WEBS is a....

It's only a matter of weeks (hopefully!!) before this little peanut makes his/her arrival, so I figured it was high time for me to revisit so of the old wive's tales and see what gender they are predicting WEBS to be. And for comparison, I'm going to note where things stood with William on the same wive's tales (because you best believe quite a few of them were wrong!)

--Like my pregnancy with William, the gender predictor on everydayfamily.com is predicting another girl. Clearly they were wrong the first time... Second time's a charm?

--The slowest baby's heartbeat has been is 148 bpm (and that was at my most recent appointment when baby was sleeping). Supposedly anything over 140 bpm is indicative of a girl, but William also consistently had heartbeats in the 160s.

--I have had WAY less acne this time around. Like, amazingly so. According to the wive's tales, the presence of acne would indicate a girl, but that was definitely not the case with William and the crazy acne I had during his pregnancy (although he did get wonderfully long and feminine eyelashes). Maybe for me that absence of acne means it is a girl?? Time will tell...

--According to the Mayans, if the mother's age at conception and year of conception are both odd or both even, the baby with be a girl. That was the case during William's pregnancy--and clearly wrong (as the Mayans have been about so many other things). Again, the Mayans would be predicting a girl based on their method; would it really be that surprising if they were wrong yet again?

--Sweet vs salty?? This is a tough one for me. Having a sweet tooth is not a new phenomenon for me, so it's hard to gauge how much of that is pregnancy-induced (although for both pregnancies I've occasionally favored non-chocolate sweets like sour gummy worms and Skittles, which isn't super common for me). The most unusual thing this time around has been that I find myself wanting nuts in my sweets, which is usually a big no-no in my book (Seriously. Brownies with nuts should not be allowed to exist). But my new favorite Blizzard flavors? They have pecans a-plenty. So maybe that's a nod to my craving salty foods? Hard to say. I think with William I said I was craving sweets, which is supposed to mean a girl is on the way. I'd be inclined to say the same this time, although possibly a little more salty than normal, so who knows what that means.

--The Chinese Gender Chart correctly predicted William to be a boy; this time around it is calling for girl. I'd honestly be a little impressed to go two for two on something like this!

--Although I was a little more tired in my first trimester than I was with William, I still never had any actual morning sickness. And since I chalk the tiredness up to the fact that I had a one-year old to chase around, I'm going to say that no morning sickness equals boy, just like it did for William.

--Even though my "shape" is significantly different as compared to my pregnancy with William (hopefully I'll get some pictures up soon to prove it!), I'm still carrying very much out in front--and low, especially as of late. This would seem to indicate another boy is on board.

As far as "mother's instinct" and all that jazz, I really don't think I ever had any strong feelings one way or the other during my first pregnancy. Darrell had himself convinced William was going to be a girl and I was constantly reminding him that it was just as likely that it would be a boy, but there were no gut feelings in play during those conversations. This time, from fairly early on, I've felt like it was going to be a girl, but anytime I've had a dream about the baby it's always been a boy. So who knows what that means. Darrell is pretty certain we're having another boy... So who knows.

Oh, and I suppose one other "fun" comparison--during our first pregnancy, we had a boy's name picked out and solidified pretty early on. However, we never had a girl's name finalized. While we are still working out some naming logistics and combinations for WEBS, I would definitely say we are much more in agreement on our girl's name than our boy's name (ironically--it's a completely different name than the girl names we were considering the first time around). So maybe on some subconscious level we both know the girl's name is more important?

Overall consensus? Don't have a clue. And since so many of the wive's tales were wrong with William, it's impossible to predict whether or not they are more likely to be right this time around. However, once we have two babies in the books, I'll have a better data pool to reference for any future babies that may come our way... Because I'm a science nerd like that.