desperate for a girl

[freesia]

anybody any ideas on conceiving daughters, i have 3 boys and really want a baby girl, any ideas.

Yes, but these will only sway the odds by a maximum 10% either way.

Feed your husband lots of veg, in fact make him vegetarian for 6 months. The same goes for you. Its meant to alter your chemistry slightly making it easier for the female ones to swim through. (or it could be that it makes it harder for the males)

Make love loads prior to concieving (if he likes meat this could be a way of tempting him to stay vegetarian). Its meant to increase the % of female to male sperms.

Make love early in your cycle. Females can last longer (and don't we know it) and therefore keep going higher to the egg whereas if you are later then the males are meant to be intially faster (getting to an egg lower down) but die out quickly.

That's all I can remember and I'm sure that they only sway the odds slightly. I was desperate for a little girl and followed them completely. My dd is now 3 and I have another on the way. Since the odds are normally 50/50 I'm not sure that I could say that these methods work, I could have had a little girl regardless.

There are some other threads discussing this topic.

I heard the opposite of "make love loads prior to concieving" which was that your partner should not ejaculate for 7 days prior to conception, the theory being that female sperm live longer including whilst "in storage". I wonder which is right??!

Soupdragon. Just don't let my dh find out - will put him off trying for any more girls

Vegetarian AND no 'business' for 7 days???! No wonder there are (slightly) more boys born than girls.

I can only say what worked for me! I know when I ovulate as a) I get a pain that day and b) my cycle is regular and ovulation is usually 14 days before your next period, however long your cycle. So my ovulation date is normally day 18 and has been for some years. I know I conceived both sons more or less dead on the date, as having a very busy husband somewhat limited the opportunities for making love more than once or twice a month!!! When I conceived dd3 and dd4, it was because we conciously made love early in my cycle to within a day of ovulation. I've always thought that that's what did it for me. My sister had 3 boys and then conceived a girl without trying, but was shocked to get pregnant because they had only taken a risk very early in her cycle, too.

In the libary there should be a book called something like choose the sex of your child?by Heather .... I think .not much help am I so far all I can tell you is that l read it and followed the sex just before ovalation method for three months and avioded it during and I now have my girl after two boys.I tried to get pregnant at ovalation time with the boys and fell straight away before reading this book as I didn't know.still love my boys to bits though.She is a bonus.

Have 2 dds that I'm sure were conceived "before" ovulation. I too know my cycle well and can pinpoint the day. It is supposed to be due to the fact that sperm can live for 5 days in your system, the male sperm swim fast but not for very long but the female swim slower but have a longer life span. Therefore it's more likely a female sperm will be "there' at the right time when you ovulate. HTH

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

Message withdrawn

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.

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...

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!!

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

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.

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.

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 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.

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 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 !!

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 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??)>

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?