The Great Debate

With Ashley getting back in town Saturday evening, I've had little time to compile a new post. But after an eventful Sunday, there are several exciting updates to share with you!

First, we attended our first children's consignment sale yesterday! It was a teeny bit overwhelming, but helped us realize we need to make a much stronger game plan before attacking a sale like that again. We basically have no idea what the fair price is for many of the items we browsed through yesterday. So our new game plan... go to Target with a list of all the major items we believe we'll need to purchase and take note of the prices for the various items. That way, when we venture into another warehouse full of baby things, we'll have a much better idea of what a crib/car seat/stroller/etc. should cost.

However, we were thrilled to make two great purchases yesterday: super cute maternity jean capris for Ash and our first set of onesies for our little one!! Check out the onesies below:

The second piece of exciting news from yesterday -- we are now engaged in the GREAT DEBATE. What might you ask is this great debate concerning? Well that is a great question. We are currently in a stalemate over determining the gender of our baby!

This is something that we both knew would be an issue, but the battle came to the forefront of conversation yesterday as we perused baby things. Ashley's preference is to wait till the birth to find out the gender. My choice is to go ahead and find out at our 18-20 week ultrasound visit. And at this point, neither one of us is wavering on our stance.

Is there a right or wrong answer? Unfortunately, no. If there was, this would likely be a much easier decision. However, there are certainly Pros and Cons to each. Here's an overview of each argument:

Oliver - Pros and Cons of finding out early

Pros:
1) We get to talk about the baby as he or she instead of it/baby/peanut/tinker/etc.
2) We can buy gender specific clothes/toys/etc.
3) We can prepare for boy or girl vs preparing for both
4) The option is available so why not??

Cons:
1) It ruins the surprise
2) We are going to happy with either a boy or girl, so what's the need to find out early

Ashley - Pros and Cons for being surprised at birth

Pros:
1) It is how Ashley has always envisioned it -- something special about the doctor holding the baby up saying, "It's a boy/girl" and something very special about me (Oliver) going to our family/friends in the waiting room to tell them "It's a boy/girl"
2) It gives extra incentive to push the baby out
3) It will prevent anyone from expressing disappointment with the gender - how can you be disappointed with a precious newborn in your arms?
4) What a fun surprise
5) We will likely choose neutral baby things anyway so we won't have to buy new stuff everytime we have a kid, so knowing boy/girl won't really be that important in prepping for baby

Cons:
1) It will ruin the surprise
2) People will be too inclined to share their opinions on raising a boy/girl

So, as I look over this list I realize that Ashley likely has a much stronger argument... shoot! Well like I said before, there's no right or wrong answer to this debate... I guess that's what makes it such a tough call.

What do you think? Have you had to make this decision before? How did you decide?

Until next time, we're just the Joneses trying to keep up!