Short & Furious Travels

At this point in my pregnancy, if I wanted to, I could finally answer the big question I've been getting -- are we having a boy or a girl? But again, call me quirky, weird, tyrannical whatever it may be, I'm not going to find out. Yup, that's right. I don't want to know.

This decision has been controversial to say the least and I've been getting less than pleasant reactions from family, friends and even Josh. But I'll confess... I didn't always feel this way. When I first got pregnant, I really wanted to know. The whole spiel about how great of a surprise it'd be and that it was worth the wait.... Simply put, I thought it was full of shit. But as my pregnancy progressed I started to realize a few things that cemented my decision.

"SO WHY IN THE HELL WOULDN'T I WANT TO KNOW?!" Well, here are some answers.

6. The Games We Play
In the absence of an ultrasound, there's a lot of games and old wives tales that can predict the sex of your baby. For example, people say if you're "carrying high" it's a girl, and if it's low it's a boy. There's also those theories about your cravings and symptoms. I enjoy it when Josh comes home with the latest wives tale or theory. It shows how engaged and excited he is about this. It's funny to see him believe the findings so much and chances are, 50% of the time, he'll be right.

5. Destroying Stereotypes
My husband's reason for wanting to know if we're having a boy or girl is so he can mentally prepare for parenthood. He's got some preconceived notions about what it's like to raise a boy versus a girl. If he found out we're having a boy he'll brush up on little league rules or scout karate dojos and if it's a girl he'll probably get a gun or start practicing that threatening speech he'll give to her prom date. Not finding out the sex cuts off this type of thinking completely. Just because you're having a girl doesn't mean she can't join little league and he can't coach the team. Hell, if our boy wanted to start ballet classes with all the girls in Easton, I'd pay for the damn overrated classes and proudly go to the recitals. I want to raise our child to be and do what they'd choose to do, not what society thinks they should do because of their sex or gender. The only way to do that is to cut out all the crap we as parents have in our heads about boys and girls and just go with it.

4. Disappointment? What Disappointment?
My boss thinks that if I'm hoping for a boy or a girl in particular finding out early will give me time to prepare for the disappointment. In fact, he used this excuse on our admin and convinced her to find out even though she didn't want to at first. But I disagree. When you've been in labor for hours, you just squeezed a watermelon out a toothpaste opening and your baby finally arrives, you're so overwhelmed with emotions I doubt you'd give a shit whether you got what you wanted. The same goes for your spouse and relatives. It's hard to be disappointed when you're holding new life in your hands but I bet it's easy to do so when you find out half way through your pregnancy you're not getting what you "wanted".

3. Added Motivation in the Delivery Room
I'm a wuss when it comes to pain and I'm petrified of labor. People told me I won't need the motivation to push but I guess they don't know me. Personally, I believe the thought finally finding out what my baby is will give me that extra smidgen of motivation. It will also help me focus more on the positive of meeting my kid and less on how much unfair mother nature is or how I hate Josh for his inability to give birth..

2. For the love of god why does it have to be pink or blue?
I've had family members give us grief about the fact that they won't know what color to buy. What the hell is wrong with buying something that's white, green, orange or red? In fact, what is wrong with a girl wearing a blue romper or a boy donning a pink bib. Nothing.. that's my answer. Clearance and sale, that's the color the kid will be sporting.  Some folks may already buy gender neutral items as a rule of thumb but I'm not blessed with those kind of relatives. So if people don't know what it is they'll be forced to think outside of the box and buy something gender neutral.

1. People are pissed off about it and I relish such evilness
People are uncomfortable with not knowing the sex of our baby. In fact they are down right angry I'm not finding out. They've told me I'm ridiculous, I'm wrong and they come up with every solution under the sun to address my concerns so that they can find out. Making people uncomfortable, angry and giving societal norms the middle finger is basically one of the few joys I have in this life. So I revel in their discomfort, I feed off their anger and I relish my evilness.