Friends, we may be in record territory. As far as I know, I’m not currently expecting. But if I’m not pregnant already, then my next duedate will be over 2 years from the birth of my last child.
Because of this and because my sister-in-law just announced that she’s pregnant, and because we were all just at a baby shower for another sister who is due in December, pregnancy is very much on my mind. It’s so much on my mind that I just ordered a 25-pack of pregnancy tests on Amazon
. At just over $5 for the whole box (with free shipping and no sales tax), they’re far cheaper than buying them one at a time from the local Everything’s A Dollar Store.
I had one very odd experience when it comes to predicting the gender of a baby, and plenty of people think they can guess by the shape of a pregnant woman’s belly. Our mom says that with her 14 children she never found a pattern or symptom that helped her accurately predict the gender of a child. At the baby shower, we talked a little about morning sickness, and didn’t come to any solid conclusions.
Now I’m wondering…
I think I had less morning sickness with my boys than with my girls, but it also seems that I had less morning sickness as I got older. Maybe it had nothing to do with the baby’s gender.
What do you think?
There is a poll below. Feed subscribers may need to click through to this post to see the poll.
Loading ...Did you find other signs or symptoms that seemed to help predict the gender of your babies or those of other people you know? I would love to hear your thoughts!
couldn’t see the poll – mine has just got worse with each pregnancy ! And, I have had a mix of boys and girls. So, for me, the answer is no! I use the scan to determine the gender!
I’ve never noticed morning sickness had any pattern to it to distinguish boy/girl. MY morning sickness seems to be totally different each time, though it was a lot less with my last pregnancy (boy). However, it was the worst in my first pregnancy (also boy.)
My stepmom, who was raised in China, told me with one pregnancy that she knew it was a specific gender because I was ugly during the pregnancy (cultural/language barrier..she later explained she meant I had zits lol) but I can’t remember if that was when I was pregnant with a boy or girl.
Funny enough, each time I’ve been pregnant, though it’s only been 3 times so far, I was right when I guessed what I was having. With each pregnancy, when we were trying to think of names, the name that came most easily was the gender the baby turned out being. Coincidence though? Probably. I’ll see if I can make it 4 for 4 next time I’m pregnant
My skin was absolutely horrid with my first pregnancy (boy). It was actually better than normal with my second pregnancy (2 boys- twins!). So maybe just another myth?
Oh, and thanks for the link for the cheap pregnancy tests. I’ve been wanting to get a bunch, and never even thought of looking online. The price sure beats $1/each!
For me it got better the older I got, well I’ve only had 3, but had a span of 6 years between first and third, and each time the sickness got less and less, it was boy, girl, boy, so I thought that it was having a boy that lead to greater sickness after my first, but not for me!! I think everyone is different!
With six pregnancies, I’ve seen no pattern between morning sickness and gender or morning sickness and maternal age. By far, my worst morning sickness was with #4 a girl and lasted until the end of the second trimester (I don’t vomit, just lots of nausea). By far, my best morning sickness was with #6, also a girl; I felt a faint queasy feeling for about 5 minutes at a time twice a *week*.
As for shape of tummy. I carried both of my first 2 low, and they were a girl and a boy. After that I stopped paying attention enough to remember, but I know it’s been random.
Everything is right 50% of the time, just like with gender. But just like the person who happens to have 5 girls in a row by chance, your method can be right 5 times in a row. Then at that point, people tend to ignore the failures….
So funny. I just bought that same pack. They’re about half gone now, but I won’t be needing the rest. I’ll just give them to my sister who is trying to conceive. I just worry that giving them to her will make her feel bad because I’m obviously having no difficulty conceiving at all! It’s a good deal. Snap it up, mamas!
As far as morning sickness, I’ve had very little with any of my pregnancies, perhaps because we eat a lot of beans. ;0)
Also, how did you get those brilliant forward and backward buttons on the side of the blog? I need that!
Cindy, the navigation arrows are created by a wordpress plugin called Genesis Single Post Navigation. It’s free, but you can only use it with the premium Genesis theme.
Hrm. I wonder if Thesis has something similar.
With my boys it was intense and lasted well into my fifth month, with the girls, it was only in the evening, not as intense and went away as soon as I cleared my first trimester.
You’ll hate me, but I don’t really get morning sickness…so I can’t say there’s been a difference in my pregnancies in that regard. I have read that women who don’t “find out” what they’re having guess correctly 70% of the time. I have guessed correctly 0% of the time.
