Belly theories

I've never considered myself a patient person. But that's normally the first reaction when I tell people that we elected to not found out the sex of Baby Volkmann. "Wow, you are a really patient person. How can you do that? I would have never been able to wait that long."

But here is my opinion on unknown gender: It was already decided and we really don't care one way or another. It's motivation to push out the baby. I wanted gender neutral baby items so we can reuse them again if we have another child, hopefully one of the opposite sex. And most importantly, I love surprises and I love having people guess the baby's gender.

Everyone seems to have a theory on our baby's sex.

Benny's mother has this string test that she conducted years ago before I was ever pregnant. She did the test again when we told her the news this July. The string test said "girl."

My paternal grandmother predicted a boy in September because I didn't suffer any morning sickness during the first trimester. With her 6 children, she had morning sickness with the 2 girls and nothing with the 4 boys. A New York Times article that Tammy emailed me supports Lydia's theory.


If Baby Volkmann is a boy, he will be sporting this outfit on the car ride home. Soon-to-be Aunt Rachel purchased it for him.

But my mother didn't have morning sickness and she gave birth to three girls. And she carried us differently (the whole carry high, carry low theory), but again had three girls.

Benny's brother is convinced it is a girl, because he thinks that Benny and him will be blessed with daughters. Their sisters, on the other hand, Lynne and Patti, will have male dominated families. So far, Jon has two girls and Lynne has three boys.


If Baby V is a girl, she will wear this outfit home from the hospital, bought by soon-to-be Aunt Colleen.

My sisters are split on the matter.

My co-workers are convinced I'm having a boy because "I'm all belly." But Benny's co-workers said it is definitely a girl because my nose didn't get any wider while I was pregnant. (It's really fun to have people examine you like a prize steer for the Iowa State Fair.)

My friend, Alicia, swears by the Chinese Birth Calendar. According to this chart, if Baby Volkmann was conceived on May 31, I'm having a girl. If the seed was planted on June 1, we're having a boy. When I told Benny this, he pointed to the disclaimer on the Web site saying "For Entertainment Purposes Only."

The best is when prefect strangers offer their two cents on my baby's gender.

For example, last week I was shopping at the base exchange and a woman looked at me (and when I say me, I mean my stomach) and said "What are you having?"

"I don't know."

She smiled, so I invited her to be part of the conversation. "Do you have any theories?"

She said "Well you're all belly so normally I would say a boy, but I looked just like you when I was pregnant and I have 4 girls."
Ah, you got to love that.

Benny and I don't have any strong feelings one way or another. I've had dreams where I've had a son and ones where I was dressing a little girl in pink. My subconscious hasn't been any help.

And the fact we've been able to have several ultrasounds and not find out is amazing in itself. Even today at my 39-week appointment, Benny reminded the ultrasound technician that "we don't know the sex and we don't want to know."

Thank goodness he was there. I knew I should have invested in a T-shirt saying "We don't want to know the sex of our baby. Don't spoil my surprise."