To find out the gender of the baby or not, that is the question. On today’s episode, I’m gonna dive into my personal conviction on this topic and the pros and cons of each. As you know, I believe in sharing my personal experiences when I’ve been on both sides of the coin and never wanna be an echo chamber or seem one-sided.
So, yes, spoiler alert, I have known what our baby’s gender was almost my entire second pregnancy. But before we dive into this topic, I wanna share with you a question I was asked this week by one of my friends on social media.
Experience with Stretch Marks During Pregnancy
As you probably have gathered by now, I’m a cesspool of knowledge and I swear every week, I’m getting asked my personal opinion or for information on any given topic.
There are no limits to this, my friends. I am literally your virtual millennial dear Abby.
And I have no problem taking the time to answer these questions, so please do not hesitate to reach out to me on social media, on Instagram. I really, really love chatting with you and connecting with you. It’s one of my favorite things about being on social media.
There are a few things that I enjoy about being on social media, but that is one of them. But I do understand that sometimes the topics or things you need support and questions you may have can be a bit heavy.
So if you want to remain anonymous, I suggest that you fill out the short questionnaire.
And while you’re there, you can check out some of the other questions people have asked me and my responses to them as well. This week, I had a friend reach out to me regarding one of the products that I am actually an affiliate for, which is herbal face food.
And this was specifically for a friend of hers who is suffering through awful scarring from stretch marks in pregnancy.
Look, stretch marks happen when your skin expands faster than the collagen and the elastin, which those are the fibers in your skin, then they can accommodate for.
Thankfully, I’ve been pretty successful at keeping those at bay through both of my pregnancies, but I can’t say the same for my thighs during my mid twenties when I gained a ton of weight by lack of exercise and I don’t even wanna say poor nutrition. I mean, there was like no nutrition. Okay.
And I shared with her both mine and my girlfriend’s results from this one particular product from herbal face food called the cure, and she was mind blown.
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And I gotta tell you, the results truly are mind blowing. It’s like magic. Now what I will say about stretch marks, 1st and foremost, before we dive into, like, what makes the cure so potent is you have to view your pregnancy and those stretch marks that may or may not come with it as a badge of honor.
Personally, I’d rather say that mine are due to giving birth and carrying a human for 9 months rather than the fact that, like me, like, I had no self control or discipline in my post college years, but it is what it is. Right? Like, we live and we learn.
Your stretch marks as a mother are a visible marker that you performed God’s greatest gift to us women. Right? You gave birth. You carried a human for 9 months.
Recommendations for Stretch Mark Treatment
As a heads up, there are a few things that do make you more susceptible, though, to stretch marks.
First, they seem to be very much so hereditary. So if your mom had them in pregnancy, chances are you will too.
Secondly, the younger you are, this is the irony, right? Like we always say things like, her body bounced back because she’s so much younger.
Well, here to all my fellow geriatric moms, this is a blessing, right?
Because the younger you are, the more likely you are going to have stretch marks. Young skin is like a brand new rubber band. It’s tight. Whereas women, when they age or, you know, people, when people age, their skin begins to stretch out.
Therefore, it doesn’t have to expand as much with the growing body. And there was a study in 2010 that found that 70% of pregnant women under 25 developed pregnancy stretch marks, while 29% of those over 25 did.
So right there, like, if you’re over that threshold of 25, I like your chances of not getting them, right, versus these young young moms.
And in 2015, a study found similar results so that the results were 84% of women under 20 developed pregnancy stretch marks versus 24% of those over 20 did. So if you’re in that, you know, early 20, mid 20 period versus, like I said, me, my first child was at 35, the likelihood of you getting those stretch marks is significantly higher.
You know, it makes sense. Right? I got those stretch marks when I was in my mid twenties. Like, it wasn’t from having a kid.
It was from eating double stuffed Oreos and indulging in red wine more often than not. That’s where mine came from versus I don’t have any from having a kid. Another factor is how fast you gain weight in pregnancy.
