Surprises in general are one of the best things in life, but getting to experience a surprise gender baby is by far, hands down the most magical, true surprises in life that you have absolutely NO control over. I get asked almost daily why/how we did surprise gender’s for the 3 boys and I wanted to put it all down in a post for you guys so you can always have it to share with anyone trying to decide or read for yourself if you are trying to decide if this is the right choice for you!
This is honestly one of my most requested blog posts that I just haven’t had the chance to sit down and write! People ask us all the time how we were able to do this 1 time let alone 3 so I wanted to share with all of you what we did to help!
When I got pregnant with Greleigh my husband was very adamant that he wanted to keep her gender a surprise until birth and to be honest I just couldn’t! I had waited my entire life it seemed to have my own baby and I needed to know what sweet little baby I was carrying. He of course agreed and we found out together and then shared with the rest of our family/friends via a cupcake gender reveal! It was so fun and I of course loved knowing but honestly if I could go back and do it all again I would wait until delivery day every time!
So as soon as we got pregnant with Kaige my husband again wanted to wait until delivery and at this point gender reveals had taken the world by storm….and I do mean by storm! There were the most unique, off the wall ways that people were telling the world the gender of their baby and people were loving it. At that point I knew I wanted to go against the grain, I wanted that TRUE surprise where they laid a sweet, fresh from Heaven baby on my chest and let my husband tell me what we had created! Here is some info provided by Pregnancy Resource Center that you need help from to make the right decision.
Then once I had done it once I was hooked. There is nothing like the anticipation of delivery day coupled with the fact of not knowing the gender. I mean nothing. It is a truly breath taking moment that I will never forget. Gender’s are special in the fact that the one and true Creator is the only one that knows what is being knit in your womb so perfectly and that alone gives me chills!
Now, I’ll be honest, it’s hard. It’s so hard waiting. It’s so hard going to sonograms and wanting so badly to take a peak or to just tell the sonogpraher to just tell you but I promise you one thing. I have never met anyone who has done a surprise gender that has regretted it. True surprises are just so few and far between and this one is life changing!
TIPS FOR A SUCCESSFUL SURPRISE GENDER PREGNANCY
1.Don’t let anyone make you feel less than about your decision!
Some of you may not understand what I mean by this but I can not tell you the amount of people, heck even friends who would say “oh gosh I could never do this I’m just too much of a planner” Almost in a way that made me feel like they thought I was just some fly by the seat of my pants, no planner mom who would have nothing prepared for my children. Well let me give you some insight…babies don’t need a plan. They need love, food, diapers, a few onesies and none of that has to be gender specific. Most of the time people say this because truthfully they themselves wanted a surprise gender but couldn’t hold out!
2. Don’t deprive yourself of shopping!
This is the other thing. People were always like “oh I have to shop for my baby” Well again, let me blow your mind! I too shopped for my 3 surprise gender babies! If I saw something girly I couldn’t live without I bought it and same went for boy clothes.
3. Gender Neutral Nursery
I have had a nursery for each baby except Sway because our house isn’t finished yet and we are out of bedrooms but I got to decorate a nursery each time and they were all super neutral and perfect! I mean I don’t go overboard on nurseries because lets be honest I just don’t have time now! Now is the perfect time for this becuase the neutral nurseries are in no more than ever so it’s the perfect time for that gray and white nursery that you can add boy colors to or girly things!
4. Make your decision and stay strong!
Once we made our decision we never even talked about finding out again. We would say things like “oh I can’t wait to see what he/she looks like” or things like that but we never let that temptation get the best of us even of those days where we could have found out in a split second.
5. Make it known upon enter the sonogram room before you even sit down.
My first words to every sonographer over the course of 3 pregnancies was this ” Hi, we don’t know the gender, don’t want to know the gender so please don’t ruin it for us” I mean before I even sat down in the chair I made sure there was NO confusion because after you make this choice it can/would be heartbreaking for a slip up to happen and ruin your surprise!
6. Buy one thing personalized!
For each of my surprise gender babes I bought one thing personalized to bring to the hospital. I didn’t want to miss out on that cute little touch in announcing to the world our babies names so I made one for each. We have had the same girl name since the 2nd pregnancy and to be honest I will most likely never share it. I can’t even begin to tell you the amount of messages I received the day after Sway was born asking the girl name. At this point I just have an emotional connection to it and don’t know how it would feel if I shared it and someone used it so for now it’s remaining a secret. It was an S, but not Sway! It was just coincidental that we ended up choosing Sway because like I said we’ve had the other name for almost 5 years! It’s also very unique and we’ve never heard it before! I’m hoping maybe one day one of my kids will use it for their little girl! We will see how that goes! 🙂 I’m totally prepared for them to be like….um, no mom thanks anyway! lol
Another question I got a lot was did the Dr. know since they would write a report from the 20 week anatomy scan. The answer is no. The sonographer would simply write ” normal gender anatomy”. So to be honest this makes things even more fun in the hospital as well. So many people don’t wait anymore so our doctor was super excited, we had nurses that would come in during the process and take guesses and then even come back the next day to the postpartum floor to see what we had.
Experiencing a surprise gender is truly my favorite moments of life! Yes it’s hard waiting but the wait is beyond worth it! It is just truly the best surprise I’ve ever experienced in my life and I would do it 100x over! If you have any other questions/concerns for planning a surprise gender baby then please comment and I’d love to help!
Here are some of my favorite things to buy for hospital announcement!
USE CODE SWAY15 FOR NAME HAT
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