Just curious about your experiences. We had it done last week, and the results were petty inconclusive leading the technician to make a "college guess" about the sex.

I've had many friends tell me that the technician got it wrong for them. How about you?

The reason I ask is that the in-laws are taking this guess and running with it. I don't want to have a bunch of baby stuff for the wrong sex. Fortunately, my wife and I are going neutral all the way.

My wife and I wanted to be surprised... The surprise was that we ended up having a C-Section and my mind was on other things other than "IT'S A BOY"... But defiantly I want a surprise next time as well...

It's pretty accurate "IF" they get a good view.

Bill

My brother and his wife were assured that my niece was most definitely going to be a boy. I haven't put much stock in it since then.

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Best bet take a length of cotton thread and thread it through a gold wedding band and hold over pregnant womans tummy.
If it spins clockwise you have a girl if it spins anti-clockwise its gonna be a boy.
Only joking, its just an old wives tale. I always preferred not to know so I'd have a surprise but congratulations anyway.I think your idea to keep the colours neutral is the best plan, just in case.
Have you considered twins?
Definitely only joking this time.;)

I never saw the point in being surprised at the birth. If I found out during the ultrasound, that was as good a time for a surprise as any.

That said, my daughter's was inconclusive, but my son 'presented' clearly for the machine. That saved us 50% of the name battle (and I still couldn't get my wife to go for 'Calvin').

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Embarassing myself on the Internet since 1978.

im in the "wait and see boat"

there was nothing more exciting for me in my whole life (so far =) than to hear the doctor say "its a girl!"

has got to be on of the biggest moments in life in general -- wouldnt you agree?
kind of a pet peeve of mine when i meet people that already know.

and dont give me that "we need to get ready" bs -- cause its just bs ;)

my damn cousin already has the name picked out for her boy -- even though she has has 4 miscarriages already. i dont envy her if this baby doesnt make it either...

Quote
raz
I never saw the point in being surprised at the birth. If I found out during the ultrasound, that was as good a time for a surprise as any.

Bingo. In my experience, there were plenty of surprises left for delivery day.

That was the problem. The tech could not get a good view. We asked what it was. She first responded that she wasn't sure and would like to try to see the area again before saying. She was unable to get any view that would would confirm or deny her initial impressions. Then she told us she was just guessing.

I feel more confused now than before. I think I'm over wanting to know for sure. I just don't want to tell everyone it's going to one sex, have everyone buy things accordingly, and then have it turn out to be wrong. I keep emphasizing neutral gifts, but my wife's family is only hearing the sex and ignoring everything said after that.

When they say it's a boy, it usually is. When they say it's a girl, it's not as certain. And of course, the later the ultrasound, the more reliable it is. Ditto the quality, what with 4D scans and all.

My wife is an OB and she's never been wrong, but I hear she's more likely than most to call it inconclusive when other docs would go ahead and say it's a girl. Among her colleagues, most of them have had a couple times when the "girl" was born with a penis. There's one local doc, though, who told them it was a boy, and was wrong. That was about three years ago, and people still josh him about it.

Our first was ID'd as a boy but was a girl, the others we never asked.

Our daughte was being shy and kept her legs together. THe tech was persistent and finally got a good shot and made the call correctly.

It was confirmed in the ER right before the unplanned (almost emergency) C-section.

What they were wrong about in the ER was the weight. She has a big head and they were predicting 8+ pounds. She was only 6 lb 7 oz.

I know of four different ladies who got the wrong sex of the child from the technician
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Carm

I'm with JDC... what's the rush in finding out?

A birth has always been a major event, with various tradtions and ceremony associated with it. Part of the mystery and wonder of the event is in *not knowing* until she or he is ready to enter the world. Why diminish that just becasue you can?

And why do we need to BUY so much stuff before the child is born? Buy a few things, and then if you need to color coordinate with the gender, do so after the birth.

To me, it just seems wrong to use buying *things* as a justifcation of disclosing the sex of a child before it's necessary. If you family feels the need to do this, just ask them to keep the receipts.

There are medical reasons why you might want more detailed ultrasounds that reveal gender, but other than that I don't see the need to know in advance.

That said, any other view is equally valid... as this is clearly a personal decision.

Putting aside the question of whether one wants to know in advance -- I think we can all agree that spending money on gender-specific items based on an ultrasound is probably not the best idea.

Well, we didn't schedule this test with the sole purpose being the determination of the baby's sex. The doctor ordered the test to check the status of the fetus. The test was going to happen anyway. The only question was did we want to know the sex. We decided yes, we did. It's still a surprise at that point. Just as much as it's a surprise at birth. And, in a way, it still is a surprise because we really don't know at this point. I don't think the technician had a clue.