So I want you to think about those young kids that you see this happen a lot in boys where they leap in height and and just growth in general very fast when they’re going from, like, preteen to teen, and they they have stretch marks.
It’s the same concept. Right? Personally, I do not gain a ton of weight in pregnancy, and I don’t really gain it fast. I do a credit that, you know, maybe some of that genetics. I don’t know.
But I really believe most of it has to do with my fitness and nutrition regime. To be real, when I’m teaching golf lessons, I mean, people didn’t even start to think I was pregnant till I was already 6 months pregnant, which is why it’s been very easy for me to, quote, unquote, hide my pregnancy literally for the 1st 20 weeks.
Sometimes I could probably even go longer, but I choose to wait around that time before I tell everyone. Both pregnancies, my weight gain has been under 40 lbs each time.
And listen, I understand that everyone’s body composition is different. Okay? So this isn’t like a I’m better than you situation. Not at all. But please, for the love of all things holy, do not follow the concept of you need to eat for 2.
That is a complete and utter myth. Like, that is that is a boomer, a boomer phrase. And I still to this day think that women, they might not necessarily eat for 2, but they are eating a lot more than they should.
And they’re also indulging in things because they are pregnant thinking, I’m pregnant. What’s the big deal? Or they if they don’t have that idea and maybe they just don’t realize because they’re pregnant. Right? And they are growing a human.
They’re also gaining unnecessary an unnecessary weight that, like, if they weren’t growing a human, they would definitely notice, if that makes sense.
So when you’re pregnant and you’re eating the extra ice cream or the extra this or extra that, you don’t notice it as much versus if you weren’t pregnant.
Okay? And while you may not get gestational diabetes in your pregnancy, I promise you if you follow this method of overeating, overindulging, eating for 2, whatever you wanna call it, you will make feeling, quote, unquote, normal or like your old self in postpartum very difficult. It will be a longer journey to get back to where you were, and that is a total mental mind f.
Does Herbal Face Food Really Work?
Herbal Face Food – The Cure – for stretch marks and acne scars
I’m telling you. So I encourage you. Yes. You need to eat more to support your growing baby, but reel it in, homey. Reel it in. Now if you were to Google how to treat or prevent stretch marks, they’re gonna get a whole boatload of man made chemicals offered to you.
But, you know, I don’t roll like that. In fact, one of the things I do recommend, 1st and foremost, besides, like like I said, the serum I’m gonna tell you about is you need to get a proper medical grade derma roller.
Gin Amber Beauty Derma Roller – CODE MAREN15
I think it’s very important to make sure it is great quality. You know, I don’t make shortcuts on things like that.
Don’t just buy something off Amazon, that can actually cause more damage. I could dive into all of the risks of microneedling, but we’ll save that for another time. Like, you gotta be very careful of that.
But between the derma rolling and then using the potent plants that are, yes, nontoxic, 100%.
That is how I have been able to and my friend who who I was telling you about with those stretch marks from pregnancy her prior pregnancies, she was using it as well while she was pregnant and postpartum when she was breastfeeding.
I’ve been using them for over a year, so I was using it while I was breastfeeding and in postpartum, And then now while I’m in my second pregnancy.
So she and I are both the type of people we would never do anything to endanger our children.
So these products, we 100% support. And it is no secret right now that if you follow me on social media, you know that I’m obsessed with herbal face food.
I’ve been using it, like I said, for over a year, and it really is the only thing that has truly helped my skin.
And I have had many skin issues over my 38 years of life from my rosacea, these little bumps that I get all over my skin, dry skin in general, and, yes, my melasma for, gosh, I’ve been battling that for over a decade between birth control, then pregnancy, twice, postpartum, all the things.
The one specific product that I was recommending to my friend for those stretch marks and that I’ve had other clients have wins with too when it comes to removing their acne scars is The Cure.
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And and in this pregnancy, one of the things I’ve been using it for is I get I don’t know what it is. Every pregnancy is different, I guess. But I was getting these weird random warts. I know. Gross. I know. Okay? On my hands, and they hurt.
