WOMENS-HEALTH Messages for November, 1997: Re: gender selection

Re: gender selection

From: Pam (anonymous@obgyn.net)
Wed, 12 Nov 1997 08:30:56 -0600 (CST)

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At Wed, 16 Jul 1997, Cindy wrote: >
>My husband and I have three girls and will be trying for baby number
>four in the next year. We are seriously considering sperm seperation to
>try to achieve a boy. We would love a baby no matter what sex but would
>like to give a male our "best shot". Are there any other ways we could
>achieve our goal? What do you think of sperm seperation?

Before the conception of my second daughter I visited my GP with a similar enquiry; my husband and I had planned to have just one more child and I wanted it to be a boy. I had already read about diet suggestions (which I could not believe or understand as to how diet could influence the gender of the unborn child). I had also read that the time of conception in relation to the time of ovulation could tip the balance.

However, with what I could remember from studying 'A' level Human Biology at school, I was thinking more along the lines of selective IVF; my GP was unable to assist me nor point me in the right direction.

In my quest to find an IVF gender selection facility, one private doctor suggested that the only way that I could be assured of the sex of my unborn child would be to have a selective abortion. I feel very strongly that it is selective abortion which is immoral and abhorrent not IVF gender selection.

An infirtile couple/woman may find gender selction very selfish but the need to have a child of a particular gender, particularly where a couple already have a number of children of one gender, can become as intense as that of an infertile couple wanting a child. This need can become all encompassing and turn an otherwise happy life totally upside down and unfulfilled.

At that time, in the absence of any other options, we opted for the timing method and hoped for the best ... we had a girl.

I had a very difficult child birth with my second daughter, and although I very much want a boy I could only go through another pregnancy and child birth if there was 100% certainty that we were to have a healthy son.

We almost achieved that goal ...

in August we started on an IVF gender selection programme ... part of the treatment required us to go to Italy; (for the egg collection, gender selection and embryo transfer) ... everything worked ... positive pregnancy test ... but a few weeks later into the pregnancy we lost our son. Considering the considerable financial commitment (the first cycle costs almost 4 times the cost of standard IVF) a second chance at this for us is very remote ... but there does exist a way.

--
Pam
Rochester, U.K.

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