Jonny and I waited 20 weeks to find out whether or not we were having a boy or a girl. 20 FREAKING WEEKS. That’s halfway through the pregnancy! A lot of my friends told me about third party ultrasound places where you can go and find out the sex as early as 14 weeks, which was super tempting. I even got as far as almost making an appointment but Jonny wanted to wait until the 20 week mark so I respected his feelings on this even though I wanted to find out!
20 weeks is a long time to wait. I was dying to find out! So, I did what any sane 33 year old pregnant woman would do. I looked up all the pregnancy old wives tales I could find and tried to decipher the sex myself. Before I got pregnant, I remember many of my friends talking about these old wives tales and that they put a lot of stock in them. I always thought it seemed kind of silly but now that it was me, I couldn’t help but test out a few of these for myself.
Here are the ones I tried:
1.) The Wedding Band: This is the one that I couldn’t believe I actually tried. For this test, you use your wedding band or any other ring that you wear daily and you place it on a string. Then, you lie down on a flat surface and hold the the string from the top with the wedding ring dangling below and placed right above your stomach/pelvic area. If the ring moves in a circle, it’s a girl. If it moves back and forth like a pendulum, it’s a boy. When I held the string and wedding band over my stomach/pelvic area, it circled (and fast!) immediately. So, this would predict that I was having a girl. WRONG.
2.) The Ultrasound Heartbeat: When I went in to see my OBGYN for my 15 week appointment, we got to hear the heartbeat, which was pretty magical. She also told me that the heartbeat was measuring at 155 bpm. It has been rumored that if the baby’s heartbeat is measuring over 140 bpm, it’s a girl as a girl’s heart beats faster in utero. If it beats under 140 bpm, it’s a boy. Based on Baby Beeb’s heartbeat, this test predicted that I was having a girl. I asked my doctor right there how accurate is the ultrasound heartbeat test and she smiled and said “it’s accurate 50% of the time.” Haha, that was enough for me to not take too much stock in this one but STILL! Wrong again!
3.) Salty vs. Sweet Cravings: This was one that many of my friends reminded me of when I found out I was pregnant. To be honest, I have never been a huge sweets person. Don’t get me wrong, I can have a sweet tooth here and there but it’s not something that dominates my daily cravings. However, during my first trimester, all I wanted was salty foods. In fact, this was where the BLT craving was born. A lot of people told me that if I was craving salty foods, I was carrying a boy. So far, this has been the only “test” that has held some truth.
4.) The Chinese Calendar: I had never heard about this until I got pregnant and someone mentioned to me on Instagram. I immediately Googled it and plugged in all my information (year of my birth and month of conception). I actually tried this on like 10 different sites and the first one I did said boy but the rest all said girl. Another one that was not accurate for me!
5.) Ovulation + Conception: A friend of mine told me that you can predict if you are having a boy or a girl by going back and tracking your ovulation during the month that you got pregnant and pinpointing the day that you believe conception occurred. I had a pretty solid idea on when this happened for us. Based on scientific data, girl sperm tend to move slower but are more resilient than boy sperm so technically, you should try to conceive before your ovulation for a girl and closer to your ovulation window for a boy. Based on this information, we would’ve been having a girl BUT Jonny and I were not trying to hit a specific window other than just my ovulation week and we never tested my ovulation. We were lucky that we conceived quickly so we never had a need to buy an ovulation kit to help with this.
6.) Acne: There is an old saying that “girls steal their mother’s beauty,” which is such a horrible thing to say. However, this has also been linked to acne during pregnancy and if that can predict if you are having a boy or a girl (acne = girl, glowing skin = boy). Well, I’ve always struggled with adult hormonal acne and to be completely honest, my acne flared up quite a bit during my first and second trimester. Like, really bad actually. Even my dad, who was one of the few people that predicted we were having a boy from the very beginning, almost changed his mind because of how bad my acne got. However, I also have a hypoactive thyroid and was diagnosed with this when I was 14 years old. I have been taking medication for this every day since then and as you get older, your thyroid changes, which can actually throw off your hormonal balance. Whenever this has happened, it always resulted in really terrible hormonal breakouts until my medication was altered to fix the imbalance. When I went to my 15 week OBGYN appointment, my doctor (who is SUPER on top of things) put in a lab request to test my thyroid to see if pregnancy had altered anything that we needed to be aware of. Turns out, my actual thyroid was fine BUT my TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone) was off the charts high. So, we are trying out a new medication dosage and my skin has actually significantly calmed down. Part of me is wondering if my TSH was the culprit all along but I’m keeping my fingers crossed that my skin will be better from here on out.
In conclusion, it was fun to play the prediction game while we waited for our 20 week ultrasound, but really, these pregnancy old wives tales are only right 50% of the time (haha) and were not accurate for me. However, it’s still fun to partake, especially during a first pregnancy.