My Mean Doctor

I did a tally of everyone I know on Facebook that is having a baby this year. The grand total: 21. [22 if you count Mary twice since she's having twins].

Most of the ones that are due before me have already made grand announcements of the gender. And then there are some that are due right about the same time as me that have also found out their baby's gender [totally unfair]. I have a routine OB visit this week. I also have my gender ultrasound scheduled for March 21 since I'll be 20 weeks by that time. And 20 weeks is apparently the magic number for optimal baby-gender predicting. At least, at my doctor's office. Even though my baby book [written by doctors] and other friends said that an ultrasound between 18-20 weeks will tell the gender. Nope, not my doctor. 20 weeks.

With all these other opinions telling me that I could find out the gender by now [I'm currently about 19 weeks], I thought for sure I could convince my doctor's office to do my ultrasound at my appointment this week [a mere 10 days before the magic ultrasound]. So I called them under the guise that I wasn't sure when my next appointment was. When the nurse told me it was the 11th and that my gender ultrasound was the 21st, I asked if we could combine them, for convenience sake, of course, and not because I'm freakin excited to know the gender. She insisted that wasn't possible and they can't tell the gender prior to 20 weeks. "Really?" I ask, "So my friends that had theirs at 18 weeks were just lying to me?" She says, "Well, it's possible, it's just our office policy to not do them prior to 20 weeks." If she had said that in the first place, I wouldn't have been as irritated. Did she really think I haven't read a single thing about prenatal care in the last 5 months, which all say 18-20 weeks? At my March 11th appointment, I will be just shy of 20 weeks. And ya know, pregnancy due dates and all that jazz are all a guessing game anyway. I could be 20 weeks now for all they know! They ain't God!!

So I would like to offer my own solution. Since they need their magic 20-week crystal ball to tell them the gender of my baby, I figure I'll research all the possible old wives' tales out there and make my own super-sound conclusion. Then when the ultrasound tech tells me the gender of my baby, I'll just sigh and say, "Yeah I already knew." How? They'll ask. "Well, everyone else in the world, including my unborn child, knows that gender can be determined before 20 weeks. So we figured it out. Thanks for the unnecessary insurance claim though."

According to the very official old wives' tales gender predictor quizzes that can be found on the always reliable internet, I will be having a girl [highest percentage of certainty is about 63%]. I won't go into the details of the questions because some of them are weird and I don't want you knowing that kind of information about me. The most common one that people keep telling me means that I'm having a girl is that I carry more like a watermelon than a beach ball. I personally think I'm carrying like a fire hydrant but that's apparently not one of the options. Old Wives' Tales Fun Fact: Did you know there is a gender myth out there that you can mix your urine with Drain-O and the color it turns determines a boy or a girl? Who even thought to test that!? I think someone is just messing with desperate pregnant women. And no, I didn't do this.

I also consulted a Chinese Gender Calendar and it indicates that I will be having a girl, most of the time. It depends on which chart I look at it. [And if you're wanting to check behind me, I'm 28 and conceived in November].
 

And just for the fun of it, I put a blog poll in my side bar for my readers to place their bets. The poll will close on March 21st at 8:45 am since clearly, the gender of my child will be instantly manifested at that very moment.