As corny as sounds, all I truly wanted was healthy babies who would grow up to be successful and happy at whatever they chose and find equal opportunities, be they male or female.
This quote really resonates with me because this is what I personally believe in. I believe that gender is not important and what matters most is that your future baby is healthy and that we all cross our fingers and hope they will become good people and find equal opportunities in whatever they choose to pursue.
Finding out the gender of their unborn child was an option earlier generations didn’t have. Pregnant women had to rely on the old wives’ tales of how you were carrying (all up front like a basketball, it’s a boy; spread out around your middle, it’s a girl) and whether or not you had morning sickness (if so, it’s a girl; if no, it’s a boy), and wait full term to discover the happy little secret.
I find this hysterical because it's still extremely common to this day in Spanish homes. The older generations do not tend to follow what doctors say because they believe doctors can be wrong. There is always this story "I knew someone, that knew someone that was pregnant and the doctor said it would be a boy and then on the day she gave birth it was a girl" no matter the proof you have from the doctors and no matter if they're 100% positive on what you're having.. the older generation will follow this "old wives tale".
After accepting their well wishes and answering the first question (the predictable, “When are you due?”), I knew what inevitably would come next. “Do you know what you’re having?” “A lawyer,” I often answered. Or, “a doctor.” Occasionally, I’d say, “a rock guitarist.”
I love this idea of having a conversation while pregnant and the moment someone asks "Do you know what you're having" responding with something like "I don't know maybe a lawyer? an accountant? a surgeon?" It just all goes back to the understanding that what matters most is health and who you are as a person, your gender does not define who you are nor who you will become. I personally would love to have this awkward conversation in the future and look forward to it. I think it'll give people something to think about.. like "shes right.. it doesn't matter if its a boy or a girl. What matters most is that they're healthy and hopefully they become someone awesome and become a good person".
Tons of people now organize gender reveal celebrations, where the parents-to-be cut into either a pink or blue cake to learn their future baby’s sex along with a crowd.
I'm personally anti gender reveal parties. I think they're stupid. My current partner is super excited about gender reveal parties and always sends me ideas of what our gender reveal party should be like the day we're expecting. However, I don't mind the surprise because at the end of the day I am doing to love my baby no matter what. If we do have a gender reveal party maybe we'll just do yellow balloons and keep everyone guessing till the due date... or maybe I won't attend my own party..ha
And most it seems want to find out what they’re carrying before the baby arrives into a gender-specific world of pink and blue everything from birth announcements to diapers, tiny tees to toys.
It bothers me a lot to why before birth a baby has to conform to this "gender-specific world" where pink defines a girl and where blue defines a boy. I work with children and all the boys love blue and all the girls love pink. Its like children are having these colors drilled into their head in order to define who they are a female or a male. Every now and then I'll have a little girl who's favorite color is something random like orange. This shows that parents aren't conforming to what society has told us describes a girl and a boy. I've had conversations with individuals that believe that if a little girl likes the color blue when she is little this is automatically eliminating her from being heterosexual. I have no idea how this train of thought even begins nor how people can believe that a color defines your gender.
Thanks to modern technology, pretty much every mother-to-be these days has either an ultrasound, an amnio or both, so the opportunity is there to find out the sex of their unborn baby.
I find this very interesting because technology is advancing so much in this aspect that if we have the money we could pick out our own childs gender. Ultrasounds and amniocentesis' were created to help see if the baby was healthy in the womb and to see if there were any deformities to help prepare families before the birth; however, now people are using these medical tests that were created to see if the baby is healthy prior to birth, for gender reveal parties.