Gender reveal parties

lucubratrix

It's been a very, very long road TTC our second child, with many infertility treatments and several losses. I'm now cautiously expecting what I hope will be my first pregnancy that leads to a live take-home baby. it would be really great to have a party to celebrate with friends if/when we make it to the point of greater certainty that this pregnancy will stick around. We have had so many people who have supported us through the fertility treatments and the miscarriages and it would be nice to be able to share the happy side to this TTC saga as well.

We do have a child (my DW was pregnant with our son, who I adopted), so although this is would be my first viable pregnancy it in no way merits a shower. We really, truly do not want any gifts for baby #2. (We're also not religious, so won't be having a christening or bris or other baby religious event leading to party later on.)

We do want to find out the sex at the anatomy ultrasound this time around. :ast time we didn't, because we wanted to focus on gender neutral baby gear to reuse for future kids, which worked. (We did have strong suspicions due to having the least modest child ever to be ultrasounded, and really liked sort-of knowing.)

So, as a non-gift celebration of baby #2, we were thinking of having a gender reveal party. (Well, really the sex, since you don't know the gender until your kid starts communicating, but "sex reveal party" sounds like something entirely different.) It would be low key, dinner and some kind of color-coded cake for dessert, and we'd make clear that this is a no-gifts occasion. Maybe a few silly games, because silly games are generally well received among my friends.

I don't want to seem too narcissistic and navel gazing, and I know these sorts of parties often get a bad reaction. I don't expect other people to be as obsessed about finding out the sex as I am, but I've always been excited to find out when friends are expecting. Even if I weren't, I'm always game for an occasion that allows me to get together and hang out with friends and have dinner... and there's no shame in declining an invitation if you don't feel like it. I'd be keeping it to people who have been supporting us on throughout this crazy saga with all of its turns and twists, and not everyone I know and all their facebook friends.

Do those circumstances mitigate the inherent tackiness of throwing a party to celebrate my child's genital bits? Or are pregnancy hormones making me a bit crazy?

[Poll]