Baby Hunches

As you know, we decided not to find out whether Emily was a boy or girl before she arrived.  I didn't realize until we announced our pregnancy how very uncommon it is these days for parents to choose to wait until the birth to find out the sex of their baby.  Once I started paying attention though, I realized that almost everyone I met wished to find out their baby's sex as soon as scientifically reliable -- if not sooner!  The first question everyone asked upon learning we were expecting was "When are you due?"; the second was "Is it a boy or a girl?".  When we'd reply with a smile that we didn't know and were waiting to be surprised, some people looked at us like we were completely out of our minds!  We received the occasional "how fun!" response, but many people simply couldn't fathom how or why we were going to wait!  That's when the guessing games began...

Each relative, friend, colleague or stranger in Starbucks had their own guess as to whether we'd be bringing home a baby boy or baby girl.  Some of the guesses were based on gut instincts, some based on visions in dreams, some based on old wives' tales, and some.... well who knows.  ;)  One of the baristas in Starbucks recently guessed that I was having a girl because I was the third pregnant woman to stop in that day and the first two were having girls; one of which was also wearing a striped shirt like me.  Therefore, I must also be having a girl.  I smiled politely while I thought to myself that I must have missed the genetics class where human sex chromosomes were a reflection of summer attire....

The more people started guessing though, the funnier it became.  Everyone was convinced that their guess was right, and their rationale foolproof.  Even though one person would guess that I was having a boy because of the way my stomach looked or a certain symptom I was having, and the very next person would guess I was having a girl based on the same exact way my stomach looked or the same exact symptom, the guessers stood behind their logic!  That's when I realized we had to record this info for posterity.  ;)

Enter our Baby Hunches poll.  I know I've mentioned the poll before, and many of you have participated in it!  But, now that Emily is here it's time to see who the big winner was, and I SWEAR this was not rigged...

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There are 2 very ironic things about this:

(1) I never win anything.  Seriously.  Shep is the one with the good luck in this family.... I'm the one with bad luck!  I blame it on the 2 mirrors I broke back in 2005...

(2) Though everyone else in our lives had strong feelings about the sex of our little one, throughout the pregnancy, I couldn't really figure out one way or the other whether I had any gut instincts about the baby being a boy or a girl.  At first, I had a feeling it was a boy.  Then, I thought it might be a girl.  But towards the end of the 2nd trimester I realized I didn't really have a super strong feeling either way, so sort of gave up trying to guess.  Yet, in the baby poll, not only did I guess the sex right but I also guessed the EXACT weight and height, and was less than 12 hours off on the date/time of birth.  Seeing those results after the fact amazed me!!!  I guess maybe I had some pretty strong hunches of my own after all; I just didn't know it at the time!