I am lucky. I have a beautiful son who I love to bits. But it was nothing like I imagined. Not just the fact that motherhood is nothing like I had thought it would be but the fact that having a son was never in my life plan. Not when I was a little girl playing mum and not when I was pregnant.
I grew up with two sisters and playing mummy was one of my favourite games. I always played with girl dolls, I dressed my dolls in pink babygros, I swaddled them in pink blankets. I named them the most feminine names I could think of and I never ever confused them for boys.
So when I was pregnant I just assumed I was having a girl and I was thrilled. I imagined my relationship with my daughter in quite some detail so when I went for my 18 week scan it was almost as an aside that I asked them to confirm that the little baby growing inside me was indeed a girl.
I was shocked that my baby had a penis. Shocked and petrified.
I called my sister – she has always been the best person to help me deal with myself and she calmly and rationally told me “a baby is a baby, it makes no difference if it’s a girl or a boy, your baby will love you and you will love him”.
I don’t regret finding out his sex (and I certainly don’t regret him being a boy) because when he was born 10 weeks early, I certainly didn’t need any more surprises. I was also ecstatic that I had found out early in the piece because I was totally at peace with the fact that he was a boy by the time he was born.
But my reasoning for finding out his gender wasn’t sinister, it was curious and it was important to me because I don’t like surprises.
However the practice of “selectively aborting” foetuses (usually female) as a way choosing the sex of a child has reached such worrying proportions in some former Soviet states that members of the Council of Europe Committee have passed a draft resolution instructing medical staff to “withhold information about the sex of the foetus”. The resolution states that prenatal sex selection should only be allowed in order to avoid serious hereditary disease linked to one sex.
The recommendation covers all 47 member states of the Council of Europe Committee. (The Committee is based in France and covers virtually the entire European continent meaning that if the resolution is passed, most European countries will be blocked from telling expectant parents whether they are carrying a boy or a girl.)
The Council of Europe can’t impose binding orders on governments but is highly influential in policy-making. The draft resolution by the council’s equal opportunities committee will now go before the council’s full Parliamentary Assembly for approval next month.
Would you want to know the sex of your baby before it was born? If you have a child did you find out what you were having before you delivered?
Top Comments
I have 2 sons. My husband and I didn't find out for our first. I wanted to find out, but hubby didn't so we decided together not to find out. And i Loved the surprise of "It's a boy!"
For our 2nd, I wanted to know but my husband didn't. And as he didn't come to as many appointments this time, he said if I wanted to find out I could. But he didn't want to know. As luck would have it, my husband couldn't make it to the 20 week scan so I found out. I didn't tell him I knew, I didn't tell a soul! After our gorgeous son was born, I told my husband that I knew and he was fine about it. He actually started thinking back over the 20 weeks to see if he could remember me slipping up. He said I did a great job!
If I can talk hubby into baby no. 3, there is no way I'd find out. I don't regret finding out, it's just more of a surprise at the 40 week mark!
But, each to their own!
My husband and I chose not to find out the sex of our beautiful baby girl and our reasoning was you don't have many "happy surprises" in life ... we'd lost our house in the Brisbane flood and I had unexpected lost my brother a few years before. And it was the most incredibly amazing moment when my husband told me "its a little girl!" But what annoyed me so much was, all throughout my pregnancy, the look I would get - like I had two heads - when I would answer no when people asked if we knew the sex. Even in our anti natal class - where we were the only couple out of 12 who didn't know. I was so sick of "but how can you possibly get organised?" I think not finding out the sex should be the majority - not the minority but if you do want to find out - each to their own!