"We were just
granted our United States patent, and they don't grant patents to wives'
tales."
-- GenSelect co-founder Jill Sweazy, to
CBS News
Phosita, a blog about patents and intellectual property law, examines
the GenSelect patent, and explains that "it is a common misconception
that patents are only issued to inventions that actually work... in
order to be patentable, a disclosed invention only has to be novel
(never done before), nonobvious, and useful."
GenSelect's US Patents:
- Nutriceuticals to "improve the natural fertility process"
- Kit and method for "increasing the chances of conceiving a child having a desired gender"
This 1989 paper
referenced in both patents concludes that "the influence of coital
timing on the sex ratio is... not a practical method to alter the sex
ratio", yet contrarily the GenSelect Web site insists that timing
intercourse and ovulation is "very important in the pre-conception
gender selection process".
About Maureen
Click to play the Fountains of Wayne song about Maureen!
"Maureen, you're givin' me too much information!"
My Kiddies
My DH
(And never had a fight!)
About Me
In 1999, my two sons were 4 and 2 years old, and we were ready to have another baby. I hoped to have a daughter, and I turned to the Internet to search for ways of increasing the odds of conceiving a girl. I discovered the iVillage Gender Determination Board. On the board, I found information about at-home and high-tech sex selection methods, but more importantly, I discovered I wasn't alone. I was one among a legion of mothers who longed desperately for a daughter, keeping it a secret so others wouldn't think, wrongly, that we loved our sons less, and feeling guilty becuse we're not supposed to care if a baby's a boy or a girl, "as long as it's healthy". There were, of course, also mothers hoping just as much to add a son to their all-girl family.
After a lot of research and soul-searching, my husband I decided to try MicroSort. In the fall of 2000, I became pregnant on our first MicroSort attempt, by IUI. At 20 weeks of pregnancy, we discovered we were having twins, a boy and a girl! We were thrilled to have a daughter at last, and a new son to cherish too.
During my journey to conceive a daughter, I was so grateful for the support and information volunteered by others on the boards; mothers who didn't even know me, but were willing to help me, hope for me, and cry along with me, when there was no one I could turn to "in real life". I know that without being able to talk personally with women who had tried MicroSort, I would have never gone through with this daunting, complex procedure; and that we would have never had a daughter as part of our family.
Now that my journey's finished, this Web site is just my way of giving some of that help back, to you.