Down Under moms can now get have their unborn baby's gender predicted
by Acu-Gen using the Baby Gender Mentor at-home test. Although media
coverage surrounding the test's launch in June included a number of
interviews stating that the product would only be available in the US
due to concerns over its use for sex selective abortion in other parts
of the world, it was recently reported that Baby Gender Mentor is being
sold in the UK, and now in Australia.
Are India and China far behind?
Parents in those countries often abort babies when an ultrasound
reveals the baby is a girl, instead of the hoped-for son; even though
revealing a baby's gender by ultrasound is banned, the practice
continues at such a rate that the birth ratio has been significantly
skewed. The use of Baby Gender Mentor in those countries is
particularly frightening given that there is little doubt that parents
would undergo sex selective abortions based on the results, which have
not been proven to be accurate -- and may, in fact, be far from it.
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.