Am I having a boy or a girl?

I hit the half way mark in my pregnancy this week, woohoo! I love that the Christmas and new years festivities made a whole month fly by without me noticing. It’s the up side of being the only person not partaking in a month long indulgence of champagne, prawns and runny cheese!

So with the half way mark comes the 19 week scan and the opportunity to find out what the sex is. With our first pregnancy we decided not to find out, as we wanted it to be a surprise. While it did make clothes buying and nursery decorating a little more hit and miss I was really glad we waited, as the moment our beautiful baby arrived and my husband announced it was a boy was magical. Mind you, from about 5 months on I had a pretty strong sense it was a boy, so I wasn’t really surprised. While it’s a very sexist assumption to make, Jamison was so active in the womb, kicking and somersaulting constantly, that I just felt he had to be an active little boy. I also had a very vivid dream at 6 months where I gave birth to a son with big brown eyes and called him Jamison. I knew from that moment on that was who he was going to be.

when my hairdresser claimed last week to be the most accurate ring tester in the southern hemisphere I had to give it a go, just for a laugh. 

So this time we also decided not to find out, to keep ourselves in suspense until the big day. I did consider it more though, but in the end I didn’t want anyone else to know and I am useless at keeping secrets so that made my mind up! Luckily my husband felt the same as me so was happy not to find out either. I have had friends who have felt very differently from each on whether or not to find out and even know a couple where one found out and didn’t tell the other. Can you imagine keeping the secret for that long and never caving? That takes a much stronger person than me!

So, of course, with not knowing the sex comes the chance to test out all the old wives tales that claim to predict what you are having. I have never really been one for believing wives tales, especially after I blatantly disproved the one about heartburn equally a baby with lots of hair. Jamison was born with masses of black hair and at 3 months had a thicker crop than most adult men. But I never had one day of heartburn, as I assured everyone that asked me upon witnessing my mo-hawked newborn!

But when my hairdresser claimed last week to be the most accurate ring tester in the southern hemisphere I had to give it a go, just for a laugh. So I sat still, a head full of foils, barely breathing and secretly a bit nervous as I waited for the ring to start moving in circles or side to side.

She waited until it came to a complete stop and then, sure enough, it began to move in a circle. Small at first and then quickly getting bigger and bigger til it was almost hitting my belly. “It’s a girl!” she proclaimed and the women in the salon all clapped excitedly. I have to admit I did feel a little excited at the announcement, sceptic or not. It’s no secret that I would love a girl, not that I wouldn’t be equally thrilled and blessed with a boy, but it would be nice to experience parenting the other sex. Ok, and buying little dresses, having fairy parties and watching ballet concerts would be fun too!

So upon telling my equally sceptical mum the story the next day she insisted we try it again, purely for scientific purposes. “Did she use your wedding ring?” she asked. Um, no, we used the other hairdressers. “Well, it’s not valid then,” she insisted. So again I sat silent and still while she held my wedding ring on a piece of string with all the concentration of a surgeon. And again it started moving in a circle, gathering momentum as it went. “It’s definitely a girl!” we both cried, our scepticism thrown out the window.

So now I was hooked and began Googling other old wives tales to test. The Draino test? Too messy. The heart rate test? It was 163 at the 12 week scan, but our radiographer assured us then that test was a bunch of rubbish as their heart rate changes constantly. So I had lost faith in that one, as opposed to the ring test which I was now a firm believer in!

Then there was the Chinese calendar test, which involved me entering my birth month and the month the baby was conceived. Again it was a girl. By now I was already discarding my boy names and imaging what my little girl would look like. Until I scrolled down the page and read this site’s instructions for the ring test. Hold on a minute, it says here that round and round equals a boy. Well, I thought irately, clearly this site is inaccurate, and I quickly searched for another to ease my mind. But there it was again, round and round means a boy, side to side is a girl.

After spending the next hour searching old wives tales on the net I discovered there is absolutely no consistency in the answer and each person you ask will have a different opinion on which result means a boy and which means a girl.

“Bloody wives tales,” I cried, turning off the computer. “Completely unreliable,” I announced, not unaware of the irony of the situation.

So now I’m back to being a sceptic.

So we will wait and, boy or girl, I will be absolutely in love with whichever I am blessed with in 20 weeks time. But the final word has to go to Jamison, who when asked what he thought the baby would be thought very seriously for a long time and then announced “I think it will be a boy…or a girl.”

I always knew he was a genius, now I’m convinced he’s psychic!!

Did you find out what sex you were having or did you wait? Did you have a sense of what it was and were you right? Did you do any old wives tests and were they accurate? And do you think round and round means a boy or a girl?! I’d love to hear from you... Comment on Amity's blog.