desperate for a girl

Yes I think we can safely say that the vegie bit is a load of rubbish.
Dh & I have some good friend's who r both very strict veggies & they have 2 boy's

But the vegitarian this must be a load of toffee, as there are countries where vegitarianism is the norm and they still have a healty boy/girl ratio.

Chunkypie, thanks

fennel- we are also veggie & I have 3 boys....

and we have a sauna at home too, no wonder we have all girls according to these anecdotes.

I had never considered that our having 3 girls is related to being veggie.
do you think wetsuits are the same as tight pants for killing male sperm? dp is an avid windsurfer, I'd be fascinated if that was the reason.

By the way, I must take my hat off 2 u tallulah.
Coping with 4 under 6 can't have been atall easy for you & I admire u 4 grtting through it. I know that I would be a wreck in that situation. I find it hard enough at times coping with my 2!!

I do not feel that life is cut & dry atall & I am sorry if I offended anyone, I did not intend to.
All I am saying is basically that you should not have a baby just to have a certain sex, or it could lead to very similar problems to the ones that you experianced in your chilhood eg: regection, favouritism & bonding problems when child is born (especially if mother thinks they have done everything correct 2 concieve a certain sex & they get the other)
You should make sure that you are having a baby because you want a baby and not because you only want a certain sex, as that could be a recipie 4 disaster. After all u can't send a baby back just because it wasn't the type u ordered!
I am well aware that incidences in childhood can badly affect how u feel as an adult, I always felt less loved than my younger sister.
And I too suffered from pd after my second child as it was a very unplanned pregnancy & I felt out of control & as responsible 4 the fact ny dh was not happy about the situation.
After ds2 was born I was put on ad's & given 12 wks of counslling which helped a lot.
So basically I do not think life is cut & dry atall, I am saying that nobody should plan a baby just on the off chance that it of a particular sex & not to forget that there r so many people who would love nothing more than 4 there child to be healthy.

Chunkypie, there was another thread on this subject a while ago. It may sound flippant to you to be concerned about a baby's sex but there can be problems in the family that affect how the mother feels about a particular sex. For instance my mother really favoured my brother so much that I grew up with virtually no self esteem. Her mother had done the same to her. Having had one DD I was desperate to break the pattern & have a 2nd DD.

When DS1 was born I had quite bad PND because he was a boy & I was really frightened of repeating the family pattern. To try to break the pattern we had a 3rd child (& then a 4th). I found myself completely unable to cope with 4 under 6s & nearly tearing my hair out because my only thought was to make my family different from my mums.

Inevitably the 4th was a very placid & easy baby & became the favourite.... so I've just made it all worse. It has taken probably until the last year or so when they have all been at secondary school (& lots of counselling) to be able to feel that our family is OK. I should have had the counselling before the children, but then hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Life isn't quite so cut & dried as you think.

I completly agree with you lavender1.
I too get a bit annoyed when people go panic that the baby that they are expecting is not of the sex that they may prefer.
I never gave a thought 2 the sex of my 2 beautiful boy's , but was paranoid throughout the pregnancies that something would be wrong with thier health.
I have a few friend's who have not been so lucky.
Two have had full term still born babies, one gave birth to her son at 22 wks & he survived for 4 wks , two more had downs children (1 had to terminate & the other knew nothing until after his birth), a close friend had to terminate a baby with severe spina bifida and another girl found out at 24 wks pregnant that her baby had died inside her.
It makes you realise how very lucky you are to have healthy children & I would never go into a pregnancy with just a certain sex child in mind.
Oh & I also have a very close friend who has failed for the second time on her IVF & she would give anything for a baby of either sex.
At the end of the day you can't play God & will have a 50/50 chance of one sex or the other at the end of the day.
How bad would you feel if you put all your thoughts into worrying about the sex of your baby & then it turned out that it had something seriously wrong with it?

I have a boy and a girl and my mother had 5 girls!! I think that she was trying for a boy after a while and just gave up....but when I was trying to conceive the sex of the baby was the last thing on my mind tbh....as in I was just happy to have a baby at all....my sister's friend had a baby at around the same time as me and he was seriously disabled, cerebral palsy I think, her and her husband have now parted company....what I am trying to say is that yes it would be nice to plan everything in our lives and have a girl when we wanted a girl, however having children is not something a lot of people are able to do for various reasons or other,...children are a gift and whatever we are blessed with should be just that a blessing...I know that if I was trying for a baby now with dh (which incidentally I am), and I said I wanted a boy and had a girl, then that would just be not right....who are we to start dealing the cards, the only person who has that choice is surely somebody that we will not see but trust to give us a person to love and care for, surely if we start to place demands as great as the sex of a baby, we are infact rejecting what nature had a hand in and that is natural selection.....babies are not consumerables but someone who should be loved no matter what sex they might be....I am sorry that this may come across as abit heavy handed but I do feel very strongly about people being unhappy because they can't get the sex the really want....(some children are soo disabled they don't get a choice in their life and have to live with the way they are....if you really want a child then treat it as a very precious gift with an unsure outcome and please be happy with just being able to have a child...we have no right to start placing demands on our unborn children surely??)>

