Hellobee Boards

Nah. I'd leave it up to chance.

Not for a first. But I would for a second.

At this point I only want to get pregnant if it were guaranteed to be a girl. Since I can't get that, it ain't gonna happen lol.

Yep! I want another girl

I voted no. I don't think I could handle the pressure, and I think I'd spend the child's whole life thinking, "What if I'd chosen differently?"

chance.

Nope! I'd leave it up to chance.

Nope. We already have one of each.

Yup for boys. Luckily it worked out that I got what I wanted.

Though question!

I didn't vote but I wouldn't for my first, but I would for a second or third child.

I voted no. I like the suspense/surprise element.

I'd leave it up to chance.

I wouldn't chose for the first, but would for the second.

I think it's best left to chance but if the possibility existed I would choose boy for #2 (we have a girl).

The Billings Method has been shown to be 94% accurate: http://www.bioline.org.br/pdf?rh11010

We used it to predict the sex of our first child. We tried for a girl, and that's what we got! We are going to use it to try for a boy next time.

It would be hard for us to be truly surprised at the gender, since I use natural family planning as my method of birth control--knowing what I do about Billings, I'd probably have a good guess about the gender, even if we DTD everyday. I use a little machine that takes a few urine samples a month to notify me of my fertile days and expected ovulation: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Persona-94031-Contraception-Monitor/dp/B001DUJZUC It has a 94% reliability rate for those who used condoms during "the red days," but we totally abstain during the red days so it's probably better than that. We've been using it for eight years with no accidents.

I would leave it up to chance, but as of right now, I voted girl because I have a girl and a boy and am having another boy. If I were to get pregnant again, I'd definitely want another girl.

Chance. My family will be what it is meant to be!

Chance! I don't think I actually could make a decision!

Chance! Then again, if I had 2 of the same sex, maybe I'd feel differently.

Because being able to choose the sex doesn't seem as popular, and so far I'm the only person here who has done it, I thought I'd talk a little about our reasons, as well as potential reasons other parents might choose it.

Aside from the Billings Method, which I mentioned above, there is a more high tech way to predict gender called PGD: http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/12/08/video.wall.gender.baby/index.html?iref=24hours And according to a top scientist who works with it, worldwide there is a 50/50 split between requested boys and girls. I think the fear that, say, boys would be in high demand and not girls if everyone selected their baby's gender is overblown. And let's not forget that if you live in a culture where having a boy is super important to you, there is a good chance you'll just abandon your infant daughter or abort your baby (as in China). Which is the lesser of the two evils, abortion / abandonment, or to give those parents the choice to birth only boys from conception? Though again, this isn't an issue for most countries.

And as the scientist in the article I linked to so succinctly put it, "We've been giving women expanded reproductive choices for 50 years. This is another choice." You have the choice whether to find out if what you're having is a girl or boy via ultrasound. You have the choice whether to go through with a pregnancy at all. I think it's equally important in a free society to let women know that they also have a choice when it comes to the genders of their children (not that any method is 100% accurate of course, but Billings' 94% is pretty darn good). I think it's worth noting by the content of the "what if" of this very thread that most people don't know there is a reliable way to do that yourself.

I know a family with seven children. Six of them are girls. Six! Do you know what the statistical probability of that is? Let me pull out my calculator. It's 1.6%. Extremely unlikely, but hey, it happened to them. They long to have another boy for their son to play with, but so far, no luck. They want what all of us want, when it comes down to it--family balance. I think family balance is actually a lot more important than we sometimes give it credit for, and considering that doing something as simple as timing intercourse correctly could change that, well...why not? I guess I don't quite understand not wanting to know how sex is naturally selected by the timing of intercourse. The equivalent, it seems to me, would be like saying that it's taking too much into your own hands to find out when you ovulate in order to TTC. Sure, you can get pregnant without that information (usually), but there's nothing wrong with taking advantage of our understanding of biological processes that are in place.

For us, we wanted at least one of each gender. We decided to have our eldest child be female for a variety of reasons, but this post is already getting too long so I won't go into them unless someone asks. We'll try for a boy with our second pregnancy. I'm guessing we'll try for a girl again with our third, but we'll have a better idea of that when we get to that point (we eventually want five or six kids).