Pregnancy: Boy Vs. Girl

Before ultrasound and amniotic tests there was no way to determine the sex of a child before he or she was born. Of course, that didn’t stop people from trying. There are many mythical ways to tell, such as how fast the hair on your legs grows (faster for a girl), or how low you are carrying the baby (lower for a boy). As the mother of two boys and one girl I can say from experience that there are differences in how one’s body reacts to being pregnant with a girl versus a boy. As a scientist I must note that my sample size is too small and there are too many other factors such as my age at the time of each birth, different stress levels, etc. to really attribute the differences I observed solely to the sex of the baby, but I will print them here for you anyway.

The First Trimester

For many this has got to be the easiest part of pregnancy. You can still fit into your clothes, everyone is congratulating you, and you get to spend a lot of time in the bathroom hugging the toilet. Actually, I’m one of the lucky ones – I didn’t get sick for either sex, but I did get a lot of headaches with the girl. I can rule out the time of year on this one (for those who wonder about allergies) because my oldest boy and my girl were born in the same month. It could be an age thing since I was six years older (I was 34) when I had my girl. I know another mom who had her two boys in her mid-thirties and she had headaches with the boys. The only other difference I noted was that I got big fast with the girl – but that was probably because she was my third child.

The Second Trimester

A lot of women have cravings during their pregnancies. I, on the other hand, experienced a dislike of chicken breast and broccoli during my first pregnancy. For my second I developed a craving for coffee which I had never liked before. I experienced neither a change in likes or dislikes when I was pregnant with my daughter.

One thing I experienced with my pregnancies and I think is interesting to note involves hair. During my first pregnancy the hair on my legs grew faster and my eyelashes fell out. Not completely, they just shed enough that I noticed because they kept getting in my eyes. My first son has very fast growing hair and fingernails (I had to trim his nails every other day when he was a baby) and his eyelashes are at least three quarters of an inch long. The hair on my legs grew very slowly during my second pregnancy and I didn’t have an eyelash problem. Of course, my eyelashes never really grew back from the first pregnancy so maybe that’s why. My second son has slower growing hair and fingernails and shorter eyelashes. During my third pregnancy the hair growth on my legs was slow for awhile then returned to normal. My daughter hasn’t gotten her hair in yet, but her eyelash length is somewhere between her brothers’. I don’t know what all this means, but it definitely discounts the hair growth myth which states that fast growing leg hair means you will have a girl.

I can discount a couple of other myths based on my experiences. 1) You are more likely to have heartburn with a boy; I had more with my girl. 2) If you get a stripe down your middle it’s a boy; I had stripes with all my babies.

The Third Trimester

This is the time when women began experiencing Braxton-Hicks contractions and back aches and start waddling around like large hippos. I waddled, I must admit, but to discount another myth, I don’t think I carried my children any differently until the last month or so when my daughter settled down farther than my boys had been. I’m guessing it was because it was my third pregnancy. The major difference between the boys and girl was that I did not have any contractions before I went into labor with the boys, but I had many the last month with the girl. I was afraid my sister, who was coming three days before my due date, would not make it in time. But I worried for naught. Like my second child, I had my third a whole week late.

Labor and Delivery

Ah, the joy. Ah, the pain. It was definitely different between the two sexes. I started labor with both boys at 2:30 am. They were nice by the book contractions starting at my rib cage and radiating down. I started labor about 8:00 pm with my daughter and I wasn’t sure they were contractions because they started at my lower back and went into my leg. With the boys I had some bleeding when the contractions started. There was none with the girl. I finally decided I was really in labor when my mucous plug made an appearance. For those of you who are wondering, 2:30 am is a better time to go into labor because you get a little sleep before you go to work.

Babies do come out a lot easier by the third time. I remember the nurse commenting how round my daughter’s head was – she didn’t spend a lot of time with her head in the vise. She was bigger than the boys – they were both about 7 pounds, 11 ounces. She was 8 pounds, 6 ounces.

I experienced another girl/boy affect when I went to feed my daughter for the first time. With both of my boys I had enough colostrum to feed them and a couple of other babies on the side. With my girl I didn’t leak from the unused side until several days later when my milk came in. Also, with the boys, the milk came more readily on my right side than my left. It was the opposite with my daughter.

In Conclusion

For me there was definitely a difference between carrying a boy versus a girl. Of course, unless I get pregnant again, there is no way to see if I can predict the sex of a baby correctly. Since everyone’s bodies respond to pregnancy differently what I’ve written most likely won’t apply to anyone else. So, if this is your first child, your best bet is to get an ultrasound. If it is your second or more an ultrasound is still the way to go, but if your pregnancy is not like the other one(s) and there is no other reason for the change, I bet you’re carrying the opposite of what you had before.