GIRL v’s BOY: The Pregnancy Myths!!!!
I always knew that if I was ever lucky enough to fall pregnant one day I would one million percent NOT want to know the sex of the baby. I absolutely ADORED the idea of keeping the moment I laid eyes on them for the very first time a magical magical surprise.
And then last July, all of my dreams came true and the nine month countdown begun.
I don’t know how you guys feel, but in the last few years it seems as if there were boujee, extra and ridiculously OTT gender reveals everywhere I turned?!?! If you were pregnant and didn’t have a wardrobe in your garden filled with pink or blue clothes, a cannon bursting out coloured confetti and 600 people (pre corona hehe) standing in your garden waiting for the announcement with OK Magazine filming your every move then you were doing pregnancy ALL WRONG!!!
Well, you know me, I’m not ever one to follow a crowd and I was totally adamant that I didn’t want to know the sex.
Oh my gadddd WHO WAS I KIDDING?? The thought of not knowing who my little darling was inside my tummy for all that time was UNBEARABLE.
Would I seriouslllllly be able to wait nine months? The temptation was beyond anything I’ve ever felt in my life!!!
But although the suspense was killing me, I managed to stick to my guns because I knew that however hellish my labour would be, knowing I would have the surprise of my life at the finish line would be worth every single second of waiting.
(Spoiler alert: After pushing Teds out I was so utterly traumatised, I kinda forgot to ask if he was a girl or boy. There was no magical reveal. Instead it was just me trying not to die from shock whilst I got stitched up for three hours……Classy as always aren’t I ?!?!.)
I digress. Back to the first trimester we go…
Okay.
I know this may seem totally and utterly MENTAL, and 99.7% of you reading this right now will be like ‘UMMM IS THIS HUN OKAYYYY?’… but guys, I ALREADY KNEW Teddy was in my tummy!!!!!!!
I can’t even explain how. Or try and put it into words to make what I just said seem sane or normal, but honestly, I promise you, I just had that instant GUT instinct from ummmm week two. I KNOW. Ridics isn’t it?!?!?
In-fact I was THAT convinced I knew there was a little boy inside me, that we named him Teddy from the second we knew he was in my tummy, and it was just the most special and precious way to bond with my bump. I even had the most vivid real dream when I was about eight weeks pregnant that I was holding Teddy in my arms, and when I woke up the next morning I told my hubby the next day that I had just met our son and he was bloddy sensational. Oh god I sound totally mental right now don’t I? but I just cant explain it. I KNEW TEDDY WAS INSIDE ME.
Have any of you been in the same situation as me?
My whole family knew that if we had a boy he would be called Teddy. We spoke about him so much and what we imagined he was going to be like that one day when I was eight months preggers my mum called me up and was like “ummmm hey hun, I’m getting a bit worried that you haven’t bonded with your baby if she’s a girl. You will literally get the shock of your life and I think you need to start preparing that she might be coming soon”. I just laughed down the phone and told her to stop being so ridics and that we were going to meet Teds soon silly billy.
Fast forward to the HORROR SHOW THAT WAS MY LABOUR, (read here if you dare) and by the time my little darling finally arrived I didn’t even need to ask if the baby was a boy or girl. (Well I couldn’t because I was the 2020 version of The Exorcist and was barely human) I think I just about muttered ‘can I hold my Teddy bear now please’ in my comatose state and when he got put into my arms I thought to myself. “Hi my little darling I knew it was you all along”.
There was no big ‘reveal’ moment. No shock. No surprise.
It was him all along. My Teddy Bear. Just as my gut told me.
GIRL VERSUS BOY SYMPTOMS?
Okayyy okayyyyy we get that you knew he was a boy.. but where are you going with this blog hun?
Sorry guys you know by now that I love an intro that lasts nine years. Ya know it sets the scene, creates the suspense ….. no? Okay. Lets crack on shall we….
When I was pregnant with Teddy the SECOND my tummy showed a tiny sign of bumpage meant that every stranger and their wife felt like they had become mystic meg and would tell me what I was going to have.
Brenda in Morrisons would look me dead in my eye and say, ‘oh wowwwww that’s a big bump your definatly going to have a boy!. By month nine I got told by concerned friends that ‘your face looks a little bit swollen and puffy… but don’t worry that means a girly is on the way”. Thanks hun, I wasn’t worried, I just ate 25 bags of chocolate buttons last night so I’m just a bit fat right now ya knowwww.
I was also extremely lucky to go through pregnancy with my bestie (my sis) by my side. But my sis was the total opposite of me, she wanted to find out the sex of her baby IMMEDIATELY!!!! And we all knew she had a little girl growing inside her tummy. Yep. She was one of THOSE who burst a pink cannon into my face as I walked into her house for a cuppa tea last September.
So nine months rolled by. Two sisters. Two gigantic bumps. One growing a lunatic boy who kicked every 1.5 seconds espesch at 2am. And one growing a little chilled out girl who lurrrved to sleep all day long.
But just how accurate were those ‘Pregnancy myths’ ????
I think it’s time to take a fun trip down memory lane.
- MYTH ONE: MORNING SICKNESS!!!
‘If you have severe sickness you’re definitely having a girl’.
Sammy/Boy: I spent the duration of my first trimester feeling EMPTY. Like the type of sick feeling where you’re severely hungry, allll dayyyy, everrrrrrry day. But I was only actually physically sick for one day only during my pregnancy. I mean don’t get me wrong, that one day will forever haunt me. When I think about it I get actual chills. Read all about it here if ya fancy reading a quick lil horror story. But yeah, i’ll take that one day of sickness a million times over compared to what my sis experienced.
