Today Jeff and I were hanging out with the kiddos and talking about how lucky we are to be blessed with our beautiful girl and sweet baby boy. Jeff was asking me if I remembered that moment in the delivery room when he told me we had a little boy and it brought back memories of that amazing day and moment. It got me thinking about our reasons for not wanting to find out the sex before our babies were born and how strange that seemed to most people since it seems like the majority of parents find out the sex ahead of time these days.
For us, we felt that there are so few surprises left in life that we wanted to hold out until the end. Many argue that "its a surprise no matter when you find out" which I definitely think is true, however, I honestly believe that nothing can top the experience of finding out the sex of your newborn child amongst the other emotions of becoming a parent. The added anticipation of nine months of wondering, guessing and hoping all built up to that one moment in which my husband was able to hand me my newborn baby and tell me first "It's a GIRL!" and the next time "It's a BOY!" I truly cannot put into words the emotion and overwhelming love that we both felt at that special time.
In my case, both pregnancies resulted in upwards of ten ultrasounds and ended in inductions so we had many sneak peeks at our little ones and ended up knowing exactly when they were coming so we enjoyed having the surprise of not knowing whether we would be holding a baby boy or baby girl in our arms as we pulled up to the hospital for our scheduled inductions.
Others will say that they were able to bond better with their unborn child after knowing whether it was a boy or a girl. I suppose I cannot really comment on this since I only have my experience, but I feel as though I was able to bond with my little ones just as much without knowing their genders. To me, bonding was feeling those sweet little kicks and hiccups and noticing the little knees and elbows as they shifted and rolled.
The planner in me of course would have benefitted from being prepared when baby arrived with gender specific clothes and accessories had we known the sex but you know, we received SO many gifts of clothing once our kiddos were born that this really wasn't an issue. In fact, even if we had known Ella was going to be a girl, we would have had to run out and buy new clothes after she was born anyway because she wasn't able to fit into newborn sizes and needed all preemie clothing for the first month. So much for planning! :)
I guess all I want to say is that I am SO glad that we chose to wait to find out what we were having. Those precious memories that Jeff and I shared immediately after delivery upon learning that we were blessed first with a beautiful daughter and then an amazing son are memories that I will treasure always. I truly believe that there will be very few moments if any in our lives that will rival the intensity and pure joy that we experienced on those special days. For us, the outcomes were absolutely perfect and we wouldn't have it any other day. We were so blessed with our two little surprises. :)
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