I’ve had morning sickness with every pregnancy. My first was a boy, and it was pretty bad. My second was not bad at all, and it was a boy. My third pregnancy was atrocicious, but turned out I was pregnant with twin girls. This time they tell me they’re sure its only one (haven’t had a sonogram yet), but the nausea is similar to the twins but less vomiting than with number one son. I’m kind of getting the feeling maybe another girl, but I really don’t know. I’ve heard from some sources that they think morning sickness is related to the amount of progesterone in the system. They suggest that since girl babies carrry their own progesterone, and there’s mom’s as well, that perhaps morning sickness is worse when you’re pregnat with a girl baby. I don’t know, but I do know that having a high protein shake directly after getting out of bed makes my nausea less and gives me more energy throughout the entire day. Like one of the ladies above, with every pregnancy its in the name. The gender of the names that come easiest to mind, and we like the most have been the sex of the baby. Isabel is really sticking in my head this time.
I haven’t been able to tell a difference at all between boy morning sickness & girl morning sickness. I wasn’t sick at all with my second pregnancy (girl) but it was because I got pregnant 7 weeks after my first daughter was born and I assume my hormone levels didn’t change too much at that point. And I’ve never been able to ‘guess’ what we’re having.
Two boys so far…not really any morning sickness with either. I don’t really think there is a 100% correct method for determining the gender (even ultrasound technicians get it wrong sometimes). Having a surprise is part of the fun.
Actually, gender can be determined by amniocentesis, but it is far too risky to use for such a non-essential, in my opinion. I agree that having it be a surprise is fun–though I’ve only had one so far (he’s 9 weeks old now) so I don’t have too much room to talk.
I don’t know about ms, but so far (4 kids) I can ttellel by a rash on my face that I get. With my boy, I had no rash and with my three girls, I get an itchy rash the whole pregnancy. My midwife says it’s the double female hormones in my body. We will see if the trend continues for future babies!
I was nauseas and threw up in varying degrees with all 3 of my girls…
I only felt “yuck” & not sure of what to eat with my 2 boys…
But with all 5, the symptoms started around 8 weeks and lasted until about 12 weeks (I consider myself blessed!) After that, the only difference I noticed was that I tended to carry my boys like I had put a basketball under my shirt.
My husband says he can tell by other changes, whether we are having a boy or girl. Morning sickness usually doesn’t tell us. So far he’s been right very time! If so, this next one is going to be a boy.
Btw, he also tells me I am pregnant before I even know that I am. So, I don’t even test anymore unless he says something. He’s been right every time on that also!
My husband can do that, too! He usually knows which gender the baby is, and he’s always told me I’m pregnant before I know that I am.
I had far less morning sickness as I got older and had more babies. It was a serious problem with my first 2 (G, G) children (nearly incapacitated for weeks), a little less severe with the next 3 (G, G, G) but still quite debilitating and difficult, and about non-existent with the last 6 (G, G, B, B, G, B).
With my 9th I did not realize I was pregnant until I was about three months, which is amazing considering how terribly sick I was with my first two. I have wondered if my body just gradually adapted to pregnancy hormones, especially since most of my pregnancies were rather close.
Nope. Morning sickness didn’t determine anything for me. Although, with my daughter, I did carry her differently. And labored differently. But it could have been because she was number four.
Can’t see the poll. I’m on my second (well, third actually) pregnancy. First was a girl and was a dream, I stopped throwing up 11 1/2 weeks in and that was that.
Second pregnancy I miscarried pretty early on, but the sickness started early and continued two + weeks after the miscarriage.
Now on the third pregnancy and the scan says it’s a boy. I’m more than 6 months in and still throwing up 3 or 4 times a week, and the early stages of sickness were horrible, was throwing up multiple times a day.
So i guess i’d say boy=more sickness!
I only have one little blessing so far – a girl – and I don’t consider my morning sickness to have been very bad at all. My mom had one of each and had hyperemesis gravidarum with both of us.
After years of extreme morning sickness and trying to find out why and how to prevent it, now that it seems that I’m past that season of life, I’ve learned a little more about the reasons for morning sickness.