Laura/Girl: Which leads me on to my sis, where back in a different world we used to meet every day at 8:16am to get the central line together into London. Vom. Well I say together, I never actually used to be able to speak or function before 10am. So we would ride in silence. Soz hun. Anyway I digress. My poor sis would just about make the train every day, jumping on as the doors were about to slam close, whilst trying to get her breath back and spluttering out ‘sorry, had my head down the loo again’. Allllll day, everrrrrrrrrry day.
CONCLUSION: TOTALLY ACCURATE!!!!!
- MYTH TWO: ‘THE PREGNANCY GLOW… OR JUST… NO!!!’
‘Little boys cause their mummies to glow from head to toe, whilst little girls steal their mums beauty’.
Sammy/Boy: Well look, I’m not going to sit here and say my face deserved to be on a billboard. Far from it. Especially before 10am. But what did give me the ultimate shock of my life, was that my adult acne that used TO DRIVE ME INSANE AND CAUSE MANY A MELTDOWN, all of a sudden disappeared off the face of the earth. Where ya gone hun?MY SKIN WAS CLEAR. I’M SORRY WHAT?!? And I promise you it was a rarity that I would ever have a spot free month. All of a sudden for nine months I actually could look at myself in the mirror without makeup on without vomming at myself. This could have been because it was Teddy inside me, or could been because I drank twelve litres of water an hour to stop myself feeling sick. Isn’t pregnancy fun!
Laura/Girl: Weirdly enough my sister went through the exact opposite. She never used to get hormonal spots like me and all of a sudden she was pregnant and her skin broke out. Soz hun. Its about time the roles reversed and I had good skin for once. Let me have my moment yeah?
CONCLUSION: TOTALLY ACCURATE!!!!!
- MYTH THREE: CRAVINGS!!!!
‘Craving salty foods means you’re having a boy, sweet cravings mean a girl.’
Sammy/Boy: I basically spent the first three months of being pregnant licking every bit of salt from a crisp packet like I was a human dog.
Laura/Girl: The only craving my sister had was rocket salad. What an absolute weirdo.
CONCLUSION: TOTALLY ACCURATE FOR ME!!!!! NOT SO MUCH FOR MY SIS!!!!!!!!!!!
- MYTH FOUR: HOT v’s COLD.
‘if you’re feeling ice ice baby… it’s a boy. Hot and sweaty?… it’s a girl.
Sammy/Boy: Spent the entire nine months trying not to faint from being a LITERAL hot mess. And had about 69498347 hot flushes a day.
Laura/Girl: Even if we would be sitting in 40 degrees heat next to a cracking burning fire wearing thick jumpers, gloves and scarves my sister would be shivering.
CONCLUSION: ABSOLUTELY WRONG!!!!!!!!!!
- MYTH FIVE: CALM vs CRAYYYYY.
‘If you are a chilled out person you’re more likely to conceive a boy, whereas if you’re a bit moodier you are having a girl’.
Sammy/Boy: I like to think that overall I am a very happy and chilled out girl. And…. CRINGE… if I do the maths of when Teddy might have, definitely was madeeee vom.. it was last June 2019, when I was in Dubai, the most relaxed and chilled I’ve ever ever felt, LIVING MY BESTEST LIFE.
Laura/Girl: Out of the two of us my sis was deffo more of a stress head than me. Although since being a mum she’s become the most chilled out girl I know, who didn’t even bloody moan during labour ffs.
CONCLUSION: TOTALLY ACCURATE!!!!!
- MYTH SIX: BUMPY SHAPE!!!!
‘if your bumpy is high, looks like you’ve shoved a football up your top, and your alllllll out front- your having a boy. If your bumpy is here there and everywhere… its a girl!!!
Sammy/Boy: If you saw me from behind no-one would know I was pregnant. Then I turned around and would always get actual loud gasps. I WAS ENORMOUS. And from being a petite small girly my whole life, to looking like I had twenty five football shoved up me was a shock to the system. Every time I took a step forward I felt like my bump would drag me crashing down to the floor. And the back ache. OH THE BACK ACHE. But because I was alllllllll bump, and only out front, when Teddy came out I was left with A SACK OF S*** in my bumps place. I resembled an empty wobbly jelly and I was NOT OKAY.
Laura/Girl: My whole life I have fumed with jealousy at my sisters bod. Petite. Flat stomach. What an actual bitch. And then she got preggers. Until around week 30 I still hated her with my whole heart. But then the third trimester hit and she expanded. Everywhere. Mwahahahahahahaha.
CONCLUSION: TOTALLY ACCURATE!!!!!
So there we have it. The six bigger myths of pregnancy and whether they came true from us.
And do you know what?…. They really really did!!!!
If I didn’t get a gut feeling from the very start, and my sis never found out she was having a girl… comparing ourselves to these myths alone could have told us everything we needed to know. Amazing isn’t it?! I know these myths are totally non scientific and are all just a bit of fun but it is pretyyyyyyy spooky how completely accurate they were for us.
So now it’s your turn, I want to know if any of these were true for you too… did you know who was inside you all along? Or did you get the biggest shock of your life?
Thank you so much for reading and I can’t wait to catch up with you all soon.
Love you all lots,
Sammy xxxx
P.S There are the two little rascals below.
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