I don't think we need to buy much of anything, really, but some people want to shower the baby with gifts. We only even crated a registry upon the insistence of her family.

>"To me, it just seems wrong to use buying *things* as a justifcation of disclosing the sex of a child before it's necessary.

That is not what we are doing, nor was it the rationale or "justification" for knowing the baby's sex.

>"And why do we need to BUY so much stuff before the child is born? Buy a few things, and then if you need to color coordinate with the gender, do so after the birth."

Great! I'm all for that. Perhaps you could convey this to the people around me?

Arguing that we shouldn't do something because there is no "need" for it is a slippery slope. If we only did things that we "needed" to do, our lives would be very different. We don't really need houses as big as we have, or cars, or maybe even electricity. We just need basic shelter, water and food. It's doesn't even have to be good food or shelter. Just something that can sustain us. And then of course, many people that support zero population growth would argue that you really don't need to be having children at all. That is just something we want, but not need to do.

What you define as a need may be different from another's need.

...and having the 'right' body parts isn't determinable in an ultrasound either.

lol -- i think we all may have taken this out of context dharma =)

we just "assumed" why you were doing it without getting all the facts first.

congrats on the new babe -- whatever it turns out to be...

Again, I agree with JDC.

This is personal. So if you NEED to know (or rather *choose* to know) before hand, great. That's your choice.

It sort of sounded like finding out was incidental, and now that the cat is of out of the bag (sortof) the impulses of your family are getting away from you.

My point, if there was one, was why create an issue out of this unless there needs to be. When the child is born it's 99.9% certain you'll have an answer what sex your child is... and almost as certain you'll know what gender (since the two are not the same... I'm currently reading a great book about the subject called "She's Not there").

Seems to me, if the ultrasound is inconclusive it doesn't help much to announce the sex, since there is a good chance the announcement could be wrong. But I guess that depends on how the info is received by your family members. If you tell your family there is a degree of uncertainty in the technician's determination, and let them act on that. If they get carried away based on that, there's not much you can do.

My post above was in response to JDC's post, and not meant to tell you what to do. I'm sorry if it came across that way.

In response to you intial post, I too have seen NUMEROUS cases where the sex was identified one way in the ultrasound, and turned out different at birth.

Good luck, and congratualtions!

>"Seems to me, if the ultrasound is inconclusive it doesn't help much to announce the sex, since there is a good chance the announcement could be wrong."

Ah, the benefit of retrospect. I agree. Unfortunately, the family knew we were going to try to find out, so they were expecting an answer. We relayed what we were told. I emphasized that it was only a guess, but they aren't hearing that.

>"It sort of sounded like finding out was incidental, and now that the cat is of out of the bag (sortof) the impulses of your family are getting away from you."

Exactly.

I don't know that trying to find out the sex is "right" or "wrong" (not sure those are useful distinctions), but I have two thoughts on this now. First, reading ultrasound exams is fairly subjective and open to interpretation. I found several studies showing that depending on several factors they are somewhere between 70-85% accurate in determining the sex of the fetus. I think this is high based on all the anecdotal evidence I've heard. Second, if we decide to have another baby and if we decide we want to know the sex, I don't know that we would share that info with the extended family again knowing the decent chance that it could be wrong and their propensity to go nuts with the information.

if the tech asks somewhat spontaneiously while doing the test, it's usually a boy. think about it. due to Mrs. Buzz's advanced age, and other high risk health concerns, we got confirmation on Baby Buzz very early, so by the time the viewable ultrasounds came around, we had already known for a while. 24 min L&D for an over 40 first time mom... after three hours of trotting around Home Depot getting stuff for Baby Buzz's otherwise anticipated arrival three weeks later... keep the in-laws neutral, or wait for more positive confirmation, but enjoy the new kid regardless! congrats.

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Sometimes it is what it is...
and then there's times when it's really better.



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I had an ultrasound before my daughter was born, not to find out the gender, but they did ask if we wanted to know. I said yes and they said it was a girl. I told my husband not to go around telling everyone that it was for sure going to be a girl because an ultrasound is not 100% despositive, but he did anyway. We were lucky the doctor was correct, or we would have a boy that had a lot of little pink dresses.

I had already decided to do the nursery in a neutral animal theme, because I hate pink, so knowing the gender didn't matter to me for that reason.

As for needing to be surprised at the birth, 40 hours of labor followed by a C-section was enough of a surprise.

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Roswell, GA (Atlanta suburb)

The tech was correct with both my boys. In fact, everyone we know that found out was told correctly. The key is the timing in doing the ultrasound. Both times, it was done at the 5+ month mark.

Actually, the key is the fetus being in a position that allows viewing. My wife is at the end of month 5.

He might have liked all those pretty pink dresses ....

And some free panties, Newt ...