And like I said, this stuff’s magic, so I just put it on and sure enough, they disappeared. So the cure is literally the most potent antioxidant, any aging skincare product on the market. Period. Full stop.
The Cure contains 50, 5-0, of the world’s most powerful botanicals, including the top 20 rarest in the world and the most expensive plant concentrates on the planet. Now the whole podcast isn’t gonna be about stretch marks and and plants.
But if you wanna learn more about the products, I suggest you go to my blog article on my website. I make all details about my experience as well as on Instagram.
I have a whole highlight dedicated to the products. I talk about them frequently. I have reels on them, etcetera.
And I want you to leave with this. Herbal face food, it’s handmade, it’s organic, GMO free, ethically sourced, synthetic, fragrance free, important, paraben free, cruelty free.
We’re not hurting any animals. K? Vegan and, you know, my favorite made in the USA. They have a 100% money back guarantee, which goes to show you how much they stand by their product.
So listen, nothing ventured, nothing gained, my friend. My link and my code will save you 30% off your order. So hit it up, I’m telling you.
And you can always ask me for my suggestions on which specific products you should be trying out.
Healthy + Holistic Pregnancy Guide
As a Wellness Warrior, I believe we are made flawless in His image, and I want to help you unleash the best version of yourself for His glory + your purpose.
Whether you are in the midst of pregnancy yourself or still considering expanding your family, I want to help you emerge as the strongest & healthiest version of yourself for the journey He lays before you.
Navigating Gender Reveals and the Home Birth Experience
I mean, literally, every doctor or nurse I encountered, I blurted it out before they could even open their mouths when they entered the room. I made sure it was on every chart. K?
And I was the same this time around, but versus my first pregnancy, which that first pregnancy, the first 20 weeks I was in standard care, so I had to kinda jump through a lot more hoops, so to speak, and I encountered a lot more people throughout that considering this time around, it’s a home birth. Right?
Like, I’m not going in and out of appointments like you do in standard care. My doula and my birth photographer and my midwife, like, those are my my 3 homies. And my doula and birth photographer, they’re very big on having it be a surprise too. So that definitely helped. Of course, my midwife, she knew but never told me.
Because she’s getting all my labs. And in life, I truly believe that there are very few things that you can be surprised by. This is truly one of them. I mean, I literally even knew when I was getting engaged. Okay?
Like, I knew he was ring hon. He was being really weird the day it happened. Like, I just I knew. But with my daughter, I had no idea.
I had no idea that it was gonna be a girl. So this is the one time that you can truly be surprised.
And it’s mind blowing to me that nearly 66%, so 2 thirds of the population, they want to know the gender beforehand.
And meanwhile, when I was born 38 years ago in in the mid eighties And, obviously, before that, they didn’t have the technology to know what the gender was of the baby. It was always a surprise.
But, of course, you know, as the industry has grown and money, money, money, you can find out these things like that from a simple blood test and, of course, affirming through a very expensive sonogram.
But aside from it being the best surprise, it can prevent gender disappointment, which is very real. So aside from it being the best surprise, it can prevent gender disappointment, which is very real.
Embracing the surprises in pregnancy
Of course, we all want a healthy and happy baby, plus a smooth labor and delivery process for the mama. But I’m telling you, the heartbreak of dreaming out your life with, say, your little girl. That’s what you’re envisioning. Right?
And then it ends up being a boy or whatever the circumstance may be is very real, very emotional, and can leave lasting effects.
Between reading comments from other moms in the Facebook groups that I’m a part of to knowing my friends’ personal experiences and discussing it with them and even my own, I can tell you that this is true.
Like I said, I didn’t know I was having a girl with my first pregnancy. In fact, I wanted one so badly that I told myself for the first half of pregnancy that it was a boy. Like, I just convinced myself of that because I was trying to prevent this disappointment.
