was. She was our first child and we figured it would be better to know so we can prepare a bit better like getting girl stuff instead of boy stuff or gender neutral. If we had a boy and girl already then I wouldn't want to know and it wouldn't be a big deal because we have both boy and girl stuff already. Edit to add: Naming was also a very important factor in knowing ahead of time.
Just out of curiosity what do you mean by boy stuff vs girl stuff? Is there a functional difference or just pink vs blue? Honestly asking in case I’m missing something
No, just pink vs blue. I'm well aware it doesn't matter at all and we even have blue onsies that she wears but that was kind of our thought process. Everything is literally the same for each gender except color at that age.
I appreciate that I was just curious had a moment of the pre dad panic of thinking I was missing something. So yeah no judgement by any means just irrational concern of missing details.
No worries. I edited my first comment to add that naming was also a very important factor for us. At least for my wife. She didn't want her to be called "baby" for a week without a name, even though now I exclusively call her baby lol
We kept it to ourselves. That wasn’t the plan initially, but my wife was at the *worst* gender reveal, and those things always happen in pairs
Yeah either way I don’t think we would have a gender reveal.
We did the sneakpeak test for my son @ 7 weeks. He's definitely a boy. Have another on the way now. Did the same @ 6 weeks. Little girly comin in hot :) What's the point or fun in white knuckling the gender anticipation? Its great to know so early, you picture it all in your head so much more clearly with more excitement.. Idk, just me
I'm a huge proponent of waiting. 3 kids, first and third were surprises, second we accidentally found out from an online test result (but didn't tell anyone that we knew). Not knowing is the perfect defense against the cringy hyper-gendered gifts, it is a satisfying way to shut down the inquiries of nosy strangers, and most importantly it is one of the most exciting and anticipated surprises we've ever experienced. Getting to announce the sex to my wife in the first seconds of baby's earthside existence was special for me too.
My wife knows. I don't. I fully understand her need to know. I'd want to know if there was a little penis inside me, too. But for myself... There are few surprises left. Enjoy perhaps the greatest remaining one. I don't believe learning from a fuzzy screen is remotely close to learning as the endorphin rush of the delivery room hits you. That's an experience. Don't take any element of that experience away. I want every ounce of that: "BOOM. This is my _____. Mine. I will work the rest of my life for them. I will move mountains to protect them."
We’re waiting - simply because we’ll be equally happy either way. i’m non-binary anyway so i’ve never been too fussed about gender roles (though i will be referring to them as a girl or boy until they’re old enough that they feel like correcting me!)
We chose to find out when the testing for other stuff happened so earlier than finding out at the scan. I guess you could wait but then it might still get spoilt. And I am of the opinion that if you are truly hoping for one or the other, you should do it as soon as you can because there's a chance it won't be what you're hoping for and the sooner you find out the sooner you can work through your stuff.
We had a little gender reveal and it made looking for baby clothes more fun as we weren’t just looking for neutral baby stuff any more. Everyone told me I was going to be a girl dad I was genuinely shocked when I saw blue and it felt so real not calling him bump anymore and calling him billy
There's no right or wrong answer. We found out at 20 weeks (UK) but we suspected from 12 weeks it was a boy because the person doing the scan laughed and said he can't tell us but he's pretty certain he knows what the gender is. I'm a bit of an anxious person and like to have control and order of what's possible - the pregnancy is so unpredictable and out of control that it felt right to at least have one fact at our disposal as early as possible. We bought a house which had the nursery bedroom painted pink. We have changed it to yellow. We have bought boy clothes (lots of it is pretty neutral but I doubt many are going to buy princess dresses for a boy for example) people do buy clothes for when they're older a bit as well. I want to have this child nice and healthy first but if we ever choose to have a 2nd, I think we'd find out again.
We were struggling enough with names that we decided to learn it ASAP to trim down our options haha.
We found out, and turned out the scans were wrong. Go figure 🤷♂️
We had no choice... he show it to us each time!
We found out. We didn’t see the benefit of waiting. The blood test was already done, so why not just find out. Why forgo the technology/advancements to medical science over the last several decades? There will be enough emotion in the room already.