To find out, or not?

The last post I made was last January, almost exactly a year ago, when I announced our pregnancy! I feel like I should have kept up with posts on updates, but sometimes life just needed to be experienced, and not written about right away.

I've come across several posts on blogs, websites, etc. about whether or not to find out the sex of your baby. I totally get the reasons for letting it be a surprise on the day of birth, and I am happy for those that choose not to find out. I think it's great that they have that kind of patience, or whatever their reasoning is. I know all the reasons to wait... "It's how past generations did it before all this technology." "Your pregnancy shouldn't be about the gender, it should be about the fact that you have a baby growing in you!" "Pregnancies, baby showers, etc. have become too 'genderized,'" "When people are talking to you about your pregnancy, the most important question shouldn't be 'are you having a boy or girl'?" Etc etc.

Jake and I chose to find out. And whatever others' reasoning is for not finding out the sex, I really do not want to be made to feel guilty or bad about our decision, which is the vibe I get from many posts/articles. I feel like I shouldn't have to explain myself, but I'm going to anyway. (The same goes for her birth; I gave birth in a hospital, with an epidural, had vacuum assist, did not hold or breastfeed my baby right away [due to circumstances beyond my control; I had wanted to do so], and she did not stay in the room with us the first night. Several [but not all] of these things I already feel badly about and wish it could have gone differently, but I get tired of reading things that make me feel even more guilty about it...or when people chime in with their story - "I had an all natural birth of a 10 pound baby, twice! No episiotomy!" But this is another story, something I'll be sure to rant about if/when I post about her whole birth - still debating if I want to do this or not)

Anyway, back to finding out the sex.

The biggest thing for me was bonding. When we discovered I was pregnant, and for weeks afterward, I was happy, to an extent. I had known for a very, very long time that I wanted to be a mother, and the fact that it was going to happen was a joyful thing. However, I was having trouble bonding to the baby inside me. I didn't really feel like a mother for a while, and I think it's based on several things combined. One, morning sickness and extreme fatigue. I was hit with it very hard, and could hardly eat anything but Instant Noodles for weeks. I was so miserable that it was difficult to feel happy about being pregnant. Second, homesickness. We had only been living in Iowa for about two and a half months when we found out. I was already missing my family terribly, and knowing that I'd have a baby this far from them made me even more homesick. Third, the winter blues. That was the first winter I'd ever really experienced the winter blues, at least to this extent. I was depressed and tired and sick (obviously due to the pregnancy but made worse by my first experience with an Iowa winter and homesickness). I couldn't go outside to get fresh air and sunshine because I was utterly exhausted and sick, but also because there WAS no sunshine! November and December were freezing and rainy. Ugh. Anyway, these things combined may it hard to bond with the baby, and I think not knowing what it was (boy or girl) made it even more difficult.

I had read a list of pros and cons to finding out the sex versus waiting somewhere (Baby Center maybe?) and that one of the pros to finding out was that it can help you bond with the baby. So we decided to find out.

Our anatomy ultrasound was scheduled for when I was 20 weeks pregnant, which was when we would find out. However, we got rear-ended on our way to work when I was 19 weeks and a few days, and although we seemed fine, Jake took me in to the doctor just to make sure everything was okay with baby. Heartbeat was still strong but the doctor decided we'd benefit from an ultrasound just to make sure. She then asked if we wanted to do the anatomy ultrasound then, instead of waiting until the next week. We of course said yes, but I was so nervous; since we were doing it earlier, I was not prepared to know if it was a boy or a girl! I had been trying to prepare for a week later.

We went through the ultrasound, the tech describing what parts of the body she was looking at, and (thank the Lord), when everything looked great and as it should. Finally, she asked "Do you guys want to know what you're having?" Yes!

My heart was pounding and I could hardly contain myself. At first the baby was not in the best position to be able to tell, but the ultrasound tech jiggled my tummy a little with the wand to get the baby moving a little. Finally, she announced, "You guys are having a girl!" I immediately gasped and looked at Jake, and tears sprung to my eyes. After that I stopped paying attention to what was on the screen and what the tech was saying because I was in such a daze, but Jake later told me that she was pointing out the baby's "little girl parts" to us and describing how she knew. I was crying and when the jelly was wiped off my belly and I was standing up again, the tech handed me some tissues. I think I would have cried whether it was a boy or girl. I think I was just so happy to know what the baby inside me was.

After that I fell even more in love with her, just being able to say "she" and "her" instead of "it" made me feel like a mother. I think starting to show a bump also helped me bond, because there was more visible proof of the baby.

I have no doubt that I would have eventually bonded to the baby even if we had waited to find out, and know I would've fallen in love with her when she was born even though I wouldn't have known what to expect. But I strongly feel that it helped me through my pregnancy. In order to keep at least one thing a surprise for others, we decided to keep her name secret. It was fun for Jake and I to have that secret between us and to hear/see others' reactions after she was born when we introduced "Evelyn Matilda!"

Side note: Evelyn was a name that we both loved even before we met. Jake liked it from "The Mummy" and even calls her "Evie" like in the movie. I didn't have a specific place I heard it; i just liked it. Matilda came from my parents - when they were having children themselves, they had considered the name Matilda for all 3 of us. I remembered that story for years and I always liked it. My parents were tickled pink that we had given her that as her middle name.

This I know for sure: Whether or not you find out the sex, no matter how much you love the baby inside you, nothing compares to the love you feel when he/she is in your arms or sleeping on your chest or nursing on you and making little satisfied grunts. Beginning right after she was born and I first saw her big feet and thick hair and first heard her little cries while she was being suctioned, I was filled with such overwhelming love. They tell you, "There is no love like a mother's love for her child," and you can nod and agree, but you don't know until you're there. Seriously, sometimes I look at her and my heart feels like it is going to explode out of my chest. I can't contain it!

Anyway, the moral of the story is that I think that if you choose to be surprised on the baby's birth day what he/she is, GREAT! I admire you. If you choose to find out the sex while he/she is still in your belly, GREAT! Why not ? We might consider waiting to find out with our future babies. We'll see if impatience gets the better of us :)