Is it human or is it dancer?

[j4]

Tomorrow we'll hopefully find out whether the baby is an alien or a predator a boy or a girl. So far I have been told that:

* it'll be a girl because everybody I know has had girls recently
* it'll be a boy because everybody I know has had girls recently
* it'll be a girl because you get more morning sickness with girls
* it'll be a boy because of the position of the bump
* it'll be a girl because of the position of the bump
* it'll be a boy because 'boy' scores more in Scrabble

So that's two answers from people who don't understand probability, three answers which sound to me more like superstition than something which is backed up by any actual research (though I'm happy to be proved wrong), and invisiblechoir being silly. :-)

Two of my colleagues have a bet with each other about which it will be. I don't stand to gain any money from this bet myself, unfortunately. On the other hand, since earlier today one of them couldn't remember which way he'd bet (he'd decided at the time by tossing a coin) I don't think he's taking it that seriously. The other one asked me if I'd tried putting a toad on the bump to predict the baby's sex (I'm not sure quite what one is meant to do with the toad, or wait for the toad to do...?), so I guess he's not wholly serious either. I hope.

I confess I'm keen to know the answer, not least because referring to it as "it" feels awkward. Yes, I may get flamed for Gender Fail, but I'm afraid we're just not progressive enough to try to bring the child up without any awareness of the existence of sex or gender, and let's face it, there's a staggeringly high chance that it will be biologically male or female. Also, I'm going to have at least one more scan after tomorrow's, and I don't want to have to "look away from the screen now" for fear of spoiling the result -- I want to see what's going on! Basically, in most cases I will generally choose the path of More Information.

We also want to start thinking more seriously about names, and it'd be useful to narrow down the choices a bit. Other tactics for narrowing-down include: avoiding names with ambiguous spellings; avoiding extremely long names; avoiding alliteration; and summarily rejecting every single name that appears on this site. So that's a big 'no' to Breckin, Maxigan, Skyler Alexander, Cam'ron, and Kaytaquana. Suddenly, my silly suggestion of naming my child Badger doesn't seem all that ridiculous...

Comments

[aendr.livejournal.com]

I had dreams before the scan that Heather was either twins or an Andrex Puppy. I was relieved that she was indeed a single human. Twins are hard work, and I'd only just managed to persuade Alex not to run off with the toilet paper - I believe Andrex Puppies go through an awful lot of toilet paper.

Why not Alexander - or is that not "Skyler Alexander" and just "Alexander" is okay? Alex is one of those names where there will always be another in their school year. I'm not sure if that's good or bad, but at least it's spellable by all and sundry. (Though you'd think "Amanda" was, and at least one of my classmates spelt it "Amander" on a birthday card - I appreciated the card, but remember it 26 years later only because of the spelling.)

Everyone has an opinion - whether to find out, and whether girl or boy is best. And by everyone, once you're showing everyone includes the funny old lady at the bus stop, check out operators, Mrs Thingy from across the road and their grannies. You then get the name questions - and no matter what names you mention someone won't like it. It can be fun to play the awful name game with particularly difficult or gullible people.

[j4.livejournal.com]

either twins or an Andrex Puppy

<grin/>

I'm assured that the Weird Baby Dreams are quite common/normal, but I haven't had any yet. OK, I did have a dream that I'd already had the baby, but that was just a bit of a disappointment when I woke up & realised I still had another 20 weeks to go. :-}

Why not Alexander - or is that not "Skyler Alexander" and just "Alexander" is okay?

Ah no, "Alexander" is fine! It's just "Skyler Alexander" ... OK, it's the "Skyler" that is the problem, obviously, but it doesn't even fit nicely with the "Alexander".

I have a cousin called Alex, though, so that name's 'taken' in our family (I don't want to duplicate existing names within the most recent couple of generations, partly for variety and partly for avoiding the appearance of favouritism).

Everyone has an opinion - whether to find out, and whether girl or boy is best.

Well, too late for them to tell me not to find out (I don't mind what other people do!), & neither is "best", they're just different. :) Fortunately I am still small-bumped enough that I am not getting random strangers shoving their opinions down my throat yet...

no matter what names you mention someone won't like it

Tough! Mind you, no matter what we choose, at some point $child will probably decide they hate it too... :-}

[hilarityallen.livejournal.com]

Mind you, no matter what we choose, at some point $child will probably decide they hate it too.

True. While I love my name now, I did go through a phase of wishing I was called something else :)

[taimatsu]

I never decided I hated my name - I wonder why? My brothers stuck with theirs, too, although my parents actually gave middle brother an opt-out - he's Giles Benedict, deliberately so that he could have been Ben if Giles was problematic. Hugo didn't get that option, though - his middle is Aelred.