To find out or be surprised?

Our "big" ultrasound is scheduled for Friday.  Normally, the question on everyone's mind is what kind of baby are you having: pink or blue, brother or sister.

The other three times we've done the big ultrasound, we've gone in wanting and expecting to find out.  Twice, (with Abby and Max,) our intuition proved correct.  When I was pregnant with Ashlynn, neither one of us were certain until we saw the ultrasound.

Now my husband is pretty tolerant with some of my more crunchy habits, especially when it comes to pregnancy and childbirth.  He knows how much homebirth means to me, and lets me go along with what I think is best, with few exceptions.  And since he so rarely has a strong opinion, when he does, I know I have to stand up and listen.

Except for the fact that he doesn't want to know if we're having a boy or a girl.

He wants to be surprised!

His theory is that since this is our last, and since we have some of each, there's no reason why we shouldn't wait until the birth to find out. 

Problem is, it's killing me not to know!  And I have absolutely no intuition either way, so I really do think we're going to end up being surprised. 

The girls are dying for a baby sister.  Ashlynn's reasoning is that she doesn't know what it's like to have a baby sister, because she's only ever had a baby brother.  They ask me almost every day when we're going to know if they're having a brother or sister, and then groan when I remind them that we're probably going to have to wait until December to find out. 

When I first found out we were having another baby, I could have sworn up and down that we were having another boy.  After all, in my neighborhood, there are at least ten boys to every girl.  Over the weekend, we went for a cookout with three other families, and there were fifteen kids between us.  Only three are girls, and two of them belong to us.  It's a big joke around our neighborhood that we just don't know how to make girls.

Although the past few weeks, I'm feeling much more girly.

In the beginning, Tom was thinking girl, and now he's convinced we're having another boy. 

I keep telling him that it will just take one little peek and we'll end months of wondering.  He always laughs, and asks why we would want to miss out on five more months of these discussions.

I've been to several births as a doula where the parents didn't know their baby's gender beforehand, and they were always so fun.  Not only were they meeting the baby they'd been growing for nine months, but they also got to find out who that baby was.  And announcing the birth had the extra excitement of "It's a Girl!" or "It's a Boy!" instead of just telling everyone that the baby had been born.

But still.

I'm dying to buy teeny-tiny clothes, and I can't justify it because we have more than enough boy clothes, and I want to buy clothes in colors other than green and yellow!

Maybe not knowing will be great incentive when I'm in that "Why did I ever think a natural birth was a good idea and I just can't do this anymore" stage.   And deciding on both a boy and a girl name has given us and our families plenty of discussion material.

But I still can't help but hope that the technician slips on Friday.

How about you?  Did you know what you were having?  Did you ever want to be surprised?