It's just anecdotal, but I know a lot of 'serious' sportsmen. They all seem to have only daughters. The only son's they have seem to have been concieved during the off season. It's got something to do with testical temperature apparantly. Lots of training in tight pants (cyclists and rowers) raises the temperature and kills off the male sperm.

I have two girls - my Mum has two girls - coincidence? Probably.
Must say that I truly believe the theory of slower swimming female sperms, try day 11 of cycle then when the egg emerges only female sperm left to attack it !!

Quite right aloha!
My Mum has a friend who convinced herself that dd3 was going to be a boy and admits that she had big problems bonding with her and the girl who is now 20 say's that she has always felt less loved than her sister's, which I think is really sad.(sad)
The odds are pretty much 50/50, whatever u try.
And as 4 the Chinese chart thingy, surely all of China would now be male!!

I agree with Mears. I think, personally, that all the 'methods' are rubbish. Of course they will 'work' for some people because you have a50/50 chance of a girl or boy anyway. If it would be devastating for you to have a boy, don't try for a baby.

Freesia there is another thread going at the moment titled "how to conceive a girl" with some useful tips but to be quite honest i agree with Mears - you have to want a baby not just one sex because for every success with all these methods there is more than one failure. I am like you i am desperate for a girl - have two wonderful DS's, am tempted to try a mixture of the timing method, chinese gender chart, diet tips etc etc ....but at the end of the day i will probably get another boy. At the moment i dont think my desire for "a baby" is as strong as my desire for "a girl" so i think we will leave it for a while ...

I completly agree with u both.
I have 2 beautiful boy's and it make's me really angry when people go on about why I am not trying 4 a girl( evan the doctor who performed dh's vasectomy!)
I did not plan either of my boy's, but think it's great that they are both the same sex as they are likely to have more in common etc.
I do not believe that there is any way (other than maybe that microsoft) that make's much difference atall.
I have known of people who have tried the timing method & convinced themselves that they r expecting girl's, who then went and gave birth 2 boy's & were disappointed.
As mears rightly say's, make sure you aer trying 4 a baby not a girl/boy.
Surely a healthy child is the most important thing.

I have 3 boys followed by a girl. God only knows how that happened. The only significant difference was that I had lost almost 2 stones at weightwatchers prior to conceiving. Perhaps it was low fat and increased vegetables. My sister has 4 girls and neither her or her dh are vegetarian. I got sick and tired of people saying -'that's you got your girl then' when dd was born, as if my sons were all mishaps.
I do worry though about women tyring to conceive a specific sex of baby. I had 4 children because I wanted 4, not because I was trying for a girl.
I think if you are definite about only wanting a specific sex of baby you should think twice about having another one at all. Sorry.

SB34: that's how we got DD. The only sexual incident that week, and I was ovulating that day...

I think I should caution that the take home baby rate for IVF is generally less than 20%. It is not something I would recommend to anyone who is capable of conceiving in some other way!!

Freesia - I read up on everything when trying for my third baby and there are two conflicting theories out there for having girls. One (I think called Shettles method) says what others here have said - try conceiving earlier in the cycle as the female sperm swim slower but live longer. The other is the O+12 theory, which says have sex only once straight after ovulation. I've heard of people succeeding with both, which makes me think it's all down to chance.

I even tried the Selnas (rightbaby) calendar, which I actually now think is a total con, as I had a third son (who couldn't be more precious btw...)

As far as I can make out, the only two methods with real scientific validity are the Microsort sperm spinning which has about a 90% success rate (www.microsort.net), or going the whole hog and having IVF and selecting embryos by their sex (allowed in the US, Spain and Italy I believe) which is pretty well foolproof, but expensive and invasive.

If I could persuade dh to go for number 4, I might look at the hi-tech options...

sorry but I've been vegetarian for 23 years, & have 1 DD (17) & 3 DS!! I desperately wanted another girl but it didn't happen. I followed the theories about timing of sex but all that happens with me is it takes me forever to get pregnant, then I have another boy! Given up now.

Message withdrawn

Freesia, get him to join the Navy and become a submariner!! Seriously, there is a really uncanny amount of girls born to submariners which is really interesting, although not especially helpful to you obviously.
Good luck with conceiving a little girl