Jax

Violet this is the same as me!
My youngest daughter is 13 months older than my first grandson!
My oldest son is 21 yrs older than my youngest daughter, same age gap as between my dad and me!

Mark

I enjoyed reading these posts!

One thought - we should be careful when we say things like "if God inteneded, then . . ." All manner of very bad doctrine can sneak in through "human reasoning." There are those in history who declared the Railroad ungodly stating God never intended for people to move at 35 mph. Others stated that one should never fly because God did not give us wings. We could give example after example! We have enough clear sins and problems without "creating" more.

Those who want to know should be able to find out which gender. Those who do not - hvae fun waiting.

To each his own.

__________________
Mark Strohm, Jr.
Thrifty Times

Boanerges

I think this falls under the catagory of whatever floats your boat. My sister in law was positive she was having a boy. She painted the babies room blue and bought lots of cute little boys clothes. My niece is now 12- LOL!

BreathOfGod

I think that it should just be up to the parents.

I always want to know in advance because then I know how to plan. With my first, they told me it was a girl and on the ultrasound she sat right on the camera so there was no mistake that she was a girl. My second was shy and hid the entire pregnancy. I had no clue what I was having up until the day I had him. I had a boy. The third let us see that he was a boy-- no shyness there. Ironically he is very similar personality-wise to the oldest. Now we are expecting our fourth, and I do want to know. I think it is nice to know which gender of clothing to pull out and wash, and how to prepare. I figure if the baby doesn't want me to know then it can hide like my second did.

Whirlwind

Gadzooks! This is like tearing open your Christmas presents a week earlier when you're younger (guilty) and then trying to act all surprised on Christmas morning.

BTW: My friend also did this. On Christmas morning he was looking around, and then--much to his horror--he asked his Mom, "Hey, where's my watch from Gramma?"

violet

BreathOfGod

I never understand the connection everyone makes to opening Christmas presents early (which I have never done, nor been tempted to do ).

Opening a present early ruins not only the surprise for the individual, but also takes away the joy of the giver because you have essentially stolen their gift. A gift is not yours until it is given to you. Until then it still belongs to the giver. So opening a gift early is like the prodigal son expecting his inheritance before it is due him. An infant is yours already. It is your flesh and blood. It is still a surprise when you find out the gender prior to birth, and some people are surprised to discover that those images were all wrong. It also doesn't take anything away from the infant to find out what gender it is early. It is all just a matter of finding things out earlier or later. It's not any different than using a pregnancy test to verify pregnancy rather than just waiting until you have all the signs and symptoms of pregnancy, or taking any number of tests during the pregnancy to make sure things are going okay with the pregnancy, rather than waiting until birth to be surprised about it all.


Also, a Christmas gift is a material item that usually serves a temporary purpose and does not have a major impact on several areas of an individual's life. A baby is permanent and effects many areas of the individual's life. Finding out the gender can ease some stress, and allow the parents a few months to prepare in a number of ways.

Having a baby is exhausting! Women have all kinds of fluctuations in their hormone levels which causes them depression and stress, not to mention the sleep deprivation from waking every 2 hours to feed the baby. The last thing that I want to do after having a baby is to get things ready because I just discovered what gender it is (i.e. washing baby clothes that were stored away, decorating, etc.).

I am not knocking those who like to wait and find out at birth. That is their choice, and there is nothing wrong with it at all. Women are all different and maybe some have more energy for shopping and laundry after giving birth than I do. We all have different preferences, and there is a lot of gender neutral patterns, clothing, and accessories out there for infants.