No, I Didn't

"If we knew," I said, "people would swamp us with pink or blue before the kid even showed up. Besides, I like a surprise."

"Me too."

And so, at my ultrasound, we didn't ask our baby's sex. I was never sorry.

True, I got sick of the question that everyone in the world seemed to ask: "Do you know if you're having a boy or a girl?" I also got sick of my smart-aleck reply: "We're definitely having a boy or a girl."

But I never tired of what happened next. More often than not, people would give me an appraising squint. A once-over. A confident smile. Then out would tumble the predictions: "It's a girl. I can tell from how high you're carrying." Or "It's a boy. You don't look pregnant from behind."

Now and then, their methods were more involved. My friend Eric solemnly tied his gold ring to a chain and held it over my open palm, a tradition of his Chinese-American family. The chain swung straight, then in a circle, then straight twice more. It was settled, Eric said. I would have a boy, and later -- if I got pregnant three more times -- I would have a girl and two more boys.

My mother performed a similar ritual handed down by her English-Swedish mother. She tied my wedding ring to a piece of thread, then dangled it over my swollen belly; we held our breath. It swung straight. "Ha!" she crowed. "You're gonna have a little boy. A hairy little boy. I know it. The ring trick is always right!"

I took this with a grain of salt. Ditto for every other homespun gender-revealing test. "So why do you go along with them?" Bill asked. "Because it's fun," I said. Fun to pretend, fun to confer, and, above all, fun to have those intense little moments with everyone from relatives to supermarket clerks.

Why did I prefer such moments to anything science could dish up? Maybe I wanted "a rite of passage into motherhood," as an anthropologist once told me. "Technology doesn't give you that." Good point. When a lab technician looks at a computer screen and states, "You're having a girl" or "You're having a boy," that's it. But when friends, family, or neighbors take time to predict your baby's sex, they're saying a lot more -- that having a baby is a big deal and so is becoming a parent. They want to be involved and invested in your life. In your baby's life too.

I found that unspoken pledge very comforting, since I knew almost nothing about babies and was going to need all the help I could get. Plus, I enjoyed the feeling  -- also not available in the lab  -- that I was part of something ancient. Probably since caveman days, people have tried to guess the sex of unborn babies ("You crave mammoth leg again, Unga-it must be girl!"). I was joining a long and colorful continuum.

As I'd predicted, our shower guests stayed away from boring pink and blue in favor of teal, gold, red, purple, and plaid. On the other hand, Bill and I did spend an awful lot of time debating names.

"We could just go with Chris or Pat," he said. "Then we'll be set either way." "We could just wait until after the baby's born and see if we're inspired." We kept debating right up until labor. At least it gave us something to talk about besides the shooting pains in my back. Then one bright spring morning, we had new things to discuss -- like how amazing it was to be actual parents. And how beautiful our baby was.

And how the ring trick had been right.

Melissa Balmain's son, David, is 4 years old.

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