New Gender Reveal Party Trend

[withaj]

I was chatting with a pregnant friend of my sister's this weekend and she is totally mystified by the whole baby party economy. She's Jewish, and culturally they don't do baby showers or gender reveals or any of that -- or announce the name before birth. She's 7 months along and knows she's having a boy, which they've shared with family and friends. It's refreshingly low-key to hear about. 

[ClaraOswin]

On 5/17/2016 at 9:26 AM, Screamapillar said:

My ultrasound tech actually told us that she was glad that we wanted to know what the baby was, as she finds the people who want to have her write it down so they can have a gender reveal party "irritating." Ha! I see her point, the purpose of the ultrasound is to check everything out and make sure the baby is growing okay, so if I was a tech it would piss me off having to deal with a couple of goons who are obsessing about what the baby is while I'm trying to get pictures of the heart and the brain.

There was no hiding it at my ultrasound anyway. The second the wand was put on my stomach the first shot of the baby was a splayed leg pose. I was like, hmmm, well that's clearly a girl. Watching the ultrasound is so cool, I can't imagining insisting on looking away just so you can have an obnoxious party later.

One of the pictures that the tech printed was a close up of that splayed leg pose which included the caption "it's a girl." I thought, well I definitely won't be showing anyone that! I don't want my daughter to grow up knowing I was flashing around pictures of her goods for the whole world to see!

My son did the same thing! Before she started, the tech asked if we wanted to know the sex and we said yes. She put the wand on me and BAM...clearly a baby boy. It was kind of funny.

[Toothfairy]

I know people who spent thousands on gender revel parties. What's the point?

[Rescinded and Mended]

Congratulations on your pregnancy, Velocirapture.  

I'm fairly certain I won't be having anymore kids, but if I did wind up expecting again, I'd do a nursery with a Sanrio theme. Not necessarily Hello Kitty, even though I love her, but with some of the lesser known brand characters, like Chococat and Kuromi. Although, good luck finding anything for those characters other than bedding; I'd be cutting up sheets and bedspreads and making all the baby decor from scratch.

I have a friend who recently had her fifth child, and she'd never had a baby shower for any of her previous children, so one of her other friends threw her one. I thought it was pretty cool that she was finally having the opportunity to be fussed over at her first shower. My friend already knew she was having a girl, and I was trying to figure out what to get her. I picked something non-pink and a little off the wall. I found a pair of black pants, a matching shirt, and a little faux-fur leopard print coat. Later, I found some little black shiny shoes to match. I proudly laid the outfit out to show to my husband. His response? "Why are you getting the kid a pimp suit?" Me: "It is NOT a pimp suit!!" Hubs: Yes it is, it's got a fur coat and shiny black shoes. It's totally a pimp suit."

I told my friend and her husband what hubs said after she opened my gift at the baby shower. They both crack up laughing over it to this day. (And they both loved the outfit, by the way, even though hubs totally doesn't believe me)  

 

[MarblesMom]

On 5/15/2016 at 10:18 PM, Childless said:

I found out with both my babies at the 20 week ultrasound.  I simply just told people.  No big announcement.  No party.

I had my children when the earth was still cooling, with dinos parading about, and I never knew the gender.  Somehow we all made it through OK.

On 5/22/2016 at 8:30 PM, VelociRapture said:

We just hope for a happy and healthy baby.

I am so happy for you and Mr V.  Congrats! 

[WhiteRun]

Frankly, I don't understand why people would go to such great lengths to reveal the sex of their baby. 
Why spend all that time, money and energy on something like that when you can just wait till the baby shower and hit two birds with one stone?
Recently I saw a sex reveal where everyone was stuck in the rain. Everyone was wet and it looked miserable to me. Why would you put people in that situation for a facebook photo and a couple more seconds in the spotlight?

[QuiverFullOfTacos]

I have only been to one gender reveal party in my life. It was mainly an excuse for the first time expectant parents to throw a backyard bbq, with a few minutes devoted to unwrapping a cake with the gender written on it in icing. No games, few (if any) baby-themed decorations and no gifts expected (although a few people chose to bring a little something anyway). As far as gender reveals go, this one was about as low key as you can get, I think. 

[Karma]

I'm with you, @MarblesMom. We did the gender reveal by ringing our family and friends after our kids had been born and saying "it's a girl/boy". 

I did know that baby 2 was a boy, but since my husband wanted a surprise, I kept it a secret.