Our Twins' Gender Reveal

Let me start off by saying I hate the term "gender reveal". Frankly, gender is something a child or adult feels and associates with. This is becoming more and more apparent and accepted, thanks to the LGBT community and even pop culture (hello, who didn't watch or hear about the Bruce Jenner interview!?). What we are in fact revealing is their biological sex - penis or vagina. There, I said it! But I guess somewhere down the line, someone decided using the word "sex" for a baby would be inappropriate and so we're stuck with the term "gender reveal," and SEO would suggest I better go ahead and use it, so... onward with our story!!

With our first child, we did not find out his sex beforehand. It was my husband's job at delivery to figure it out and make the announcement (which he totally forgot to do in the moment, so I was the first to realize when they put the baby on my chest and my hand cupped his nether regions!!). But this time around, we want to know. We HAVE to know!!! Do we need to buy some more boy clothes? Do we need to keep my son's stuff and buy girl stuff as well, or can we get rid of his stuff and stock up on frilly pink goodness?? Of course I was desperately hoping for at least 1 girl, because, hello, 3 boys??? Yikes...

Because I'm having twins, even though they're di-di (2 separate sacks and placentas), I'm automatically "high risk" and have recently started having sonograms every two weeks. I thought we could determine sexes at our 16 week scan and even walked into the room telling the technician I didn't want to know and would she please write it on a piece of paper and seal it up so I could find out together with my husband later. Well, of course she couldn't see any of the babies' bits or bobs, so I was stuck waiting two more tortuous weeks!

This time, I walked into the 18 week scan without an ounce of will power. I was glued to the screen and told her I am dying to know what these babies are!! After a while, she finally announced Baby A is a girl, and showed me the "3 dots" that proved so, not to mention lack of a penis. Baby B was a bit harder to figure out but finally she got the same proof and was confident to announce that we were in fact having TWO GIRLS!!!

That's a shot from below both girls' bottoms'. Hopefully no penises appear in the coming scans, but I guess it's possible!

I had just written an article for Mommy Nearest on fun ways to do a gender reveal, so I just went with the one that was cheapest and easiest - the balloon unveiling! I didn't spill the beans to my hubby, so was able to capture his true reaction in the video, which is priceless!! Here ya go!!

One interesting piece of information having two babies of the same sex does not tell us is whether or not they are identical (from one egg) or fraternal (from two eggs). If they were boy/girl we would know they are fraternal. But two girls... we'll have to wait and see what they look like when they're born! If they look identical, we can do a genetic test (swab of the cheek) to find out. From what I've read, it seems the chances of them being identical is about 30%. Not sure which I'd prefer, not that I have a choice in the matter HA!

And now we're on to the real fun... PICKING OUT NAMES!!! We want the name to be pronounced the same in English and Japanese, so "R", "L", and "TH" are off limits. We also want all 5 of us to have different initials, so no names starting with "H", "R", or "K"! And... GO!