With all three of my pregnancies, I chose to find out the sex of the baby at the mid-pregnancy ultrasound. I knew ultrasounds weren't 100% effective in predicting gender, so I was cautious about believing it completely. I mean, we've all heard the stories about ultrasounds being wrong. But it's one of those things that you don't think will actually happen to you. And then it happened to my sister when she had her second baby. She was told that she was having a girl, but ended up with a boy instead. Hmmmm. Well, it happened to my sister...what are the odds that it'll happen twice in the same family, right?
Pretty good, apparently.
When I was told that my third baby was a boy, it just felt...wrong. But, I'd seen the evidence on the ultrasound picture so I convinced myself that it was a boy. I'd been secretly hoping for a girl so I was disappointed at first, but I quickly threw myself into shopping for blue sleepers and onesies. I sewed some cute new things for my baby boy. I made a baby boy themed Etsy Finds blog post. I fell in love with my son who was growing inside me. I got to know him through his kicks and elbow jabs. I saw him once again on an ultrasound screen a few days before giving birth when the ultrasound technician once again, assured me that it was a boy.
When SHE was born, I was thrilled! Shocked, but thrilled. I was excited to have another sweet little girl and looked forward to dressing her in her big sister's hand-me-downs. I wrote a blog post about how I'd had a feeling all along.
But at the same time, something inside of me was sad. It wasn't until talking to my sister, the one who'd also had an incorrect ultrasound prediction, that I figured out why. She told me that, although she had originally been hoping for a boy before being told she was having a girl, she still felt sad that that little girl she'd gotten to know for 4 1/2 month didn't exist anymore.
I didn't realize how much it bothered me until I recently came across a stack of tiny blue onesies that I'd picked out specially for the new baby while still pregnant. I teared up while unfolding them to look at the designs on the front of the onesies and realized that I was mourning a loss. Not a tangible loss because the son I thought I was having never existed, but still a loss.
I'd fallen in love with my son, my baby boy. I'd named him, picked out clothes for him, talked about him, planned for him, imagined him growing up with his older siblings. And now he was gone, vanished into thin air. Technically, he never existed. I mean, obviously it was always my sweet baby girl growing inside me, but still...
Am I glad things turned out the way they did? Definitely! Would I choose to find out the baby's gender again if I got pregnant? Yes, although I would think of it as more of a suggestion than a fact.
I like the way Jenni from Jenni from the Blog described her feelings on being Team Green.
Did you find out your babies' genders before they were born? Why or why not?
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