This pregnancy is half behind me now and I tentatively look forward to the next 20 weeks. Week 20 is a big week for most pregnant women because it’s the week they find out the sex of the baby should they chose to.
I am someone who wants to know what I can, if I can. If I can find out about our baby’s occupation and who he or she will marry, how many kids they will have or not, I would too. Surprises are not for me. With that being said, I have no particular preferences of a boy or girl. I keep bouncing the thought of having a little boy to a little girl for obvious reasons. If we have another boy, I would selfishly be the only princess in the family and be surrounded by my handsome princes. On the other hand, a little girl would be nice only for my own shallow reasons like giving me an excuse to buy all those very cute girls outfits (that happen to take up most of the space in kids stores).
Since week 12, I’ve had a feeling that I was carrying a boy. These feelings come from various sources that you could say are ‘old wives tales’, but I take these sources very seriously. The first was an appearance of a line on my palm that represents a male child. In my past time (and past life), I used to study palmistry until I got bombard with requests to read every Tom, Dick and Harry who found out that I can read palms. After that, I went underground and decided not to advertise or read anyone’s palms anymore (with some exceptions). I’ve never been wrong when reading people’s palms so I didn’t see how I could be wrong in reading my own palm.
The second source was from my mother-in-law who has a theory about ovulation and conception. She swears that she has a 100% success rate and with 6 kids (3 boys and 3 girls) with the sexes she chose, who am I to argue? She’s recommended this theory to others who’ve all managed to conceive with the chosen sex of their baby. Here is her theory: She says that if you have intercourse BEFORE ovulation and conceive, then you will have a boy. However, if you conceive AFTER ovulation, then you will have a girl. The week that I happen to be ovulating, it was the last week of January 2009 when we had a heat wave in Melbourne and temperatures were between 43 and 45 degrees celcius for a consecutive 4 days. After a few attempts of trying to get pregnant, we just decided it was too hot to be doing anything in bed other than trying to stay cool! By the time I was at my peak ovulation period, we just said enough was enough and there was such a thing as it being too hot for sex! Hence, conception could only have occurred before ovulation. So according to my mother-in-law’s theory, we would be having a boy.
The other source is the Chinese Birth Calendar. This calendar tells you what sex you will conceive depending on the month of conception and the mother’s birth age at the time of conception. According to the Chinese Birth Calendar, we would have a boy (conceived in January to my age of 31 at the time of conception).
With all this being said, it was time to confirm my suspicions at the week 20 ultrasound. Surprise Surprise, or should I say, No Surprise No Surprise, I saw a very obvious penis between our son’s legs.
I have no doubt of the joy in finding out the sex of your child after the delivery and it would be just as powerful as finding out now. However, for us, the chance to imagine the baby as a him for the next 20 weeks is a luxury that I wouldn’t trade for the world.
