Telling the Sex of Your Baby

Filed in archive Pregnancy on February 9, 2007

I can remember the debates when I was pregnant, some forty or more years ago. Is she carrying low? Is she carrying high? If low, it was a boy for sure, high a girl One lady believed in the pendulum method. Holding a gold ring on a string over my stomach, she'd watch it swing. Depending o0n how it swung, she swore she could tell the sex of the baby.

Since the invention of the ultrasound, much of the guess work has been eliminated. If the parents wish to know the gender of the baby, they need only ask. Surprisingly, many don't want to know. They'd sooner be surprised.

Now, with the advances in fertility technology, a new wrinkle has been added. How would you like to decide on the sex of the baby before you become pregnant?

An article in the New York Times, this is already possible:

There are several ways to pick a baby's sex before a woman becomes pregnant, or at least to shift the odds. Most of the procedures were originally developed to treat infertility or prevent genetic diseases.

The most reliable method is not easy or cheap. It requires in vitro fertilization, in which doctors prescribe drugs to stimulate the mother's ovaries, perform surgery to collect her eggs, fertilize them in the laboratory and then insert the embryos into her uterus.

Looking back, I might have been a candidate for this. I had four girls in a row, and had almost despaired of ever having a son before my first boy came along. Maybe. But probably not. I'm not much for fooling around with Mother Nature.

How about you? If this chance was offered to you, would you want to choose the gender of your children?