Homage to Old Wives

Tomorrow is the big day — we find out the gender of our third child.

I actually did not want to know for the longest time.  We knew the gender of both girls ahead of time, and I thought it would be fun to be surprised this time around.  But now that the time is approaching, I’m getting more and more excited to learn.

People keep coming up to us (strangers and acquaintances) and making statements like, “maybe this time you’ll finally get your boy.”  I just give them weird looks and change the subject.  I don’t understand why people think that just because we have two girls we would be disappointed to learn that this little one is a girl.

Honestly, I think I will be very excited no matter which way things go.

On the one hand, it would be fun to have a boy and embark on a whole new parenthood journey.  We have a lot of sugar and spice; perhaps some snails and puppy dog tails would spice things up a bit.  But on the other hand, what could be sweeter than three little girls?  As I said, we have plenty of sugar and spice, but those happen to be two of my favorite things.  Either way things work out, we are so blessed to be able to do this for a third time.

But since I’m so excited to learn the gender and I can’t will tomorrow to come any faster, I thought I would indulge in some good old fashioned wives tales about determining gender.

The first I thought I would go with is the Chinese Gender Chart.  Supposedly this chart is 700 years old and uses your age at conception and month of conception to determine the gender.  If I remember correctly, this chart did accurately predict the gender of both girls, and this time around, it says, BOY.

Next, I’ll go with dreams.  Since my sister and her dreams accurately predicted the gender of Magoo and the Goose, I’ll give her dreams some merit.  Her dream this time around predicted a BOY.  I honestly don’t remember if I had dreams about the girls’ genders, but I did this time, and this dream predicted a GIRL.

There is also an old wives tale that says that you can determine the gender based upon fetal heartbeat.  The theory says that a fetal heart rate over 140 signifies that it is a girl.  In terms of how to interpret this, I’m a bit up in the air.  Magoo’s heart rate was generally in the 160s, and the Goose’s was in the low 170s or higher 160s.  This would lend credence to this theory.  But I don’t know where to go from here.  See, at our last appointment, this little one’s heart rate was 145.  It is definitely over 140 leading one to believe it is a GIRLS’s heart rate; however, since it is almost 20 beats per minute lower than both girls, perhaps it could be a BOY.  I will have to say this one is not able to be determined.

And on we move to cravings.  Some say that craving sweets means that you are having a girl whereas if you crave spicy and salty food, you are having a boy.  I can’t really give much weight to this because according to this theory, both of my girls would be boys.  And I don’t even know what I would be having this time around as I have been craving meat.  However, according to Livestrong, craving meat (or any type of protein) is a sign that you are having a BOY, and so I will have to go with that.

Next, TJ and I just tried the wedding ring experiment.  TJ dangled my wedding ring by a piece of thread over my belly.  According to the old wive’s tale, if the ring swings in a circular motion, it’s a girl, and if it swings back and forth, it’s a boy.  According to this, it was very clearly a BOY.

And lastly, we’ll go with good old maternal instinct.  This pregnancy has been extremely different from my last two.  With the girls, I was very nauseous throughout the whole first trimester, and this time, I had a stomach of steel leading me to believe that this little one is a boy.  Plus, somewhere deep inside, I have always had the hunch that I would have two girls and then a boy.  And so based upon my motherly instinct and my gut feeling,  I will have to say that it is a GIRL because I am always wrong about these things.