Morning sickness has to do with the high amounts of circulating hormones that the liver is not processing out of the system efficiently, not the sex of the baby. The more hormones, the stronger the pregnancy is, which is why it was always a comfort to me when I experienced the morning sickness. Those pregnancies where I did not get sick, were also the pregnancies that we lost in miscarriage.
As we age, our hormone levels decrease so the morning sickness lessens. My last 3 of 10 pregnancies were better, although I still was very sick. The difference was that I was taking milk thistle for gallstones, and the milk thistle was helping my liver to function better and clear more used and still circulating hormones out of my system.
Most, but not all, women who have bad morning sickness that I’ve spoken to, usually seem to be the ones who also have gallstone issues. The liver and gallbladder are partner organs, so that connection makes sense to me.
Morning Sickness indicates:
Strength of the pregnancy? Yes.
A liver that can’t keep up with the amount of hormones its being asked to process? Yes.
Sex of the baby? No.
Laralee, do you think it’s possible that the gender of the baby affects the hormones of the mother, putting different loads on the mother’s liver and therefore playing a part in the liver problem you point to?
So far I’ve only had one baby, a girl. The first 6 weeks were fantastic, and then I was horribly sick for the next 36 weeks straight. Everyone tells me to try again, because the second babies are always better, supposedly. I’m hoping the next one will be a boy, so I’ll know whether gender makes a different. I’ve had a lot of people tell me they were horribly sick with their girls, but the boys were fine. Then I’ve had people tell me you get sicker with boys than with girls, because the hormonal difference is greater. Go figure!
My first 3 pregnancies were girls and the pregnancies were all exactly the same. With my boy, I had less morning sickness but I had heartburn real bad.
In my experience there is no connection at all between morning sickness and gender. I have had a girl and two boys, and am due with #4 in 7 weeks. However, with the two that I conceived while still nursing, there was a lot less morning sickness. I’m thinking because my hormones had not gotten back to normal yet?? I’m not sure though. I know it doesn’t work like that for everybody!
I’m not sure about that, i conceived the current pregnancy (number 3, but no 2 miscarried early on) while still nursing and I’ve been sooo sick!
I can only speak of my experience. To that end, I can say “Yes, levels of sickness definitely relate to the sex of the baby.” I was grossly ill with all of my boys lasting well into the fifth month, complete with throwing up, 24-7. With my daughter I did vomit, but it was not all day. It subsided by the end of my first trimester. Just to muddy the waters a little, I will add that my daughter was number two in the line up. The first five children were born in my twenties, and the sixth was born more than nine years after the previous child. So I do not fit the *older = less sickness* theory. And I have guessed correctly every time. Could I go seven for seven? I hope we are given the opportunity to find out!
It is interesting to read everyone’s experiences though!
Boys give me blinding migraines starting in the second trimester. These all caused pain like no other and numbness on the left side of my face.. Odd, but true. All three pregnancies with boys did this. Two pregnancies with girls never did, in fact i felt like superwoman.
I did have more morning sickness with my girls BUT my first was the worst and they’ve gotten better with each one. The first two were girls and the last two were boys. However, I am now pregnant and this one was the worst so far and I don’t know what we’re having yet. This one may answer the question. If it’s a boy then no correlation and if it’s a girl then maybe.
“But if I’m not pregnant already, then my next duedate will be over 2 years from the birth of my last child.”
I had to laugh at this. So I’m not the only one to make calculations like this when I’m not pregnant? With soon to be 5 children my farthest spread is 23 months.
I think that you should have a button for diminishing with age. My first two (girls) I was unspeakably sick with. Less so with the rest of the kids (mix of boys and girls), with my last pregnancy (#8) causing me moderate sickness (although with all of them, it lasted the whole 9 months), but intense narcolepsy! (Literally falling asleep when resting for just a moment on a sofa at the department store, among other times!) But that’s probably a whole different post!
2 boys, 1 girl With both boys I failed the 1st gestational diabetes screen by A LOT (1st boy, passed 3 hours, 2nd boy FAILED the 3 hour by A LOT) with the girl I passed with ease.
I way much, much sicker with my girls, but I was also sicker with each pregnancy (B, B, B, G, G) than the last. I don’t know if age had anything to do with it, or # of pregnancies, or gender, or some combination of the above. By #5, I had to stay on Zofran for a few months just to keep anything down at all – not a fun memory. But #5 is beautiful and sweet and so worth it!!!!
