Not long after my husband and I told everyone that we were expecting our first baby, many wanted to know if we were going to find out what the sex is. Sorry, are you asking me if I know what sex is? I was under the impression that that's how I got preggers to start with! Oh, you mean the gender of the child! The answer to all was, heck yes.
Are you kidding me? If knowledge is to be had, then I'll have it, thank you very much. I can't even pass a book on a table without looking to see what the title is, let alone claim that I can hold back knowing if the little life growing inside of me is a boy or girl.
Surprisingly, most people have said to me, "No. You mustn't find out. You'll ruin the surprise." Excuse me, you don't think there'll be enough surprises as it is after birth? Sleepless nights, endless bawling, dirty nappies, painful boobs and cuts in places that I can't mention here! I'll take my surprise at 19 weeks, then enjoy and relish it until all the stuff I've just mentioned kicks in! What's it to other people anyway? If they don't want to know, then I won't tell them. If they find out from others, then tough!
I've also had a fair amount of predictions come my way. Two ladies rushed up to me in a supermarket and insisted that it was a girl because my belly was "round like an apple". Someone made me lay down on the sofa, removed my wedding ring (this was before fat-finger syndrome kicked in), tied it on a string, and held it over my tummy to see if it would move around in circles or up and down. The latter would indicate a boy. The former is what occurred.
A friend of mine who has a son and a daughter asked me to check the areola of my breasts to see if they had darkened. No, they had not. "It's a girl then, for sure. Everyone I know who's had boys answered yes." Another person said, "If you feel that your looks are gone, then it has to be a girl. A boy would not steal his mother's looks." That's all subjective though, and there was never any conclusion on that one. I'm not sure that's a good thing!
The most unscientific and implausible of all the predictions I got was from a Chinese calendar. Some people believe strongly in this hocus pocus garbage, all because it was correct for 'nine people I know'. If you check out the rules of statistics and probability ('A' in A'level maths, I might add), then you'll soon learn that you can toss a coin and get nine heads in a row.
According to this ancient method, which cross-references the mother's lunar age with the month of conception, I am having a girl. This insinuates that every woman in the world who is the same age as I am and who conceived in the same month is having a daughter!
Isn't it the man's sperm that determines the gender? Let's say a woman wants to go to a cryobank and fertility clinic. She could choose between having a son or daughter, look at the calendar, and go through the process of insemination in the month that suited her preference. Come on people!
By the way, it's definitely a boy!
Emmadaltonbrown@gmail.com