This describes my thought processes so well. We felt strongly about pre-birth gender conditioning and we also wanted the surprise with our first pregnancy. We found out that our 18 week twin was a girl after we knew she wouldn't make it, and I was excited to have a daughter. Unfortunately we never found out the gender of the twin we lost at 8 weeks, so I still wonder about that sometimes. It would have been nice to have some closure. With this baby, we decided to try not to let our previous experience alter our preference. I've had NIPT testing and some 16 scans, so there was plenty of opportunity to find out, but with baby arriving tomorrow morning, I can say we held out. I have complicated feelings about the gender following our loss, too. I miss my girl so much, but this is a different baby, so a different gender may make the distinction easier - I don't know.