Huckleberries Online

Would You Want To Know?

Posted by DFO

Dec. 18, 2009 1:28 p.m. • 9 comments

I just returned from a farewell lunch for ad manager Bob Myklebust of the Coeur d’Alene office. Bob is retiring from his job after almost 25 years here. He and his upbeat nature will be missed. Among those at the potluck banquet in the SR basement were Erica Curless and Taryn Hecker, the Butch and Sundance of the old newsroom who broke several stories together including the sex tape misadventures at Coeur d’Alene High and the spicy e-mails at the prosecutor’s office. As many of you know, Erica is due to have her first baby. Her expecting date is the same as this blog’s anniversary, Feb. 16. I pointed that out to her, of course. Then, she told me that she didn’t know whether she was having a boy or girl. She was the only one in her birthing class that doesn’t know.

Question: How about you. Would you want to know the sex of the baby that you or your wife is carrying? Why? Why not?

Nine comments on this post so far. Add yours!

Sisyphus on December 18 at 2:06 p.m.
We opted out until the birth day. So many things can go wrong during a pregnancy that using science to personalize the fetus by ascertaining gender seemed too much like setting us up for a fall unnecessarily. In other words, we didn’t count our chickens til they hatched.
markr on December 18 at 2:40 p.m.
a better question is, if it’s a boy, will he be named Huck?
Stickman on December 18 at 4:44 p.m.
For all of my children, I never wanted to know the sex. Didn’t matter.
sue on December 18 at 5:42 p.m.
It only matters when you’re trying to buy gifts for the baby shower. Almost everything is gender specific these days, because almost everyone opts to know. You almost have to look away at the sonogram if you don’t want to know, and who could do that? So much easier to plan if you know. For some reason, I was so sure my 3rd son was a girl, poor little boy had pink booties waiting for him. I was never disappointed having 3 boys, just a little surprised.
fortboise on December 18 at 6:07 p.m.
It’ll come out sooner or later.
Cindy_H on December 18 at 6:10 p.m.
Opted not to know for the first.
Found out about the next two.
Didn’t want to know about the fourth, but having seen so many boy parts via ultrasound, eight months into my pregnancy, I looked at the ultrasound and realized “Samantha” was definitely a Samuel.
chatterbox on December 18 at 9:01 p.m.
I didn’t want to know until about an hour before the C-section was performed. The doctor took a look at the ultrasound and pronounced that from this angle it looked like a girl. One hour later my son came into the world.
I was blessed.
spokelooneh on December 18 at 11:03 p.m.
LOL, Chatterbox.

We could have found out easily, as it was a difficult pregnancy with several ultrasounds, but we didn’t want to know. Wife said “I’m not going through ALL THIS without having a surprise at the end!”

She said she didn’t care if the ultrasound tech told me, but, that would have been ridiculous for me to know and not her. Surprise, surprise. Just go with it. ‘Twas a girl which I think my wife had her heart set on, but either way, didn’t matter to me. I just wanted a healthy baby after all the difficulty we’d gone through which went on right to the very end. And then it was bliss.
ejs on December 19 at 8:20 a.m.
I always love the “we had to know so we could plan” plan what I wonder? I mean the kid wears the same sweet pea gown for about six months if you can’t get more stuff during that time then your a kook. Besides what if you find personality traits in the first six months that are nice and interesting, then you can get stuff more appropriate for the indavidual child.
The ones that want to know are the same ones that open Christmas gifts on Christamas eve or any time before because they excuse away why they can’t wait, family tradition, grand pa can’t get up in the morning, etc,etc,

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About this blog

D.F. Oliveria is a columnist and blogger for The Spokesman-Review. Huckleberries Online was judged the best 2008 Idaho newspaper blog by the Idaho Press Club. And the best 2007 news blog in the Pacific Northwest by the Society for Professional Journalist. Print Huckleberries is a past winner of the Herb Caen Memorial Column contest by the National Association of Newspaper Columnists. The Readership Institute of Northwestern University cited this blog as a good example of online community journalism.