Good For You or... I Think You're NUTS!

Since I am very noticeably pregnant, people often ask me "when I'm due" and "what I'm having". The first question is pretty easy to answer -- July 23rd. 

The second question usually gets a variety of responses from people when I tell them, "I don't know" or "we don't know". 

Most times, if it's an older woman the response is a very enthusiastic, "good for you!" This is typically followed by, "there aren't many surprises left in this world." 

If the person is younger, they sometimes ask if we tried to find out but the baby was hiding his/her "private parts". (Nope. We just didn't want to know.) 

Some other common responses I've gotten are:

"Wow, you're brave" 

"I could never do that"

"How are you going to get ready for the baby?"

"WHY?!"

"Good luck with that (sarcastic)"

"What color is your baby room?"

It's honestly pretty funny to me. It doesn't bother me, but I just never anticipated that not knowing the sex of my baby would cause so many different reactions.

If you want to know the reasons why we chose not to find out, here they are...

For me personally, a big part was financial. Not that it costs anything to find out, but I know myself and I would have a hard time reigning in my spending on clothes, blankets, toys, etc. This way, I simply have less choices when it comes to things like clothes. Neutral is the name of the game... and let me say that in today's world there are not many neutral clothing choices out there. 

Another reason for me is that I think it will be nice to have one final surprise to really look forward to when I'm dog-tired in labor. It's also been fun betting with friends and family about whether the baby will be a "Henry" or a "Paige". (I am so convinced that it's a boy that I honestly don't know what I am going to do if they tell me it's a girl!)

Dustin's main reason is that he just wants to be surprised. He said that it's going to be such a wonderful moment that he just thinks this will be like the cherry on top. (For the record, he also thinks it's a boy.)

Back to the financial aspect of the baby for a minute. I think Dustin and I have done a really good job of keeping it in perspective. For the baby's room, we have spent less than $400 and it's pretty much done. We purchased a new dresser from Ikea, used my crib from when I was a baby, re-used brown cubes/shelves from my craft room, moved a lamp in there from another room, found a great deal on some tables from Pottery Barn, bought a changing pad instead of a changing table and purchased a few more decor items and a rug from various places. 

There's still some things that I'm contemplating purchasing, but these things are not necessities (paint for one wall and fabric to make curtains -- we already have blinds in the room.) 

Of course, if we were both in our career's we would have done things differently (read: gone hog-wild and bought really nice, new, awesome stuff), but for now we just tried to be level headed about it and I'm happy to say that I think it turned out just fine! I'll post pictures soon :-)