We have four girls and two boys (one set of boy/girl twins) and I was disgustingly sick with the three (single birth) girls but only somewhat gross with our (single birth) son. Then there were the twins. All the pregnancy symptoms doubled and I was a really big, tired, sick lady. Honestly, getting sick was a blessing though, because I was hardly sick at all with the two children that I lost to miscarriage.( I noticed that someone else made that comment as well).
Also, this might be weird, but anytime during a pregnancy that I dreamed about the sex of the baby it actually turned out to be true! (See, you can tell the pessimists that sometimes dreams really do come true!). The ladies I used to work with had some other weird methods of guessing the sex of a child – one involved a piece of string and a wedding ring and I think the other might have included a toilet and some drain-o ( seemed a little too creepy to me so can’t tell if those worked or not. Ha!).
In a few weeks I’ll be in record territory too! So strange after such a steady pattern for 11 years.
–Gena
I don’t really remember morning sickness having anything to do with boy/girl predictions.
BUT!! My hair gave it away! LOL!! I have very curly hair. When I was pregnant with my first, my hair went straight! (girl) When I was pregnant with the next 6 babies, it stayed curly (boys) Then, 21 years after my first girl, I was pregnant with my second daughter – YEP! My hair was losing it’s curl a ways into the pregnancy. It had been so long since our first daughter was born that we were wondering, but didn’t know for sure (my husband figured it out before I did). When we had the sonogram, and of course, when she was born, we could look back and say, “Ah-ha!”
Girl- SICK as can be, IV they kept trying to get in and never could, on meds the whole time, puking right up to delivery.
Miscarriage- not sick, personally feel it was a boy and I’ve “known” with all my kids before the ultrasound so I have no reason to doubt my instincts with this one.
Boy- not sick, just had like 3 random heaving episodes the whole pregnancy.
Girl- terribly sick again, on meds for hyperemisis again.
Girl- very sick again but not as bad as before, but still bad enough for meds.
So for me? Girl seems to equal hyperemisis and boy does not.
I had two boys. Not one day of morning sickness with the first son, but was sick right from the very first second and every day of my 2nd son’s pregnancy.
I had much more morning sickness with my twins I was also alot more tired.
Of my 8 pregnancies that went full-term (or close enough!) the worst two MS wise were #2 – a girl and #7 – a boy
My best pregnancies – #1 – a girl & #8 – a boy
My first was a girl and I was very sick, my second pregnancy was exactly the same and I had a boy. My third pregnancy was completely different from my first two. I would joke that I must be having a cat, since that pregnancy was so different and I already had one of each!!
I have four girls and two boys, and their gender didn’t make any difference on the severity of my morning sickness. The morning sickness followed the same general pattern: two weeks of feeling sick but not throwing up, five weeks of feeling sicker, with lots of variation in how much I threw up, if at all (less sick in my 40′s), then one week of diminishing sickness. Then I felt fine (though more tired in my 40′s.)
The interesting thing is that the 8-week pattern of morning sickness consistently started in the fourth week after conception with my girls, but two to three weeks later than that with my boys. Also, all of my girls were born in odd-numbered years, and my boys in even-numbered years. Does that count? Ha!
This was a fun post. I love pregnancy stories!
I find my husband much more *ahem* attractive when I’m pregnant with girls. Unfortunately, with boys, we live more like roommates.
I actually don’t have morning sickness, but enough other problems make up the difference. I’m definately worse off with boy pregnancies. I have 3 boys and 2 girls. So far, this pregnancy (I’m 10 weeks) hasn’t been too bad, so I’m already thinking ‘girl’! I also loose all desire for my husband when I’m pregnant with boys.
*lose. I can spell. I swear.
I have 7 children, 4 boys and 3 girls. I haven’t ever experienced morning sickness as most women have (yes, I’m ducking!!). What I have experienced are head aches. Up until this last one (he’s 5 1/2 weeks now), I have had bad head aches all through the pregnancy with the boys and none with the girls. My husband as also predicted the sex of each baby correctly, until this last one (he said it was a girl. Caleb definitely is not a girl.) I didn’t have the headaches with this last pregnancy, which is why my hubby thought it was a girl. Go figure.
