When I was pregnant with Belle, we found out at our 20 week scan that we were having a girl. We had initially decided not to find out but as we got closer and closer to that appointment we both cracked and asked straightaway what we were having. I am incredibly impatient and I couldn’t stand the thought that the random person doing the scan would know something so personal about our baby and we wouldn’t!

Finding out the gender of that little bean was SO much fun. It was like the excitement of finding out that you are pregnant all over again when you discover the gender. We went out for lunch afterwards and called all of the family to share the exciting news. I really enjoyed knowing the gender with Belle. Everything somehow felt more real and I felt closer to her as I started to say ‘her’ and ‘she’ instead of ‘them’ or worse, ‘it’!

Jono started to feel so much more involved in the whole pregnancy once we knew the gender. We could scrap the list of boy’s names and start to shortlist a name for our little girl. He felt that he could properly start to bond with not just ‘the baby’ but his little girl before she arrived. Just how we still didn’t have a name for her when she was born I will never understand.

There is SO much waiting involved in pregnancy (especially when you get all the way to 42 weeks) and so having to wait for something extra was just not for me.

However, when we found out that baby Wylie number two was on the way we thought that it might be fun to experience the whole baby gender thing the other way around. So, we decided not to find out the gender and go for the ultimate big surprise on THE BIG DAY.

God willing, we don’t feel that this is our last baby and so I honestly don’t have a preference either way. Belle and this baby are going to be around 21 months apart and so (thankfully) she is far too little to have an opinion on the matter. She only just understands that there is a baby in Mummy’s tummy, and to be honest I’m sure there are times she thinks that I have eaten a baby. That said, we are reading lots of ‘new baby’ and ‘big sister’ books with her, playing with baby dolls and teaching her to be gentle with my tummy and she is slowly starting to understand it. When we ask her where the baby is, she runs over to the fridge and kisses the scan photo which always melts my heart.

For now the verdict is definitely still out as to which way is better. I have lots of moments when I wish that we had found out at the last scan and I think not knowing the gender makes this baby feel much less ‘real’. However, I am excited to experience giving birth and meeting baby Wylie, whoever they are, for the first time and discovering whether we have a son or a daughter in that special moment.

I will keep you posted and let you know my thoughts on the whole finding out/not finding out thing when I have seen both options the whole way through.

So no big gender reveal from us… I guess that we will ALL just have to wait.