To sex, or not to sex?

Shame on you! Get your mind out of the gutter.

That's not what I mean by that question. I'm simply wondering whether or not we should find out the gender of this baby.

In the past, I always thought I'd prefer to be surprised at childbirth. But I also said I'd never ride a motorcycle, date a man who wore jewelry, or live in Alabama. Never say never, right?!

Take a look at me now!

It's hard to tell, but my husband (fiance at the time of this photo) is wearing a silver chain around his neck that he still wears and refuses to take off for any occasion. He's actually sitting on the same bike that we rode on our first date. We've since added two more Harleys to the collection - one of which was a wedding gift for me. And we now are proud homeowners in the sticks of Alabama! In my defense, it's hard to argue with lower property taxes and plenty of land.

Here's the house:

Not bad for 'bama, huh?

And here's me riding the wedding gift:

So, my point is this: The only constant in life is change and that's true for preferences as well. 

What makes this gender debate a more difficult dilemma for me is that this will be my only child.

 "Sure!" and "Yeah right. You say that now." Is what I hear a lot of people tell me, but rest assured, this is it. One time. Done. Finito. No mas.

Because my husband was previously married and already had two children (who were 3 and 9 years old when I first met them), asking to double his brood was a bit much. And considering that I spend all day every day with children, my previous dream of having 3 - 4 kids was quickly readjusting itself. Those buggers are a lot of work and ridiculously expensive! Add to this the fact that there is a 12 year age gap between my husband and myself. He's no spring chicken (despite acting like one) and understandably doesn't want to be a grandfather before he fathers his last child. So, we made a compromise that we both could live with: We'd only have 1 child of our own and blend our family of 5 as best we could. 

So this is my one shot and I'm left with this question.

To sex, or not to sex? To be surprised? Or not? On the one hand, a surprise could be pretty cool (unless it's a boy, in which case my bonus daughter will be devastated and probably suggest sending it back from whence it came). On the other, knowing the gender would lend itself for better shopping and name selection. What to do?

I recall having to sex fruit flies (aka Drosophila melanogaster....don't be too impressed - it's the ONLY thing I remember from that dang class) in freshman year genetics at Furman. I found the task not only quite tedious, but very boring. Though admittedly, how excited can you be when you have to wake up at the butt crack of dawn every morning, including weekends, and schlep yourself all the way across campus simply to check out some fly crotches? Not very, as I learned. I hated doing it, but understood it was a requirement for class, so there I was in the lab each morning at 6:30. The purpose was to isolate males from females so as to selectively mate them for certain traits and watch the passage of genes from parent to offspring....blah blah blah. But sexing those little bugs left me feeling like I was violating them somehow. You wouldn't just pick up a human, or really any other animal unless you're a veterinarian, and spread their legs apart so that you could identify them by their nether-parts would you?? It's just rude. Not only that, but I had to sedate them before I could put them on the slide and then zoom in on their junk with the microscope. Not cool. That'd be considered lewd and lascivious in the human world - that or a really bad first date. 

So I made a point to at least knock on the glass jar that held them as a warning that an invasion was ahead. It was the least I could do.

I should probably find some way to warn this kid, too.