As soon as you tell someone you're expecting, the first question out of EVERYBODY'S mouth:
"Do you know if it's a boy or a girl?"
It's always one of the first questions asked. It's also one of the things you start wondering about right away....Which would I prefer? Does is make a difference? What colour should we paint the nursery? Names?
For these reasons, Christina and I decided we wanted to know. I don't see any benefit in waiting to find out until the baby's born.
"I want it to be a surprise!" is the most common response from people who have decided they don't want to know.
To me it's just as much of a surprise at 20 weeks as it is at 42...at least if I know, I can start some planning. There's only so much yellow and green you can buy.
Not that we want our baby's sex to define them, but it can be equally as harmful not to acknowledge it. I think most of my friends would agree, I'm not the manliest of men. I haven't played organized sports since I was a teenager (and even then, I was never very into it), I listen to musical theatre, I love to cook and kind of border on the more "feminine" side of the spectrum in a lot of ways. But I still identify with maleness, there are problems and rewards to either gender and to treat them the same is, in my mind, a fallacy.
Like most men (I think), I really wanted a son (at least first). This is for a couple of reasons:
1) I'm wrapped enough around my wife's little finger, I don't think there's enough of me to wrap around my little girl's. And I know I would be totally under her spell. At least this way, I keep SOME of my sanity.
2) I feel it's just less worrying. My brother-in-law put it very succinctly: "With a boy you only worry about his penis, with a girl, you worry about everyone else's." It's also just a crazy world out there, and I would never sleep again worrying about my little baby girl.
So...anyways....we decided we would find out.
We met with our prenatal doctor for our regular checkup and we booked our midterm ultrasound. She asked us if we wanted her to call us when she got the results, so she could tell us the sex. Then we'd meet and go over the rest of the results. "Yes, Please!" was our immediate answer. She gives us the ultrasounds requisition form to bring with us to the hospital. About two weeks later, we go for our scheduled appointment...all goes well. The second ultrasound is about 2-3 times as long as the first. Christina was in there for about an hour before I was allowed into the room. At one point she came out and was told to go for a walk and eat some sugar to get the baby moving because they couldn't get a certain angle. We walk around the hospital and I feed her 3 honey crullers from Tim Horton's. That did the trick!
In Brampton, the hospital sonagrapher will not tell you the sex. This is for a couple reasons:
1) They're not allowed "because of the margin of error"
but mostly
2) We have a fairly high south asian community who (in some instances) prefer, or even demand a male heir for certain birth rights. So if they're told it's a girl, they will sometimes abort the baby in favour of trying again for a boy.
For these reasons we don't even ask the sonagrapher because we know she can't tell us. We can wait a couple more days.
We can barely contain our excitement! We're about to find out if it's a boy or a girl! We wait with baited breath and jump at every phone ring.
1) I'm wrapped enough around my wife's little finger, I don't think there's enough of me to wrap around my little girl's. And I know I would be totally under her spell. At least this way, I keep SOME of my sanity.
2) I feel it's just less worrying. My brother-in-law put it very succinctly: "With a boy you only worry about his penis, with a girl, you worry about everyone else's." It's also just a crazy world out there, and I would never sleep again worrying about my little baby girl.
So...anyways....we decided we would find out.
We met with our prenatal doctor for our regular checkup and we booked our midterm ultrasound. She asked us if we wanted her to call us when she got the results, so she could tell us the sex. Then we'd meet and go over the rest of the results. "Yes, Please!" was our immediate answer. She gives us the ultrasounds requisition form to bring with us to the hospital. About two weeks later, we go for our scheduled appointment...all goes well. The second ultrasound is about 2-3 times as long as the first. Christina was in there for about an hour before I was allowed into the room. At one point she came out and was told to go for a walk and eat some sugar to get the baby moving because they couldn't get a certain angle. We walk around the hospital and I feed her 3 honey crullers from Tim Horton's. That did the trick!
In Brampton, the hospital sonagrapher will not tell you the sex. This is for a couple reasons:
1) They're not allowed "because of the margin of error"
but mostly
2) We have a fairly high south asian community who (in some instances) prefer, or even demand a male heir for certain birth rights. So if they're told it's a girl, they will sometimes abort the baby in favour of trying again for a boy.
For these reasons we don't even ask the sonagrapher because we know she can't tell us. We can wait a couple more days.
We can barely contain our excitement! We're about to find out if it's a boy or a girl! We wait with baited breath and jump at every phone ring.
A full week later we still haven't heard from the doctor, so Christina calls and gets the receptionist.
"Hi I'd like to speak to my doctor about the ultrasound"
"We can make an appointment and she'll go over the results with you."
"I have an appointment next week. She said she'd call to tell us the sex."
"Oh! I can tell you that...hold on...hrmmm...They didn't mark it down. It says here you didn't request it."
So because we didn't request on a form (that we didn't fill our to begin with) to find out our baby's sex, it's nowhere to be found? Our doctor can't (or won't) look at the (recorded) ultrasound and tell us? Just that "the genitals are fine". Well that's great...but what are they?!?!
This was kind of devastating. Yes, there are worse problems in the world, but when you're told you're going to find out, and when you expect it, it's heartbreaking to be told that nothing can be done. We're told "You can go to an exterior ultrasound clinic and find out" (which will cost about $100). But because there's not medical reason for another ultrasound, we're out of luck.
We end up biting the bullet and booking a gender assessment session with a private ultrasounds clinic. Boy! The difference between the two places was night and day. I had to wait outside the room for the majority of the ultrasound at the hospital, but here I'm ushered in right away with my wife. We're joking, laughing and telling stories with the technician doing our session. Whereas as the hospital it was very cold and clinical. Within seconds of the technician putting the equipment on my wife, we see our baby on the screen and the technician tells us "I can tell already." "That's I penis!" I blurt out pointing to the screen. "Very good! Yes. Congratulations! It's a boy!"
"Hi I'd like to speak to my doctor about the ultrasound"
"We can make an appointment and she'll go over the results with you."
"I have an appointment next week. She said she'd call to tell us the sex."
"Oh! I can tell you that...hold on...hrmmm...They didn't mark it down. It says here you didn't request it."
So because we didn't request on a form (that we didn't fill our to begin with) to find out our baby's sex, it's nowhere to be found? Our doctor can't (or won't) look at the (recorded) ultrasound and tell us? Just that "the genitals are fine". Well that's great...but what are they?!?!
This was kind of devastating. Yes, there are worse problems in the world, but when you're told you're going to find out, and when you expect it, it's heartbreaking to be told that nothing can be done. We're told "You can go to an exterior ultrasound clinic and find out" (which will cost about $100). But because there's not medical reason for another ultrasound, we're out of luck.
We end up biting the bullet and booking a gender assessment session with a private ultrasounds clinic. Boy! The difference between the two places was night and day. I had to wait outside the room for the majority of the ultrasound at the hospital, but here I'm ushered in right away with my wife. We're joking, laughing and telling stories with the technician doing our session. Whereas as the hospital it was very cold and clinical. Within seconds of the technician putting the equipment on my wife, we see our baby on the screen and the technician tells us "I can tell already." "That's I penis!" I blurt out pointing to the screen. "Very good! Yes. Congratulations! It's a boy!"
