Week 18: Finding out the gender

By Published On: December 12th, 2014

One of the main things people ask when you are […]

photoOne of the main things people ask when you are expecting is, “What are you having?” Even if you aren’t far enough along to know, they always ask when you will be able to find out. I know there are plenty of couples that opt out of knowing the gender of their child before birth. I am not one of those people. Barrett says he wouldn’t have minded waiting to know with this one. I told him he was crazy!
On Monday we went for our 18-week checkup. The week before I couldn’t think of anything else except finding out what this sweet little one was. This is the same week I started feeling movement. I was ready to put a gender (and name) in the place of “it.” On Monday morning it felt like we were in the waiting room of the doctor’s office for hours. Every time they would call someone back my heart would skip a beat. After what seemed like an eternity, they called my name. The nurse took the measurements and told us everything was looking perfect because in the end that’s all we really care about. A healthy baby! But we both were hoping for a boy. “So we want to know what this baby is?” Before she could finish her sentence I blurted out YES! She looked for a good three minutes. Then she said something I knew she would probably say: “This baby will not uncross its legs.” This exact same thing happened with our little girl. We had to wait another month to find out what she was. I just KNEW it would happen again. Barrett immediately said, “This means it’s another girl; she is being stubborn.”
We decided to try again after we saw the doctor. The nurse told me to try drinking something that has caffeine to get the baby moving. Barrett went downstairs and returned with a Coke. I won’t lie that was probably the first coke I have had in years. After we saw our doctor we went to try one last time. As the nurse was checking I was telling myself not to be upset because we probably wouldn’t be finding out today, and then she said, “Well, it looks like that Coke worked! Do you know what that is?” With the biggest grin, Barrett said, “Yep that’s a BOY!”
Our reasons for finding out the gender of the baby are simple. We like to have a name picked out. I love gender neutral names, but they just aren’t for us. I’m not all about gender neutral clothes either. I know some people would probably think this is crazy because does it really matter what you put your newborn in for the first few weeks to sleep all day and never leave the house? But I had so much fun picking out girl clothes during my last pregnancy. What is more fun than fixing up a baby’s nursery? And again I could do without the color yellow in a baby room. These are silly reasons to find out a gender, but in the end we just like to know what we will be bringing home from the hospital BEFORE we get there.