PA
Dumped when pregnant and facing motherhood alone, follow mum to be Farah Ishaq's bumpy journey to motherhood...
"Congratulations! You have a 49 chance of having a girl!"
I've just filled in one of the many free gender predictor tests available online, ahead of my 20 week anomaly scan this Friday – but as you can see – as all profitable bookmakers are liable to do, the website really does hedge its bets, around the 50/50 mark!Of course no one can really predict the gender - not even the 'accurate' Chinese sex calendar, the fact that you're carrying weight up front, that your legs are hairier than before getting pregnant, that you might prefer the heel of a loaf of bread or when you dangle a needle over the bump it swings from side to side. Just about anything could be used as an analogy.
Which leads me to my question: Are we right to want to find out whether our bumps are blue or pink? Or are we being impatient, spoiling the surprise by not waiting for the moment the midwife hollers 'it's a girl!' or 'it's a boy!' after delivery?
Many of my friends have kept their babies' genders under wraps until the birth, rationalising that finding out the sex is a modern-day, technology-driven thing trend and that it's unnatural to know. It's like opening your Christmas presents early and ruining the magic of surprise.
Personally I have never liked waiting to open my presents and I can't wait to find out. Not for any practical reasons, not because I would prefer one to another. But it's far lovelier to have a distracting daydream about the baby's sex than panic about the rest of the anomaly scan tests and what might show up.
Being able to mentally visualise the next steps as a first-time mum is also very important to me. Is it selfish that I'd like free rein to properly start imagining what my baby might look like (whilst secretly hoping my features might override the errant father's)? I jest.
I've never liked calling my bump an 'it'; tongue-slips since the start have caught me reverting to saying 'he,' yet I have the world's BEST name lined-up, only usable if it's a girl.
Oh I can't wait. 5 days to go! Bets are on... my inner hunch says blue... but it could be pink.