I'd Only Have a Third Child if It Were a Girl

Hi, everyone. Recently Conny wrote here about how often strangers feel sorry for her because she has four sons and no daughter. It sparked a discussion. Most of you said it doesn't matter to you at all whether your child is a boy or a girl. But there were other opinions too, and we got those by email, because the women didn't feel comfortable talking about it in public. Hoping for a particular sex is frowned upon, they said, and seen as ungrateful. Our reader Susanne already has two sons and dreams of a daughter. She told us she's thinking about using genetic testing to make sure her next child is a girl. We asked her about it: 

Dear Susanne, you already have two sons, and you wrote to us that you would only have a third child if you knew for sure it would be a girl. What would be so bad about a third boy?

There'd be nothing wrong with a third boy. I'd love him just as much as my two sons. And still, I have this big longing for a daughter. It's so strong that we sometimes think about a third child, even though we always only wanted two. So if we decided to have a third and it turned out to be a boy, I'd have to give up on the dream of a daughter for good, because there is definitely not going to be a fourth.  

Why do you want a girl so badly? What do you think is different about a girl than a boy?

Of course boys and girls are different in a lot of ways, and I'd simply love to have the experience of both. If I already had two girls, I'd be longing for a son. Some people get that, but most don't. A lot of them say the girl might not turn out to be girly at all, and ask whether I could handle that. Of course that would be totally fine with me. My daughter could be exactly who she wants to be. 

In Germany, it's illegal to influence a baby's sex through in vitro fertilization. But abroad, that option exists. What do you know about it?

As far as I know, choosing the sex is against the law everywhere in the EU, except in Cyprus. Finding out the sex is actually pretty simple. Labs that test fertilized eggs for genetic defects can also tell the sex. 

As far as I know, the whole process works like IVF. The woman takes medication so she produces as many eggs as possible. The eggs are retrieved and fertilized with the man's sperm. For three days the doctors watch which embryos develop well, then they take cells from the best ones and test them for genetic defects and for sex. One to four embryos of the desired sex are then transferred back. 

I know of six clinics in Cyprus that offer this kind of sex selection through IVF. The whole package (flight, lodging, medication, and the procedure) costs around 10,000 euros. 

You told us there's also an online group where women talk about this topic. What kind of women are they, and what are their reasons?

These women long for a child of the other sex just like I do, and for many of them it's their last chance to have another child.  Of course you could also just say goodbye to your dream. But if you can make a dream come true, why wouldn't you? No woman in this group has any religious or cultural reasons for it. 

Not much at the moment. He understands me, he knows I'm thinking about it, and at least he hasn't said no to the treatment yet. I want to keep gathering information, hopefully read a lot of success stories in the online group, and then decide in a year or two. 

Can you understand why it's banned in Germany, or do you think it should be legal there too?

I'd be in favor of allowing "family balancing." That means if you already have a boy, you can make a girl possible, and the other way around. We can influence so much these days, for example with all the genetic defect testing, so choosing the sex isn't far off anymore. 

The next step beyond that would be the "designer baby," where parents could choose hair and eye color. What do you think about that?

Choosing the sex and choosing hair or eye color are two completely different things to me. Just because I long for a daughter doesn't mean I want to custom-build her. 

Lots of parents say they don't care what sex their baby is, as long as the baby is healthy. Do you believe them, or do you think many parents just don't dare admit they have a preference?

I think there are definitely people who'd be happy even if they got their tenth boy. But I also think there are far more people who wish for a "balanced" family, meaning one child of each sex. It's just that nobody dares to say so.

——KEEP READING:

– I wish I had a daughter. A guest post about a feeling people frown on

– Girl or boy? Playing the guessing game with our third child