Then when it came down to the names, because, yes, you do have to have a list of 2 when you don’t know, I absolutely fell in love with my daughter’s name. No. Sorry. Not gonna share it. You know how I roll.
Just know that it is a really freaking cool name, and it suits her to a t. I knew once I saw this name and I I started writing it down, I started saying it out loud, I was going to be livid. Hey.
I’m being honest. Okay? If one of my friends ended up using it with their future daughter down the road, like, before I could use it. Right? I know. I never said I was normal. I just I’m just telling you how it is.
Circumcision: Options and Recommendations for New Parents
And, once again, this is another topic that I’ve discussed with personal friends. More about their husband’s experience. I’m not talking to my guy friends about theirs. Okay?
Because I need you to remember that doctors every everyone has to learn somewhere. RAnd they’re learning on….. not on dummies. Like, they’re they’re practicing on babies.
And when you’re in the hospital and you’re delivering in that setting, you have to remember that there are students flowing in and out of all of these labor and delivery rooms.
You know, they have to learn somewhere, but I had it in my personal birth preferences that should I end up in the hospital, which I did because it was an emergency, that I would not have any students working on me in any capacity.
Sorry, kid. Someone else can be your guinea pig, but it ain’t gonna be me. And if you do go this route of doing it, like I said, with a pediatric urologist so this is literally what this person has been doing day in and day out. Okay?
For years and years, you can most likely avoid the vitamin k injection as well. Whereas in the hospital, no chance. And and to be real with you, you know, and you know how I feel about these injections.
If you were to have it done in the hospital, I think it is I think it’s very irresponsible to not give your child the vitamin k shot if you were to get it done in the hospital. It’s very irresponsible, but I digress.
Navigating Vitamin K and Circumcision: Essential Insights for New Parents
Your baby will start producing its own vitamin K after 8 days, which means you wouldn’t need to see the urologist before then. Typically, a pediatric urologist will have you schedule an initial consultation to discuss the procedure. After this meeting, they usually plan the circumcision for another week or two later. Most pediatric urologists have a specific timetable for performing circumcisions, generally within the first four months of life due to the baby’s rapid growth.
Because your baby will already be producing its own vitamin K by this time, the need for a vitamin K injection is often not discussed. This is one of the reasons why traditional Jewish circumcisions are performed on the 8th day, long before modern vitamin K injections were available.
In essence, other aspects remain neutral. The clothes you bring the baby home in, the nursery decor, and even the stroller can all be chosen in gender-neutral colors like cream, navy, or olive green. Knowing the gender doesn’t necessarily simplify preparations; in fact, it can sometimes add more stress to the experience.
So, if you choose to go the route of circumcision, consider consulting with a pediatric urologist to ensure the procedure is performed by an expert. This can help you avoid the need for a vitamin K injection, which is often required if the procedure is done in a hospital setting.
Challenges of Keeping Baby’s Gender a Secret
Literally. The clothes you’re bringing the baby home in, you can even paint the nursery a light cream color like we did. Your stroller, same thing. Ours is also a cream.
I mean, even still, like, if you cannot know it and get navy or an olive green, you know, those are gender neutral. You get the idea.
But knowing the gender doesn’t really, in my opinion, help anything. Okay? In fact, it added more stress to my experience.
How I found out about the gender of our baby in my first pregnancy
So first of all, I found out by accident in my first pregnancy because of my age, I took the the Nip test, right, blood test, as well as the fact that I got a special ultrasound where they test the neonatal fluid in the baby’s space between their spine and brain.
And in this pregnancy, I only had one ultrasound.
That was one of my preferences. Like, I honestly felt like I had way too many in hindsight. Right? You you only know what you know in my first pregnancy.
So in this one, I said, I’m gonna make sure that I have a really thorough one, and it’s gonna be my anatomy scan.
So I didn’t have that ultrasound I was telling you about with my daughter. Instead, I had the NIPT again, and I also had another blood test called the quad screen.
