According to the medical establishment I am now 24 and a half weeks pregnant. That is more than halfway there. More than halfway to having equal numbers of parents and children in this flat, which frankly scares the bejesus out of me. At the mid pregnancy scan, which is also known as the anomaly scan (yes, Anomaly is a lovely name for a girl and it is on our list), we had the opportunity to find out what sex our baby is. We opted not to. So when people ask if we know if we are having a boy or a girl, we typically answer ‘Yes. We are having a boy or a girl.’ Unless, that is, we are having an intersex baby, which has a little from column A and a little from column B, like Chardonnay’s baby on Footballer’s Wives, a terrible British drama series that I of course have never watched every single episode of.
For some reason, it drives some people crazy that we have the option of knowing the baby’s sex and choose not to. ‘But why wouldn’t you want to know?’ they wail. ‘How can you stand not knowing? Doesn’t it make planning so much harder? Wouldn’t it would help you bond with the baby if you knew more about it.’
We have several reasons for not finding out, and for me the top two are probably laziness and a stubborn adherence to the notion that one’s sex does not define one as a person. What I mean by that is that I don’t feel that knowing that I have, say, a boy child currently attempting to judo-chop down the walls of my uterus helps me know this creature any better. Because ‘boy’ isn’t exactly a useful way to describe someone’s personality. It’s a useful way to stereotype them, sure, but the child will get enough of that once it’s born. Why not let it grow in peace, without all its family and friends deciding it will be Daddy’s Little Buddy or Pretty Like Mommy.
Before she was born, I couldn’t have begun to imagine the person May Blossom is. Even if I had known she was a girl, I would never have dreamed she could be such a funny, strange, clever person. You just can’t know someone until you have met them. Knowing the sex of this baby wouldn’t help me bond with it any further than the odd thought of where it might go to school.
So how can we plan for this new baby if we don’t know what sex it is? That is quite simple. NB will wear a lot of May Blossom’s hand-me-downs, regardless of whether it is a boy or a girl. I said the same thing before May Blossom was born. In the year before I had her, my three cousins each gave birth to a girl, so I knew we’d have access to a lot of girls’ clothes. My plan was that our kid, be it a boy or a girl, would wear their hand-me-downs. And so she did. NB will wear lots of hand-me-downs from his or her sister, and from lots of generous friends. I don’t intend to dress a little boy in an Alice in Wonderland costume, unless he wants to, but beyond that, overalls are overalls. Also, since babies don’t even know they have hands for a good ten weeks or so, I’m pretty sure I can’t cause any lasting damage by popping the little mite into something that is the ‘wrong’ colour for its sex.
The issue of laziness comes into it thus: if I know what the sex is, I might be expected to plan a more gendered wardrobe, which is way more than I can be bothered to do. Between all the extra sleeping and weight gaining and not doing my pelvic floor exercises and defending the bump from the marauding May Blossom I’m doing at the moment, dragging out newborn clothes and sorting the blue from the pink is exceedingly far down the priority list for me. It’s right down at the bottom there with brushing my hair and maintaining my Linked In contact list.
As for pre-birth bonding, that all seems a bit overrated to me. Now I know how much it’s possible to love a child once they are in the world (quite a lot, as it turns out), I’m less worried about forging a deep connection with this one before we are even properly introduced. Right now, the best bonding we can do is happening via the umbilical cord, through which I am endeavouring to pump nutrients and hydration and only essential amounts of caffeine. I don’t need the added pressure of trying to build an imaginary relationship with NB, based on not very much at all. That strikes me as a bit like when in primary school you used to have to write to a penpal in another country, whom you’d never met. It was awkward, and involved lots of ‘How are you? I am fine’s. I am increasingly confident that NB and I will like each other just fine when we meet, and until then, we can give each other a little bit of space, and each go about our business.
I don’t even wonder that much about what sex the baby is. Is that a bit strange? From the people I’ve talked to about this and the whole Internet, which I have read, it seems that non-finders-out generally spend their pregnancy in a state of high anticipation about whether they are having a boy or a girl. Enjoying the suspense isn’t really an issue for me. I truly, honestly don’t care one way or another. All that matters is that it is a genius.
Love this.
LikeLike
We knew fifi was a girl before she was born, but we didn’t know her name until we met her. For much the same reasons…
LikeLike
I guess you better start playing NB classical music or Baby Einstein videos to listen to in utero then!! (kidding)
LikeLike
Fabulous post! We are non-finders-out too – I love the surprise at birth.
I really recommend maintaining your pre-pregnancy caffeine consumption. I have this theory that they’ll have this enormous withdrawal/crash at birth and they’ll sleep well for weeks. Worked for my 3, anyway 😉
LikeLike
A request.
Please let NB stay as that in this blog….
LikeLike
…it could be ‘nice boy. or ‘newage Boadicea’…
LikeLike
Your reasoning here is a good example of genius, so foetal genius is a foregone conclusion.
BREAKING AND RELEVANT: Though I was sure Amy is carrying my daughter (I am never wrong), we discovered this morning that she is in fact carrying us another son! I was wrong. Unprecedented! But he has two kidneys and two brain hemispheres, so we rejoice in our good fortune.
LikeLike
My first was a boy and I found out at the 18 week scan. I loved knowing, I loved planning, I loved spending time thinking of names and fantasising about my life as a mum with my husband and son. When he was born the obstetrician said “It’s a boy!” and I kinda felt like saying “I know”. There was certainly no surprise.
With my second child, I didn’t find out the gender because I wanted to experience the flip side. I also have to admit that I really wanted a daughter and thought it was better to find out the gender with the beautiful baby in my arms so I would never have a chance to feel any disappointment if it was a boy.
Throughout my pregnancy I had a very protruding stomach, like a basketball and I lost count of the complete strangers that stopped me in the street and told me I was having a boy. (I also thought I spied a little penis on the ultrasound screen!) So I only chose a boys name and didn’t really bother to buy any girls clothing.
When my daughter was born and the obstetrician said “It’s a girl!” you could have knocked me down with a feather. I was in such shock and joy. I can honestly say I’ve never been that surprised in my life. It was also lots of fun to break the news to everyone.
My little girl wore blue clothing with little diggers on the front and didn’t have a name for two weeks, but you could not wipe the smile off my face. There’s definitely pros and cons with both sides…finding out and waiting for the surprise. I loved experiencing both options!
LikeLike
You are most wise. And I say this because you think exactly the same way I do. I think gender stereotyping is in many ways worse than when I was a kid. I have two mini-beasts, neither of whom I knew the gender of before they were dragged mewling into the world. Whenever anyone asked me what I was having, I’d say “a baby”. Although when we took her along to the scan, my first born excitedly pointed at the screen and exclaimed “dog, dog”. But any doubts on that score were cleared up at birth. They have five older cousins, three boys and two girls, hand-me downs were worn strictly on a what smells the least basis. My son once wore a pair of his sister’s Little Miss Chatterbox knickers on his head because I forgot his sunhat. Like you, I strongly suspect such things will have little or no bearing on his future psychological well-being. Bex
LikeLike