When a couple finds out they’re expecting there isn’t much that’s in their control. There is, however, one thing they do control – whether or not they find out the sex of the baby.

As you probably know from this blog, Heather and I are not “wait to find out” kind of people. I’m a little more patient than Heather (who would celebrate Christmas today if I’d let her), but I’m still not exactly Job. That means we are both on board with finding out what we are having as soon as possible, as we did with Maddie and Annie.

Beyond not being able to wait, though, we also want to know what we’re having so we can prepare. If, for example, we’re having another girl, it’s not much of an issue since we already have all things “girl,” but if it’s a boy it will be DEFCON 5 around here as we race around to find baby boy stuff. I’m not even sure what a baby boy needs… would he need a football helmet? Or could that wait until he’s older? How about nunchuks?

Arriving at the hospital
Arriving at the hospital to have Annie. If she didn’t know the sex she would not be smiling.

So, yeah, we are not “wait people,” but our friends Tara and George are. They’re having their fourth and last child, and George thought it would be fun to keep the sex a surprise until he or she entered the world. And while I can definitely see how waiting will make a special moment for them, Heather and I are so impatient that we’re even having trouble waiting to find out what they’re having!

Since George is the one who is more gung-ho about waiting than Tara, and since he hasn’t been able to attend all the ultrasounds because of his job, we tried to work on her.

“George won’t be there, Tara, so why don’t you just find out what you’re having and not tell him?”

“I couldn’t do that,” Tara said. “I can’t keep a secret. He’d know five seconds after he got home.”

“How about this then – ask the technician to write it down on a piece of paper and then put it in your purse.”

“Why would I do that?”

“So you can give it to us!”

Can you believe Tara wouldn’t go along with that idea? It seemed pretty reasonable to us.

We still have a little time before we can find out the sex of The Acrobat, so there’s still a chance (in theory) that we could be convinced to wait. I wouldn’t bet on it though. Heather’s already desperate to tell me what my birthday present is even though my birthday is less than two weeks away!