Ugh, the lovely quad screen. Well, all of my NIP tests results, they came back negative for anything bad. Awesome. Fantastic. Right? But then my midwife sat me down to let me know that my quad screen came back with a 1 in 95 chance of the baby having Down syndrome.
Try taking that news by yourself because my husband was at work and wasn’t there for that one. Okay? I had to break that news to him when he got home from work.
Now, despite the fact that she told me not to worry, I went into a spiral namely because you’re just the life that you have planned looks different.
It just does. You know? It doesn’t make it, worse, it’s challenging. And I’m the type of person that I always like to know these things ahead of time so that I can best prepare to set, you know, whatever the situation may be, myself or in this case, my child up for success.
And one of the first things I did is I immediately contacted one of my girlfriends whose son has downs, and I asked her what her experience was with testing, you know, what were the numbers when they came back, like, what should I look for with these markers, etcetera.
And my midwife, who I should have listened to k, she she kept telling me, be patient. Like, we’re gonna know more the following week when you do the anatomy scan. Let me tell you, that was the longest freaking week of my life.
And I should have listened to her, but I didn’t. And I let the enemy creep in. I let the doubt creep in. Like, all of the antithesis of the the things that I know to be true. That God is good. I let that take over me.
And, you know, in hindsight and to Monday quarterback the situation, I’m trying to use my personal experience to share with you, and my hope is to guide you in a different way than than the path that I took of this, like I said, spiraling out of control. Because you gotta learn from every experience you go through.
Now, in my first pregnancy, I didn’t have access to allow this paperwork. You know, I didn’t really for whatever reason, I guess, because the standard care, they held on to it so tightly.
And also just things change, right, within a few years. Like, my my midwife this time, she has an app that you can have access to, yada yada yada, versus the last time I didn’t have that.
So everything was hidden on my midwife’s computer. Now I had it in the palm of my hand.
So it never occurred to me that if I were to open specific blood work to look at these numbers that my friend had shared with me, that I would see the gender. Like, I just I didn’t even think about it.
So when I went to the lab work to compare my numbers to the numbers my friend gave me, there was, like, larger than life, the symbol of the gender. And I was at work, and I immediately that’s, like, how crazy it was.
Like, this wasn’t something, like, I sat down at home and did. Thank goodness I didn’t do it at home because my husband probably would have been there to see it too. I did it at work, but that’s how, like, you know, over the top I was with this.
Like, it was it was festering in me, and I had downtime in between lessons, and that’s what I did.
And I immediately x’d out of the document, but I had seen what I had seen at that point.
And, you know, despite the fact that I knew the NIP test had a 99.9% accuracy, which is hence the reason why my midwife told me not to freak out because those results came back negative.
And this quad screen has been known to be super inaccurate, I still looked and then, of course, it’s on the NIP Test. Like that, Boom. There’s your gender.
Emotional journey: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance
I immediately called my husband crying and told him what happened. He was very upset. He was he was he was annoyed and upset. Like, he was all the things.
He was a ball of emotions himself, but he understood why I did what I did. Because like I said, this news was weighing very heavily on us. And he knew that he hurt for me, you know, when you’ve been with someone as long as we have, we’ve been together 18 years.
Like, you hurt when your person hurts. Right? And he knew how important it was to me to keep this a surprise.
So it I truly believe he was upset for me in that regard. Now Nick did not wanna know the gender. Okay? And he made that very clear to me in that phone conversation.
And I, you know, accepted that that that’s what he wanted. And then we began to enter, like, this waiting period of the anatomy scans. We had to wait a week.
Which, like I said, longest week of my life. And we go in, and the anatomy scan came back perfect.
There were 0 markers for downs. Literally, all of that discovery for literally nothing. And now I was supposed to hold onto the secret for the rest of my pregnancy, the next 20 weeks, like talk about pressure, unnecessary pressure.
And one that made the next 20 weeks brutal. You never know how many times per day people are asking you.
