Choosing Baby's Sex

[Totenkindly]

Not sure where to put this, but....

https://www.yahoo.com/parenting/couple-spends-50k-to-choose-babys-sex-shining-104416191847.html

Ever heard of “gender disappointment”? Jayne and Jon Cornwill certainly have. It’s what drove the Australian couple to mortgage their house, fly to California, and cough up nearly $50,000 to take advantage of technology called pre-implantation genetic screening (PGS) for a single purpose: to choose the sex of their baby at the outset of pregnancy, a practice that’s illegal in their home country.

“My husband wanted a little girl that he could one day walk down the aisle. I wanted that relationship — the bond between a mother and daughter,” Jayne explained recently on Australia’s “Today” show. After giving birth to three sons, she says she suffered from “gender disappointment,” noting, “It’s like mourning the death of a child you never had” and “like any other form of depression.” In a first-person piece published in the Sydney Morning Herald, she elaborated on why she traveled to Newport Beach to see Dr. Daniel Potter, who has serviced more than 1,000 other Australian clients. She wrote, “My desire for a daughter caused me to spiral into depression and left me virtually housebound. Every time I went out, toddlers in pink seemed to taunt me...”

Honestly, I'm waiting for her to end up being tomboyish (she has three older brothers) and/or a transguy, thus blowing up her mother's expectations for a fantasy daughter to fulfill her needs. THEN what do you do?

Apparently the regular screening is for many many potential genetic issues, but of course gender is easy to pinpoint as well.

One IVF cycle, he says, costs $12,000; add in the sex-selection technology and it’s about $18,000 — although Steinberg stresses that his clients very rarely want the technology used solely for male-female identification. Instead, they “want it all,” meaning a thorough check that all chromosomes are normal, to make sure that none of the 400 testable disorders are present in the embryos before they are implanted into the potential mom’s womb. Those that aren’t the “right” sex, he says, can either be frozen for the couple’s own possible future use, donated to another couple, or donated to science for stem-cell research — an option chosen by “90 percent” of his clients.

Of course there are lots of ethical questions in regards to this, and some medical organizations oppose this kind of gender screening, for everything from putting stress on the mother's body and the embryo (it's not without risk) as well as reinforcing/exacerbating cultural undercurrents that commoditize children in an unregulated industry.

 

[Magic Poriferan]

The mind reels. I have a very hard time relating to this. So much fuss over nothing. If they ever have a girl, I feel sorry for her. She'll be under a lot of pressure.

I don't know what to do about the practice itself. I'm curious about how the illegality of the practice is enforced. In this case at least, it seems to have worked enough to drive some Australians to California. If enforcement is viable, I'd probably be in favor of banning it.

That being said, the problem is of course cultural in origin. It's sad that anyone cares so much to bother with this. As long as people do, there will be countless different kinds of related problems.

 

[prplchknz]

if you can't be happy because you wanted a girl and you had a boy you probably shouldn't have kids. I get maybe being a little disappointed like you want pie but your only option is cake, most people wouldn't go into a life long depression over it as both are delicious, and would learn to appreciate the cake. 2-3 of my mom's friends had all boys and they loved having me over because they always wanted a daughter, they loved their sons but they always wanted to have someone who wasn't rowdy and doing "boy" stuff, but coincidently they all had 3 boys sure they could've had a 4th but they decided not to. they made do. then my friend she has 2 girls (4 and 7) and is pregnant with her 3rd and before she knew if it was a boy or a girl she was like i hope it's a boy but i'd be fine with a girl cuz apparently they had been trying for the past couple of years and had numerous miscarriages that at that point they wanted a baby and boy vs girl wasn't an end all be all. that being said i want neither now if i could give birth to a kitten or a pittbull puppy, maybe, but even then i don't think i'd worry to much over if it was male or female.

p.s. I'm not saying children are dessert, though some people do eat the placenta, I don't judge

 

[miss fortune]

I'm going with [MENTION=360]prplchknz[/MENTION] on this one... if getting a boy when you wanted a girl is that devastating of a thing to you you're not mature enough to have kids

children are people, not dolls and CERTAINLY not another chance for you to live out the life you'd always wished for in some sort of creepy by proxy sort of way... don't build a fantasy and then get the kid who fits in it perfectly... nature's a crapshoot

 

[ceecee]

I'm going with [MENTION=360]prplchknz[/MENTION] on this one... if getting a boy when you wanted a girl is that devastating of a thing to you you're not mature enough to have kids

I'm on this bench. I have two sons of my own and I never had any urge to try for a girl or felt bad one of them wasn't a girl.

 

[Totenkindly]

...if getting a boy when you wanted a girl is that devastating of a thing to you you're not mature enough to have kids

Alas for the children -- she's already had three (?).

But yeah, in general, kids are whatever you get... although I think in practical experience people would draw a line between genetic abnormalities vs children who are genetically "normal" but simply aren't what you'd pick if you could special-order them.

 

[miss fortune]

Alas for the children -- she's already had three (?).

