What is the difference between pregnancy and the Great Bird?

What are the three options?

The choice comes up in the second dream, after you have already agreed to start a family.

The searches people run for this usually call the first option a magical stork. In game it is the Great Bird, the same figure who gave you the Mystical Feather.

Can you carry the baby yourself?

Yes, always, and this is the part worth being clear about.

The option to carry the baby yourself is available regardless of the pronouns you selected during character creation and regardless of your partner's gender. If you married a male spouse, it is the only alternative to the Great Bird.

Nothing about the game restricts that choice based on how you built your character.

Does the choice change the child?

The child's gender and appearance are set by which candidate you married, not by how the baby arrives.

Every marriage candidate has one specific child with a fixed gender and look. There are two versions of each, a lighter and a darker skin tone, which follow the skin tone you chose for your own character.

So a player who married Adeline gets Adeline's daughter either way. The delivery method is presentation, not genetics.

(待确认 — this is a conclusion drawn from the wiki stating that appearance is determined by the marriage candidate. We have not found an official statement that says the delivery option itself has no effect, so treat it as a strong inference rather than a quoted rule.)

Does the choice change the timing?

No. The baby arrives two weeks after the second dream in every case, and the due date is written on your calendar.

There is no waiting penalty attached to any of the three options.

Can you change your mind?

You can postpone the whole conversation before you confirm it, in the same way you can postpone a proposal.

Once the second dream is finished and the choice is made, that is what the save file gets. With no divorce and no remarriage in 1.0, there is no way to run it back and see a different version.

Which one should you pick?

Whichever one you prefer, because none of them changes the outcome.

If you want the option that involves the fewest assumptions about your character, the Great Bird is the default for a reason. If you want to see the pregnancy content, either you or a female spouse can carry.