A story my grandma told me about bleak predictions:
Where she grew up, there used to be a fortune teller that would specialize in predicting the sex at birth.
But there was a catch: he'll seal the prediction in an envelope, to be opened only after the healthy baby is born. And if it'd be, in a few months time, that he was wrong, he'll refund his fee.
His trick was that he always wrote "girl". Because if it was a boy, the family was so happy, they didn't bother opening the envelope.