My partner and I planned to do a gender reveal, we had a 3D ultrasound and the sonographer wrote the gender in a card for us. This is my partners first child, my second.

At the beginning of my pregnancy, I went into the ER at 7wks with heavy bleeding and abdominal pain. We got told it could be a threatened miscarriage and to go home, and rest. We hoped for the best but expected the worst. The hospital booked me in for a ultrasound, during the scan the sonographer found a large subchronic haemorrhage above baby. I had to go back for another two ultrasounds before we got told it appears to be decreasing in size and it wasn’t a threat to baby.

It wasn’t until I was 14wks that we started to feel like we could finally be excited, no more bleeding or cramping. NIPT results shown low risk so it felt safe to say, time to celebrate our little bundle of joy!

I have a little girl so I hoped for a little boy, my partner was happy to have either but hoped for a boy too. We had a 3D ultrasound and the sonographer wrote the gender in a card for us, we were having fun reading old wives tales and making gender guesses. I had my 20wk ultrasound and it made us more eager to know so we moved the gender reveal forward to this weekend.

My “gender keeper” watched my daughter while we went to the ultrasound. She had known for a week without giving any hints but during conversation she let the gender slip out. My partner and I just looked at her in shock and she dropped to the floor with her head in her hands. We had mixed emotions. We were happy because we’re having a little boy like we hoped for but down about the gender reveal being ruined for us. She is sensitive so we didn’t want to make her feel bad about it, but now we feel like we’ve been waiting for this moment that we won’t get to share together.

We’re both feeling really down but we don’t know what to do about it. Especially my partner as this is his first and doesn’t get to have the experience we planned. He hoped for a little boy as much as I did. Our first baby together, our first little boy and we didn’t get the share the experience we had talked about having together. He loves my daughter and views her as his own, in his eyes he already has a little girl. So he feels it won’t be the same if we have another boy in the future.

I would’ve been ecstatic to do the reveal and seeing the colour blue just like I hoped for the past five months. I have been fortunate to have one of each which I always hoped for but I feel like if it was another girl, I wouldn’t be as down because we still have the possibility of having a boy in the future. I wanted a little boy but I would’ve loved to have the exciting experience of finding out like I did with my little girl.

Anything we can do as a alternative to a gender reveal? Seeing other people having theirs is a little upsetting as ours was planned for tomorrow. Any suggestions or advice to help us get through this emotional situation?