Okay, I was forced to vote “haven’t had both genders yet so can’t compare”, because I haven’t had both genders yet (technically). We lost our fourth pregnancy, which was twin girls, and I wasn’t all that sick. But I need to make a big point here. I have carried, so far, seven boys to term. Two of them I had little to NO morning sickness or vomiting. With the other five, I’ve been various levels of horrible, ugly sick. Sometimes I am just nauseated with a little vomiting. Other babies, I suffer with stomachaches, nausea, vomiting and terrible gastric upset. I never know when I’m going to get what. I thought I was trending towards feeling better the older I got, because my fifth I was better,and with the sixth, it was a breeze. But the seventh and eighth pregnancies, I’ve been very very sick again.
One more thought: I have heard that one of the pregnancy hormones is what makes a women sick and that the more body fat a women has, the less she is sick. This leads to the assumption that body fat essentially absorbs the hormone so that less of it get into your system. I don’t know if this is true or not, but I’ve always been 50 – 60 lbs overweight when I get pregnant and I have never gotten sick. Also, for me, the pregnancy hormone never has been strong enough for me to get a + test result when taking a urine test until about 3 or 4 months along (it does show up with the blood test, though). This is interesting, since many people attribute a miscarriage to low hcG hormone, and yet I have miscarried once (my very 1st pregnancy when I got pregnant while taking birth control) and my other 7 pregnancies were fine without any complications.
I was sick with 2 girls and one boy. With the other girl I was just nauseated and had heart burn the entire time. So, I don’t think gender mattered in the area of sickness. The only difference I had…and I’ve only had one boy and the rest are girls…was that I was more tired with the boy and I looked bad with the girls, flat hair, pimples – just generally all around looked terrible. My hair looked great with my son and my complexion was nearly perfect…nearly! I will say that I always had a “feeling” of what the baby would be and I was right on all of them. I’m hoping for another boy! We NEED another boy with all these girls…. =D
With my first, a boy, I had nausea during almost all of the pregnancy especially round food. With my second pregnancy I felt strongly nauseous during the morning from about 4 weeks until 12 weeks when it faded. I’ve just had a girl. I would say I had worse morning sickness with my daughter for the time it lasted.
A cousin had her first at 21 and her last baby at 36. She said that her morning sickness got worse with each pregnancy.
I’m no expert as ive only had one child but she was the perfect pregnancy. I had no morning sickness or complications. My only compliant was the nine month heartburn.
I think i’d taken the sickness over the heartburn!
Currently i get both, and that’s not a nice combination
I’m now 19 weeks into my 4th pregnancy. Apparently I have worse ms with my boys. My 1st was a boy and I had one point where I couldn’t keep things down for almost 3 days. Doc was mad and said I should have been hospitalized. My next two, #2 and #3, were girls and I had ms where I would be sick up until about 16 weeks and then would feel sooooo much better. With this one my husband actually asked if it was twins because I’m still getting sick about once a week with ms. LOL. Just found out from the ultrasound on monday that it’s another boy.(Not twins though) Seems to explain my having ms more severe then the girls. Plus I’m more tired with this one too. Although that could be having more kids and trying to babysit too. LOL.
Of my 7 kids, I’ve only given birth to two of them and they were both boys, so I can’t really say. However, my morning sickness was confined to nausea only and that was always remedied with a soda (had to be a fountain drink soda because the ones in a can didn’t have enough carbination to them). Also I was 36 and 38 when I had them, so maybe your theory about being older has some merit too.
Oh Kim… You had me excited for a minute. Oh well. Well no kids for me (only fourteen) but my mom got really sick on all four of us girls… hmm.
Hmm, maybe I can put to rest the ‘diminishing with age’ myth
My first, girl, had the least morning sickness, practically nothing at all. Second, girl, worst morning sickness, was actually worse in the early evenings! Then the third, 6 years after the first, boy, moderate morning sickness. So? The only worthwhile predictor I’ve had was a dream early in the third pregnancy, where I clearly saw the baby – it was in its carrier and I was putting it in the car, and it was a boy. I didn’t really doubt it after the dream, and sure enough, boy.
I had more morning sickness as I got older. First 3-4 babies, 10 mins of nausea. Babies 5 and 6, 6-10 weeks of nausea. Baby 7, one day of nausea then I started having high protein breakfasts – no more nausea. (steak and egg on even days, alternated with egg and Complan milkshake on odd days)
But I did have differences with the boys and girls, with girls (5 pregnancies) I had twitchy legs, calf cramps and heartburn. With the boys, none of that.
Some of our older ladies at church were able to predict based on carrying position, though.