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How New Technologies Can Help Influence Whether You'll Conceive a Boy or a Girl
Jennifer Merrill Thompson was confident the baby she was carrying -- her second -- was a girl. After all, the mom from Vienna, Virginia, had followed the suggestions in the book How to Choose the Sex of Your Baby, which detailed how to optimally time intercourse in order to conceive a girl. So when the sonogram image left no doubt that her daughter was, in fact, another son, a shocked Thompson burst into tears. "I didn't want to be just a mother of boys," she explains.
Although Thompson says she immediately fell in love with her son, she still felt a void that could only be filled by little frilly dresses. Thompson became a mom on a mission, scouring the Internet for a way to guarantee that baby number three would be her dream daughter.
Her quest landed her at the Genetics & IVF Institute, in Fairfax, Virginia, where a clinical trial is currently under way to test the safety and efficacy of a sperm-sorting process called MicroSort. After three rounds of artificial insemination, Thompson finally conceived her little girl. "Our family wouldn't be complete without her," says Thompson, who makes no apologies for taking the extra steps to ensure that her last baby would come home swaddled in pink.
Different Times, Same HopeThroughout history, parents have tried to influence their children's gender. In ancient Greece, men believed they could father a boy if they had sex while lying on their right side. French men in the 1700s tied off their left testicle in the hopes of producing sons. Library shelves have long been lined with books offering gender-selection folk wisdom, some of it even scientifically based. Still, a couple's odds of naturally conceiving their dream son or daughter remained at about 50/50 -- until the birth of the first test-tube baby in 1978 ushered in a brave new world of baby-making. Today, thanks to advances in reproductive technology, couples can not only get help conceiving their baby, they can also choose their child's sex. And everyone -- from parents and fertility specialists to medical organizations and bioethicists -- has an opinion about whether this progress is a blessing or a curse.
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To khalager I will be praying for you. Look around you. God has everything to do with it. Who else could make a woman's body create a person. That was all planned.
3/25/2012 01:18:29 PM Report AbuseGod has everything to do with whether you have a girl or boy. Yes, we can have fun trying to have a male or female, but honestly, it wont work. if it does the God gave you that baby. Makes me sick to think that someone says the baby is just between her husband and her. If she truly believes in God, she would know better. Im trying to have a boy, but im not going to take any of this too seriously. its all just fun and games.
9/28/2011 07:18:13 PM Report AbuseIf you aren't meant to have a girl, than it leave it at that. You never know when what would happen to that child if you went through all that just to conceive that child! Oh deer, no more Final Destination movies for me!
8/28/2011 10:49:27 PM Report Abusethree girls, four girls, five....if it is meant to be, let it be. There are much safer & do it yourself ways. The shuttles method has a 90% chance of giving you the baby you want. Using diet, positions, and the right time to make love.
5/23/2011 07:14:22 PM Report AbuseI have to say this is going a bit too far. I normally try not to judge others but If everyone starts to choose the gender of their baby we could seriously throw off the natural order of things. I think we are seeing this happen in many other parts of society. Just because we can do something doesn't mean we should.
4/12/2011 01:44:24 PM Report Abusei can honestly say that after having three daughters and now expecting my fourth little girl,i secretly wish that i could have some say in the gender of my children...but everything happens for a reason and who are we to meddle with god's plan?
4/10/2011 12:56:43 AM Report AbuseEveryone has a right to choose! FYI that's our RIGHT! Boy or Girl, if you have the money and the means, go for what you want and don't listen to the negative people. I personally believe what ever will be, will be, but God has nothing to do with it, my body and my Husbands body does!
3/20/2011 10:51:14 PM Report AbuseI think the gender is not your choice maybe you were meant to have above the norm amount of kids when you are handed two girls in a row or even three.
3/19/2011 12:53:58 PM Report AbuseThis is sick... it almost seems to me like this could prompt a modern-day eugenics movement. Scary. Not to mention it is ridiculously selfish to tamper with sperm so that you can "design" your child. Why not be happy with the child you get, and RAISE him/her to be the ideal family member?!!!?
3/18/2011 09:37:48 AM Report Abuse20 or so years ago my grandmothers boss did this (not sperm sorting I dont believe but tampering with the eggs) bc money wasnt an obstacle for him. He wanted a son to pass on his name and business to. Then his son grew up (to the ripe old age of 18), was accepted into Yale, and died of leukemia before ever attending. I know that it doesnt prove anything but to me...messing with nature is just asking for trouble. If I dont end up with the genders I hope for, Ill adopt.
12/28/2010 06:37:06 PM Report AbuseLast year Alals Baby Birth Planning Center announced us that we will have a little boy. Although, all our friends were convinced that it will be a little girl due to the way my wife was carrying the baby. Due to her age, my wife had to go for amniocenteses and three weeks later we had the confirmation that it will be a little boy!!!!! We definitely recommend Natural Baby Birth Planning Center to you. You can visit link below...http://babygendercenter.com/
11/12/2010 05:25:41 AM Report AbuseI am sorry, but God is the only one that has the right to choose the gender of a baby. All children are blessing, whether they are a boy or girl. After reading this article, I honestly became sick to my stomach.
11/6/2010 04:27:23 PM Report AbuseI've heard that How to Choose the Sex of Your Baby is not as accurate as they'd like us to think ie. new research does NOT really support it! But, thankfully, there are some new technologies today - something our parents could not even dream about! - that truly can allow us to predict baby's gender! If we are OK with that;)
9/21/2010 07:33:45 AM Report AbuseIf it's healthy, then I'm happy.
5/13/2010 08:18:28 AM Report AbuseVery true!
4/25/2010 11:22:04 AM Report Abusea baby is a gift from god, and i dont feel like we should alter with nature.
11/21/2009 10:23:55 AM Report Abuse