What would your gender preference be and why if you did IVF ?

[lolstevelol]

Doing it alone as single mother.

My DSs both elicited extreme excitement, joy and pleasure for me and all my wider family.
As do the boys of my friends and family for their circles. I don’t recognise that sentiment at all.
There’s definitely a bit of a preference for girls amongst white women but not to the extent that baby boys elicit no excitement or pleasure.
That’s completely horrible.
I do think having raised two boys to teenagers that boys need their dads and fatherless boys are disadvantaged in some indefinable way.
Fairly sure that is backed up by various stats as well.

So you say its damaging, yet contribute to it. Yeah that makes sense.

The consequences of favouring male genitalia, or 'drawing in excitement', over female;

"In Asia, the preference of many parents for sons over daughters has led to some 80 million girls "missing" from what should be the normal balance between men and women in a society, perhaps because they have been aborted, neglected, or directly killed. Yet while Americans may read with some horror the fate of female embryos and infants in Asia, they may not realize that American parents, especially fathers, also favor boys over girls. This preference for sons is less severe and subtler than in Asia, but it has consequences nonetheless.

The preference for boys, the authors find, seems to be largely driven by fathers. At least since 1941, men have told pollsters by more than a two-to-one margin that they would rather have a boy. Women have only a slight preference for daughters. Taking all of this evidence together, the authors conclude that parents in the United States do have a preference for boys over girls.

The authors note that this preference for boys could matter more in the future. Technology already permits parents to choose a baby's sex, but the methods are now costly and unreliable. "As the cost of procedures falls and their reliability rises, the sex-ratio in the population may slowly become more male," Dahl and Moretti conclude. "More importantly, the bias for boys evidenced by our results may lead to worse outcomes for daughters."

I'd pick a girl unless there will be very involved male role models in your extended family.

that’s completely horrible

Yes it is, isn’t it?

But if you do a search on here about women with just boys, especially multiple boys, you’ll see they have had the announcements of their pregnancies with boys met with consolation, ‘what a shame’, ‘never mind’ ‘you can try for a girl.’

It is completely horrible but pretending it never happens is misleading.

Incidentally, adoptions are skewed in favour of girls which does indicate that where people do have a choice of sorts they choose girls.

Why I’m being held responsible for this I don’t know though!

@ChessorBuckaroo I am not sure how I’m contributing to it unless admitting anonymously that I did want a girl is contributing to it. I know it’s irrational but I did have a desire for at least one girl. That hardly means I’d have left a boy in the hospital

I'd have said a DD before having children.

I'm now incredibly blessed to have a DS and DD and can genuinely say it makes zero difference. Not a jot. They're both incredible human beings and their gender is irrelevant.

I'm in a same sex couple and had IVF. As we're both women, I wanted a girl. I also like being a woman, and I like the friendships I have with other women. I think women share community and solidarity in a way men don't, and I wanted a daughter due to that.

Having said, I'd have been happy either way. I adore my DD and wouldn't swap her for the world, but it was love at the first sight. Like, truly the greatest love I've ever known, and I don't think I'd have felt any differently about a boy.

I always find this weird. I have two boys, I wanted boys and the only one of my children I actually cried about when they were born was my second son because I was so thrilled to have another boy. I don't get why people (women?) don't want boys, boys are amazing.

When I was pregnant with my third baby everyone kept saying "oh are you hoping you'll finally get your girl this time?" and it really annoyed me, if anything I'd have chosen another boy! As it went I did have a girl and I adore her, but a girl was never the default "choice" for me.

I seem to be unusual because women always seem to want a girl, but my two boys are so different from each other that it's not as if all boys are one thing and all girls are another. Honestly anyone who can have a child should just be glad about that rather than bothering about what kind it is, particularly in todays gender fluid world.

I've shown you a passage from a link on the consequences of favouring one genitalia over another. It is damaging, which you acknowledge, yet you still do.

Boys (thus men) have been favoured for eons. Look at the damage that has done women, who by and large have taken a back seat in society while men invent nigh on everything we use. Historically the only value placed on women has been to birth men, a result of which is men achieving 99.9% of humanity's achievements.

