The days of finding out your unborn child’s sex from a trained doctor or hospital are long gone, as people now demand to learn the baby’s gender via alligator, explosion, or taking a baseball square in the face (above).
Well, some people, at least.
Gender-reveal parties seem to be getting wilder with each passing year. But some couples are a little more creative than others, and a few aren’t afraid to get a little reckless at times.
Keep reading for a look back at the wildest gender-reveal moments from 2018 — and no, we weren’t kidding about those alligators or explosions.
Man rigs explosives to throw off colorful powder, starts forest fire
This gender reveal actually took place in April 2017, but the Border Patrol agent responsible for the stunt made headlines in September 2018 after pleading guilty to the subsequent fire it caused.
Dennis Dickey, 37, of Tucson, admitted to rigging up a target with Tannerite, which was meant to explode in a burst of colorful powder when shot with a rifle. The explosion instead ignited a surrounding area, and spread quickly due to high winds and lower-than-average rainfall. The resulting blaze – known as the Sawmill FIre – took a week to contain and cost the state roughly $8 million in damage.
Dickey was ordered to pay back the money, though his lawyer said the state was only seeking a fraction, as it would otherwise be like getting "blood from a stone."
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It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a girl!
Brad and Rachael Reed, from Dumas, Texas, enlisted the help of a crop duster when revealing the gender of their unborn child in April.
Brad explained that he and Rachael weren't even going to bother with a big reveal, as this would be their third child, but couldn't resist the idea when their friend David — an aerial crop duster — offered to lend his services.
“It was a nice way to find out for sure,” Rachael said.
Grandpa gets hit in the face with a baseball
Brittany and Max McCauley had planned to reveal the gender of their unborn child with the help of a powder-filled baseball, which Brittany would throw at Max, and Max would smash into oblivion with a baseball bat. But apparently, Max didn't like the first pitch.
In footage of the May incident, the ball sailed over Max's head and struck his father Scott square in the face, covering his dad's head and hair in bright blue powder.
“The moment was just so quick and overwhelming,” Brittany said of the incident, which left Scott with a cut on his forehead. “I felt terrible for hitting him.”
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Why not have an alligator reveal the news?
Louisiana “Gator King” Mike Kliebert and wife Rebecca Miller invited family and friends over for the reveal, but instead of using balloons or a cake, they used a watermelon and a live 60-year-old alligator named Sally.
In a video the couple posted on Facebook in March, Kliebert is seen wrangling Sally for a few minutes before tossing a small watermelon into the reptile’s waiting jaws. When the gator snaps its mouth on the watermelon and blue goo spills out, onlookers erupt in cheers.
"Best gender reveal we could come up with!" Kliebert captioned the video.
Applebee's gender reveal ends in chaos
If you have your party at an Applebee's, clean up your confetti.
An October gender-reveal party at an Ohio location ended not with cheer or jubilation, but with partygoers screaming at staff and throwing menus. The manager had reportedly asked the patrons to fire off their confetti poppers outside, but the group reportedly refused to clean up the blue confetti from the parking lot after the party.
The restaurant later called it an "unfortunate incident."
Gender reveal literally backfires
An Australian couple's gender-reveal stunt literally went up in flames in early December.
The couple, from South Australia, had planned to learn the sex of their unborn child with the help of a car and a set of tires, which were rigged to throw off colorful smoke during a burnout. But after rubber started burning and pink smoke started billowing out, the back tires caught fire, and onlookers began screaming.
The local police later condemned the incident and warned community members not to copy the stunt. “It poses a danger to spectators and a real risk of starting a bush fire, which carries severe penalties."
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Janine Puhak, Michelle Gant, Alexandra Deabler and Michael Bartiromo contributed to this report.