Not knowing enabled us to fend off all kinds of parenting “advice”, which I appreciated.

All of her baby stuff is green and yellow, except for the gifts that arrived after she was born. All of that is pink.

Also, for me I really wanted a girl but was in some ways relieved to find out I was having a boy. My mother died when I was young and knowing that I was having a boy was like an affirmation that I’m not destined to repeat my mother’s life and death because she had a girl first. And somehow I think (wrongly I know) that it would be easier on a boy if I die young than a girl. Not logical or right but it is how I feel.

Either way, girl or boy my husband was adamant that the child would play hockey and lacrosse (we live in Canada). I’ve been really happy to find that his expectations on what activities our child would do were the same regardless of gender and he was really vocal about that before we found out the sex. I’m also making clear to family and friends that I want lots of gender neutral clothing.

I wanted to find out the sex of our baby. Weirdly, it was more that I couldn’t stand the fact that the doctor and the u/s tech would know something about my baby that I wouldn’t. I bought entirely gender neutral bedding & decorations (very hard to do!) and apparently scared most folks into buying gender neutral clothes.

Now that she’s 18 months they’re all WAY gendered, and I just try to keep it in perspective. Of course, her ears aren’t pierced and we do no hairbows, and we frequently get comments on our “boy.” Most funny to me is that I could care less– toddlers aren’t all that gendered– but people fall all over themselves apologizing!

I have thought about finding out but not telling anyone if we have another. I hated hearing all that crud from people. I make sure to tell folks how strong and smart and funny my daughter is (because she is) and she happens to be beautiful, too. I imagine with a boy it’d be similar parenting choices, just applied to a new personality in our house, right?

For what it’s worth, we didn’t want to know either time, and both son and daughter are fiercely feminist. So much of parenting is going with the flow and learning to let your kid be who s/he is-maybe this is a good first opportunity to practice those skills.

And one more piece of advice: tell everyone that your due date is 2 weeks later than it is. Otherwise you begin to get calls from family and friends saying things like “are you still here?” for about a month, and if the baby is late, (as both of ours were-Jewish time!) it can drive you crazy.

Additionally, I’d had a couple of miscarriages and we were leaping on every bit of good news we got about my successful pregnancy.

I certainly understand not wanting genderization any earlier than necessary, but it happens even if you don’t know. I can’t think of how many times I heard that I must have a boy or girl because I was so sick and everyone knew that boys were ornery or girls were difficult, depending on their prejudices.

I’m trying to get pregnant right now, and I admit that I want a girl. Of course I’ll love another boy just as much, and it’s probably irrational, but that doesn’t change that it is.

Seriously, about a year ago I had to buy something for a shower for the first time, and I was utterly amazed by how difficult it was to buy a gender-neutral gift.

He said that the pregnancy felt so staged from start to finish that he wanted an element of surprise.