Round Two: Surprise...or Not

When you were pregnant with your first, you have a sort of clean canvas upon which to decide whether you would find out the baby's gender.  Or not.  You consider a bunch of things, but mostly you go with your gut (i.e. I NEED TO KNOW...or surprises are the best).  Now, you're pregnant with bambino numero dos and you're once again faced with the decision to find out the baby's gender or not.

This time around, the canvas ain't blank.  In fact, this time around, the canvas is completely splattered and smudged and smeared with the loving art of your firstborn.  So, the considerations you had when making the determination with your first are probably going to be different than this time around.

For starters, whether you decided to find out the gender of your firstborn or not, you now know that he is a he or she is a she.  So, you now have gender specific things all over your house - clothes, shoes, toys, bedding, gear and countless other miscellaneous baby accoutrement.  Whether you wanted to or not, you've been gifted and otherwise accumulated lots and lots of girly or boy-ey (?) stuff.  If baby number two is the opposite gender, you may find yourself needing to (or wanting to) purchase some stuff that suits his or her gender.

They (tropical5 on Etsy) makes pacifiers that are blinged out with Swarovski gems.
You may want to go with something less...pink and sparkly for your baby boy.  Maybe.

There's also the fact that baby number one is around for this pregnancy.  Baby number one is following along, on some level, and may benefit from knowing baby number two's gender.  You may benefit from using baby number two's gender in your readying of baby number one for this major life transition.  Or,

And, what about the logistics involved with where baby number two will set up shop for the long run?  If you're going to have two kiddos of the same gender, it might be in your plan for them to share a bedroom.  Two kiddos of opposite gender may influence you to give everyone their own space.  This sort of decision is nice to make in advance because it gives everyone some time to emotionally adjustment and it gives you time to physically get the space ready.  

Perhaps the lavender decor is too girly for your baby boy?  

Perhaps the airplane decor is too boy-ey for your baby girl?

I didn't find out the gender of my firstborn.  I was miserable about it for the first trimester and most of the second...just desperate to know what my husband and I had decided not to know.  About halfway through my second trimester the desperation simmered.  By my third trimester I was pretty excited that we had kept it a surprise.  On the day that my daughter arrived, I was already sure that we would keep baby number two's gender a surprise as well.  I wonder if my mind will change when the time comes...