So you know what you’re having until, like, you’re in it and you actually know, but you have to lie. And I hate lying. Like, the worst thing someone can do to me is lie to me. And to me, omission is the same as a lie in my book.
So, you know, claiming I didn’t know when I did, That was the same thing. I mean, it was just so awkward and so uncomfortable.
And then, like, people get weird when you’re like, well, I know, but my husband doesn’t know. And then it’s like, well, are you gonna tell me? It’s it’s awful.
Aside from all of that, like when you’re doing all this planning with your partner and your spouse, right, do you know how difficult it is to discuss your favorite names without really pushing in one direction or the other?
Or you you know, you’re going through old clothes and you’re trying to figure out what do I save? What do I not save without giving away what the gender is?
You have to make sure that you have a poker face on whenever the subject comes up around family and you’re never showing a tell.
This is your little poker term. Right? You’re never showing a tell on your face when they discuss the gender that you know it is. Because you don’t want them to see any inkling of your affirmation of, hey. You’re right. 10 out of 10.
Choosing to keep the gender of your baby a secret or not
Do not recommend going through this the way that I did. Okay? If you’re gonna keep the gender a secret, which, like I said, I cannot recommend enough, I wholly support not finding out, and I pray that that number of people who do find out decreases in the next 5, 10, etcetera, years, we we that there’s a change in that, that it’s not so weird and taboo to not know.
Regardless whatever you choose, you and your partner need to be all in together. Like, you have to be all in on it together. Okay?
Remember the gender disappointment. That piece that we discussed earlier, it can rear its awful head in this situation in an even worse way.
For me, I didn’t know if I was disappointed that I knew the gender in general or if it was because of that specific gender. Like, I had no idea.
Like, was I let down by the surprise and that I wasn’t going to be surprised like that moment because that was one of the most powerful moments of childbirth for me.
Hearing my husband say my daughter’s name is here, like that, I’ll never forget that. Or was I upset because of what the baby was And this, this feeling went on for months. I would cry myself to sleep over it.
And yes, you could blame some of it on the hormones, but to be honest, I’m pretty chill. I’m not like those wild women you see depicted in pregnancy with their hormones raging, yada yada. My husband can vouch for that, but this ate me up.
I honestly felt like I was going through the 5 stages of grief. No joke. Denial. Well, maybe I didn’t see what I saw. Anger. Why didn’t I trust God in this situation and wait patiently for the anatomy scan? How come I thought I knew better than him?
Bargaining, Saying to myself things like, maybe it was better to know because, you know, now I can prep for what’s to come better. Well, you know, the NIPT is only 99.9% accurate. Maybe I’m part of the point 01%.
No. I mean, right, depression, hence, the crying myself to sleep and seeking comfort from friends and loved ones because my friends know that I know. So I would try to talk it out with them.
And then finally, acceptance. I couldn’t change what happened, and I could only move forward.
Although I was disappointed in knowing, I leaned into my gratitude. K. 1st and foremost for the experience of being a mom once again, and and now to 2 beautiful babies and knowing in my heart of all hearts that God doesn’t make mistakes.
He already knew this baby before he even knit it in my womb. And I to this day, you know, I still seek comfort in that, that he knows better than I.
And this sibling will be the best sibling to my daughter and will complete our family, and it was meant to be. Yes.
Did I happen to find out 20 weeks before I eventually would find out? Yes. But you live and you learn.
If you’ve been through a scenario like this throughout your pregnancy, postpartum, or even on your motherhood journey, please know you’re not alone.
This is the most difficult yet rewarding job you’ll ever have, motherhood.
Motherhood Mentorship Call
And I’m here to help support you in each season. I have 30 minute motherhood mentorship calls that I offer to help talk you through your questions, your research findings, your birth preferences, scenarios like we just discussed, and more. This is your time, and we will customize the conversation to best fit your needs.
Motherhood Mentorship Call
Sometimes We Just Need To Talk It Out
I’ll help you talk through your questions, your research findings, your birth preferences and more. This is your time, and we will customize the conversation to best fit your needs.
