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

[vinaigrettegirl.livejournal.com]

No, I don't mind answering at all. Lots of reasons: not creating another rod for my own back dealing with other people's bullshit about gender and gender policing was high on my list. Total strangers will talk any old crap to pregnant women...

I wanted to accept the baby full stop without placing a load of gender-based preconditioned thoughts of my own on it. I'm a feminist, full on, so if it was a boy he was going to understand that women are human beings; if a girl, she would be human and know how to be so, strongly, in a world full of essentialist "gender complementarity" myths. So, my way forward being clear in my own mind, I didn't want to complicate my life with worrying more about those details.

Also, I wanted the surprise!

Funniest thing EVER: the acquaintance who said "you're such a feminist, I was so sure you'd just to have to have a girl".

[j4.livejournal.com]

not creating another rod for my own back dealing with other people's bullshit about gender and gender policing

Mm. I fear that bullshit will turn up anyway, though -- and to be honest I think that, tired as I am, I've probably got more time/energy to deal with it now than I will have after two years without a single night of unbroken sleep. :-}

I wanted to accept the baby full stop without placing a load of gender-based preconditioned thoughts of my own on it. I'm a feminist, full on, so if it was a boy he was going to understand that women are human beings; if a girl, she would be human and know how to be so, strongly, in a world full of essentialist "gender complementarity" myths.

These both sound like excellent wishes and intentions; I sincerely hope that knowing the baby's sex now isn't going to stop me accepting it fully or teaching it sensible things when it's old enough to learn them!

(I find I still keep saying "it" even though I now know what sort of "it" it is, & I think that's at least partly because I'm wary of projecting a personality on to it before it has a chance to develop one. Also I do know that determining the sex from the scan isn't a 100%-foolproof thing and it still could turn out to be a boy...)

[vinaigrettegirl.livejournal.com]

The projecting-personality issue was/is an issue. You've put it well. I really, really didn't want to have the internal dialogue in my head for months: I didn't have that headspace and there were so many more things going on that tge sex of the foetus was the least to consider and nothing to be done anyway.

So far, the feminism has "taken", given the milieu he's in. We won't know unril he's older and making more independent choices, I guess. But he'll know contraception is his responsibility and how to do his own laundry...

[j4.livejournal.com]

sex of the foetus was the least to consider and nothing to be done anyway

Seems entirely sensible. I don't think knowing is going to make that much difference to me, to be honest -- as you say, there's nothing I was likely to do about it, I wasn't planning to paint the nursery pink/blue (the "nursery", ha ha, yeah right, I will clear the junkroom eventually, honest). I didn't really have a good reason for wanting to know ... I just wanted to know, cos I am curious. :)

he'll know contraception is his responsibility and how to do his own laundry...

Contraception and laundry... I approve of your education priorities. :-D