Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Five Lies About Being Team Green

We decided very early on in my pregnancy that we wouldn't find out the gender of this baby. Since then I've learned a lot about what it looks like to be "team green" (i.e. not "team pink" or "team blue" but in the gender neutral "green" area). Here are 5 lies about being team green that I've discovered in the last 5 months!


1. Everyone Should Be Team Green!

Not finding out the gender of your baby is a very personal decision and the parents to be are the only ones who can make that decision. I've had several people tell me that not knowing baby's gender was the way "everyone used to do it" and that it's the "way it should be". While I agree that it was {by default} the way that everyone had to do it years ago, we now have the technology that allows us to find out gender before birth and if you want to take advantage of that technology go ahead and find out!

We found out beforehand that Isaiah was a boy and, of course, we knew Eloise was a girl by the time we brought her home. =) I would never ever ever in a million years want to go team green for my first baby, and probably not even for my second. With all the baby showers you have with your first and all the things you are buying new you get a lot of green and yellow stuff if you are team green and I was not/am not a big fan of gender neutral stuff. With my first baby it was my personal preference to know what I was having so that I could get all the gender specific baby stuff I wanted for him and have boy clothes and blankets, etc all ready to go. I never even considered going team green. I knew I absolutely didn't want to.

If we had not adopted our second, I am 99.9% sure that we would have found out the gender of baby #2. Mainly because if it was a girl I would have wanted to get started on buying lots of fun girly stuff! {And} if I had two boys or two girls already, I would most likely be finding out the gender of baby #3 for the same reason. But now that we have both a boy and a girl, we are looking forward to going team green this time. I have stuff for each, I'm not having any more baby showers (wouldn't showers be a great idea for your third baby!?!?!), and we will be delighted with either a boy or a girl.

RECAP: The bottom line is that you need to do what's best for you and your family. I personally would not go team green for my first baby, if I was desperately hoping for a certain gender, or if I already had 2, 3 or more of the same gender. Our circumstances this time around made us comfortable with going team green but we wouldn't have wanted to do it earlier. We are so excited this time to experience the {surprise} in the delivery room and see if it's really as amazing as many people talk about! =)

2. Being Team Green Helps you Save Money

While I do agree that being team green does help to save money before baby is born, I don't think it helps to save money in the long run. Because we don't know the gender of baby #3 I am buying very little for the new little bean right now. {However} once the little peanut is born we will need to purchase a few things, especially if it's a girl because we don't have any newborn girl things (Eloise was six months old when we brought her home).

When we found out Isaiah was a boy I spent the next 5 months stocking up on baby boy things little by little, buying things on sale, yardsaling, and scoping out the best deals. If you wait to find out the gender until baby is born you will most likely not have as much time to find the best deals on some things and could end up paying full price for more (unless you buy gender neutral stuff beforehand).

If you already have both boy and girl newborn essentials at home you should be fine but if it's your first baby or you have a different gender baby than your first 2 (or 3 or 4) you may end up spending more in the long run as you rush out to get the gender specific things baby needs right away (things that were on sale weeks or months ago but you couldn't buy yet because you didn't know baby's gender).

3. Being Team Green Prevents You From Bonding With Your Baby

Many people fear that if they don't know the gender of their baby they won't fully be able to bond with him or her. I do agree that bonding with this baby has been different than bonding with Isaiah. Once we found out Isaiah was a boy we were able to look only at boy names and boy stuff and dream about having a sweet little baby boy in our family. It allowed me to think and dream about our life with him in a specific way.

Not knowing the gender of this baby has not prevented us from bonding with him or her, though. Some days we call this baby a boy and some days a girl. We imagine life with both genders and think about both boy and girl names. We still fall in love with the ultrasound pictures and love to feel the baby move and kick. We are so excited to meet baby bean, not because he or she is a specific gender but because he or she is {our} baby. And we have bonded to our baby no matter what gender he or she happens to be!

4. You Cannot Be Fully Prepared For Baby If You Are Team Green

I like to be prepared. Preparing for a team green baby looks different than preparing for a baby with a known gender, but you can still be prepared for baby's arrival! As I mentioned before, I am not a fan of gender neutral clothing, blankets, etc. Thus, we will be bringing a newborn baby boy outfit and a newborn baby girl outfit to the hospital. We will be bringing both boy and girl blankets, pacifiers, etc. At home, I will have Isaiah's baby boy clothes washed and ready and several baby girl outfits (with tags still on and receipts handy for easy return if need be!) ready to go.

I have a bouncy seat and swing that Isaiah used that can be used for a girl too. I have a boppy that could also go either way. We have bottles and burp cloths and most everything else for baby that could be used for either a boy or a girl.

As for bedding and decorating the nursery.... This can be a hard one, especially if it's your first baby you and you can't wait to get the nursery all set up! (Even if it's your third it's exciting to get the baby's room all ready!). We are going to be moving a few months after baby is born so we won't need to decorate the nursery until after we move (and after baby is born). This was actually one of the reasons that finally convinced me to go team green. One of my favorite parts of bringing baby home is having their room all set up before they even arrive. I did this with both my kids and loved bringing them home to the rooms made just for them with all their cute little stuff inside. But this time around I figured since I have to wait to set up their nursery anyways I might as well wait to find out their gender! Ha! =) In all seriousness though, it's very doable to decorate the nursery once baby has already arrived. You can spend the months leading up to baby's birth planning how you want to decorate a baby boy and a baby girl room and that way you will be all ready to go once baby arrives! You will have your plan and it will all come together soon enough, even if it is after baby's arrival. Baby may end up sleeping in your bedroom for the first few months anyways!

If gender neutral stuff bothers you as much as it does me but you still want to go team green, one idea is to shop for baby boy and baby girl stuff online at amazon.com or someplace similar. Fill your cart with the gender specific stuff you want for baby but don't click purchase until you find out what baby is (and you remove all the stuff of the opposite gender!). You could even click purchase from your hospital bed hours after baby is born and all the gender specific stuff you want could be at your doorstep with 2 day shipping by the time you get home from the hospital!

5. People Who Are Super Organized Cannot Be Team Green

I like to know what is happening and exactly when it is happening. I like to be organized and have everything in it's place. I like to be fully prepared whenever I can.

Being team green tests the personalities of such people! It's hard not to know and not be preparing as much as I'd like to be right now. Sometimes it drives me crazy thinking that right now we could know baby's gender and yet we {chose} not to! What in the world were we thinking?!?!?

Though I'm not organizing this time in the same way that I was with Isaiah, I'm still organizing! I am still working on making sure that we have everything ready for baby's arrival and that we have everything we need. I may not be able to plan as {much} as I want to right now (Who will baby share a room with? I want to put the boys together or the girls together so can't plan that yet!) but I'm still planning. And trust me, there's enough to think about even without thinking about all the implications that a specific gender will bring on our family!

It is possible for people like me to be team green but it may not be easy! In the end I'm hoping that it's worth the wait and that when we hear those words, "It's a boy!" or "It's a girl!" we'll be so wrapped up in the awesomeness of the surprise that we'll be glad we went team green!


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