If you can answer yes to one or more of these questions, read on. As a child, did you ever hunt for your Christmas presents in mid-December and actually look when you found them? Have you ever read the back page of a novel while still only part way through? Did you search the internet to find out who won this year's Apprentice final before Sunday night's show?
Yes to one of those? More like yes to all of them, I reckon. It's great news for you lot then, as a flurry of reports from the US this week say that parents can now find out the gender of their unborn baby, at home, at only 10 weeks!
Couples mostly have to wait until the 20 week scan to tell the sex of their baby, and even that feels bafflingly early to our parents' generation, some of whom weren't even sure it would be a baby until the day it arrived. But now a North Texas company, Intelligender, has released a kit that can predict gender before you've even had the 12-week scan.The kit includes a vessel which, when filled with urine, turns orange if the baby is a girl or green if it's a boy. It's all based on hormones, but the company won't reveal which while a patent is pending.
The whole thing takes less than 10 minutes. It's claimed to be 78-80% accurate, and costs $34.95 over the counter at US chemists.
Intelligender suggest that parents don't paint the nursery blue or pink until the test is confirmed by a sonogram.
As a first-time pregnant mum-to-be, I admit to being intrigued by the baby's gender, and much keener on finding out than I imagined I might be. With five weeks to go to the next scan, I'm even tempted to Google Intelligender straight away to see if I can buy it on the internet. But overall, it concerns me that you can find out the gender so early. To be blunt, I worry for the 10-week old pregnancies that might end in termination because the gender doesn't quite suit.
The test is available for sale in 11 countries apparently, though interestingly and deliberately not in India or China.
What do you think? Is finding out the gender at 10 weeks a good or bad thing?