But yeah, in general, kids are whatever you get... although I think in practical experience people would draw a line between genetic abnormalities vs children who are genetically "normal" but simply aren't what you'd pick if you could special-order them.

and I'll agree with that... I'm pro choice and can think of plenty of reasons NOT to keep a baby, but if it's perfectly healthy, you were planning to have a baby and you have the financial resources to deal with it... that's a different story

poor kids in that family...

 

[prplchknz]

ok i was just thinking about this, one time recently my mom told me before she had kids she told people that she did not want a girl, mostly because she felt that the world was unfair to females or something but after i was born she started saying that having a daughter is great, so going in she only wanted boys, but then she had a girl and found out how great that is. which is like i'm sure the reverse is true some people only want girls end up with a boy and found out how great they are. the other day i mentioned to her i was going to a male dominated field and how my professor told me that a lot of companies want to hire females and i followed with I want to get hired on merit but, and she was like use the fact your a female in a male dominated field to your advantage

 

[prplchknz]

Alas for the children -- she's already had three (?).

But yeah, in general, kids are whatever you get... although I think in practical experience people would draw a line between genetic abnormalities vs children who are genetically "normal" but simply aren't what you'd pick if you could special-order them.

in elementary school one of my class mates had 5 sisters and the reason is they wanted to carry on the last name of the family so they kept having kids til they got a boy and same with one of my friends she was the 3rd of 6 all but the youngest was a boy, but her parents were gonna keep having kids til they had a boy (the south is weird sometimes)

 

[EcK]

I read "choosing baby sex"
My eyes went wide for a second

Ok i think thats what ppl usually refer to as my inapropriate behavior.

 

[Magic Poriferan]

in elementary school one of my class mates had 5 sisters and the reason is they wanted to carry on the last name of the family so they kept having kids til they got a boy and same with one of my friends she was the 3rd of 6 all but the youngest was a boy, but her parents were gonna keep having kids til they had a boy (the south is weird sometimes)

I hope the boy changes/changed his last name.

 

[Lark]

China has had a different sort of preference profile in terms of the sex of children for a long time, to the point were they have reached a tipping point which may threaten the continuity of their ethnicity, its natural consequences.

On the topic of designer babies and choosing what sex of a baby to have I would think that its fine, within reason, provided no one is trying to breed some monstrosity with three asses or something.

 

[prplchknz]

I hope the boy changes/changed his last name.

i was sort of hoping they ended up gay and take their husbands name, which i guess would be what you're talking about

 

[HongDou]

For a second I thought this was gonna be about if your child was born intersex.

I feel bad for her sons.

 

[kyuuei]

There's... something cool about having both genders. Everyone went so bananas about my sister having both a girl and a boy first try around each. My other sister really wanted a girl, ended up with a boy, she likes them just fine now, though she's considering trying a third time more for baby-frenzy than for girl-status. It's really cool experiencing both sexes. I can see the desire for it as a parent. It's not for everyone, but I can definitely see it being for some. I had both sexes growing up around me, and I'm ever-thankful for having a brother.

However. Jeezus. What a load of immaturity, and yeah I really do feel bad for their sons. "Oohh.. just a boy.. waah.." that's the first thing you look at when you see your kid on the screen is what a LOSS you have? What a fucking joke. I hope they end up good parents to them all.. but I have a feeling that daughter will be a prize bitch for all the coddling and fawning these parents will do about her. She's going to have it rough no matter what. 'I wanna walk her down the aisle..'.. She'll be pressured into marriage before she's even out of high school. And nothing guarantees you get to bond with your children like that. You have to be compatible for that sort of connection, it isn't innate. I feel pretty bad for this little girl.

Maybe this is just the superstitious part of me... but when you try SO hard to make something happen.. you usually end up cracking some eggs along the way trying to blaze a trail in the direction you want to go. So after they recover from that massive debt, I sure hope karma doesn't reach right around there and swipe all the money they poured into this.


This thing raises a lot of ethical questions. For science, children, and the ever-lasting battle of equality among the sexes.

 

[Chthonic]

Of course there are lots of ethical questions in regards to this, and some medical organizations oppose this kind of gender screening, for everything from putting stress on the mother's body and the embryo (it's not without risk) as well as reinforcing/exacerbating cultural undercurrents that commoditize children in an unregulated industry.

I've only read the OP, so here goes my thoughts....

Australian's have extreme levels of entitlement, thinking they are entitled to genetically engineer their own little mini-me's is just a manifestation of this cultural expectation that nothing should ever run off plan. My life should be perfect and when it isn't, godammit I'm going to spend obscene amounts of money to put that right. Yes, lets not learn to temper our expectations at all, or fulfill our own needs. Instead lets race around the world looking for a solution to the problem of needing to grow up.

Depression because she has healthy sons? Far out get some perspective.

 

[five sounds]

Not wanting a baby because of its sex?

Are you insane?
Do you not have a soul?

 

[five sounds]

For a second I thought this was gonna be about if your child was born intersex.

That's what I clicked on this thread ready to discuss.

 

[gromit]

I feel bad for their three sons.

 

[prplchknz]

Not wanting a baby because of its sex?

Are you insane?
Do you not have a soul?

what if you don't want sex because of baby?