Just as it was wrong to elevate boys/men, so too is the same for girls/women. It creates a condition on how the individual is valued, when the value should be unconditional. Value them more, as boys have been, they disproportionally achieve more. Your son (if you have one) will likely be damaged under your watch.

My daughter is much more than one of my sons and much less than the other.

I think in the USA it’s pretty normal to select gender if you’re doing IVF.
Very illegal over here though.

I have 2 boys, we won’t be having anymore but I would love a third boy. Always pictured 3 little boys and feel a bit sad that won’t happen (but obviously very grateful for my two!). I was over the moon both times and don’t understand disappointment in having a boy at all, it baffles me.

The damage of favouring males over females isn't just historical in regard to the disparity of innovation/inventions between the sexes, it is happening today sadly.

https://theconversation.com/we-studied-309-544-patent-applications-and-found-inventing-is-still-a-mans-world-188600

We studied 309,544 patent applications – and found inventing is still a man’s world

"Are women as successful as men in securing a patent for their invention?

We set out to investigate gender bias in patent outcomes at IP Australia – the government agency responsible for administering intellectual property rights.
To do so, we analysed 309,544 patent applications from across a 15-year period (2001-2015), and categorised close to one million inventors’ names based on whether they sounded male or female.

We found that having a male-sounding first name increases the odds of securing a patent. This gender bias can have serious implications for women’s health, female career progression and equity policies in STEM."

×××××××××××××××××

This bias is still damaging women today. And knowing the damage favouring one sex over another does, it is perverse that anyone would partake in it.

Lol, wtf. I was not comparing myself to a child. I was simply sharing my experience. No need to get so tetchy… jeez!!!

Op why are you asking ?
Choosing sex isn't a thing in the UK.

They take the eggs directly from the ovaries and fertilise them in a lab. Then they wait five days to see which ones are still alive. A five day embryo can then be implanted into the uterus.

It's also possible to take a DNA sample from a five day embryo and analyse its chromosomes. Doctors generally do this to check whether the embryos genetic karyotype is normal, i.e it doesn't have a trisomy or other genetic conditions meaning it is incompatible with life or will be born with significant disabilities.

If they're doing this they will also know whether it has XX or XY chromosomes, which means they'll know whether it is male or female. In the USA it is legal to choose the sex of the baby this way and some rich people even do IVF when they have no fertility problems just for this reason.

Proving the point that they are all individuals...

Surely having a healthy baby is more important.

Not sure where you are, but choosing the sex of the baby is illegal unless it´s for medical reasons so as not to inherit some particularly nasty genetic illnesses. I am in Spain and would be surprised it is any different Europe wide. I had ivf and just wanted A baby. Have my little chatterbox girl and are over the moon. In the end you don´t give a damn. It´s your kid.

Exactly this.

I did IVF and had hoped for a girl. I was a bit surprised when I found out he was a boy. But he's the best thing that ever happened to me and I wouldn't trade him for anyone.

I desperately want another child- not specifically a girl- but it never worked and I'm getting too old. I'm so lucky that one of the five IVFs actually worked.

Pretty much this, the clinic I was with also tried 3 day transfers although mine failed they said they were having better success rates than 5day transfers.
I had 5 which were good enough to freeze on day 5. One of which is now my crazy 8yo.

Obviously this is weird. I have 4 girls and a boy and I'd be happy with just about any sex - it's best to have any healthy child?? My children are all so different regardless of being a girl or a boy and I don't get why it would matter. Obviously if I'd had 4 boys in a row and was pregnant with my 5th, I'd like a girl but I wouldn't have minded at all if I got another boy because I have another healthy child and that's all that matters. If your happiness with your child depends on what sex they are, I wouldn't bother having a child at all.

I had twin girls, a boy and then 2 daughters. It really annoyed me when people acted like I should be upset that my younger two were girls. So many comments about what a shame it was that I didn't get a 3/2 split. They aren't dolls or toys - they are human beings and I could care less. It's just so ridiculous and made me feel so bad for my younger two. It just doesn't matter.

Everyone you know wanted a girl?
Did the lack of pleasure and excitement extend into their parenting if they had boys?

Of course not. But suffering many losses/disappointments generally results in you not caring as much, as you've spent so long thinking you won't have a baby at all.

Quite frankly I'd have happily given birth to a baby giraffe after my IVF journey.