I am new here. My name is Mel and I have 3 boys. I love my boys so much but I have a longing for a DH says that we are done but I hope to find out more about gender selection that is 100% accurate and I was directed to this site. I then want to put a proposal to DH, one that he can't refuse of course, to complete our family with a DD.

I am from Australia and is it illegal, immoral, frowned upon and disgusting to even mutter the words gender preference or gender selection. This doesn't stop everyone commenting on my family, telling me everthing from how much I need a girl to how awful my life must be

I hope I won't be judged here and I look forward to finding out everything you know!

I have a few questions if you don't mind. I am hoping to journey to Thailand ? (well, this is where I am starting) as it is the closest to Australia. My first main question is roughly how much will it cost? Ball park numbers are fine. I was thinking $20k AU plus travel. Is this even close?

My other questions are more personal. My main concerns are; am I going against God's will? What do I do with left over embies? Do I tell anyone what we are doing? I hope I don't offend anyone with these questions though I presume that many of you have already thought of these issues.

Anyway, that's enough questions for now.

Thanks. Mel xx

Hey Mel, firstly Welcome!!! 

Just to answer your ?'s quickly, I'm on the hop! sorry!  We have seen a few girls cycle at SART (Thailand) but to date only know of one that was successful and she had her baby girl 2wks ago.  You can check back a few pages on here (int forum), the lady that was successful is hktwinmom.  There is a tonne of stuff on here that relate to Thailand and the US.  The clinic in Thailand, there are two, they are Superior ART and Jetanin, you can google both and from memory they list their prices and/or you can email them.  They are both excellent at returning emails.

You other questions, I will try and pop back with later to give a more detailed answer but pop over to the main high tech forum and have a look around there also.  There is another aussie newbie that has just recently asked the exact same question about left overs etc.

And no.... NO-ONE will judge you here, you have found the right place, everyone is very very supportive.  I'll be back!

Thanks jjn. I see you got your princess. Congratulations! Thank you for replying. I see you used IVF/PGD Did you go to the US? I tried to look at your blog but it didn't work.

Thanks for the warm welcome.

Fairyfloss:

am I going against God's will?

God gave us technology [& GD?!] & why would s/he want us to be unhappy about never getting a DD or DS without it?

I don't know about the left-over embies either tho, I suppose it's just a cluster of cells with no awareness but I wouldn't want anyone doing experiments on them or whatever. Donation to infertile couples is a nice idea but that'd feel wierd too I think

Hi fellow Aussie,

Firstly, I think JJN was able to access IVF/PGD here due to a medical issue and unless you are a gold member you can't see her blog.

We are off to Thailand in about Aug next year.  Baby boy #4 is due in Jan and then we will set the plans in motion.  The cost of 1 cycle at S.ART is about $8500 AUD, plus travel and accom, we plan to have finances in place for 3 cycles and still no gurantee.  I will start cycle here as my OB/GYN is very supportive and willing to help.  DH and I will leave together and he will only stay about 3 days to do his deposit and then come home to the boys.  I will then stay on my own for the balance of the 2 weeks.

Regarding your other questions, about God and so forth.  In my opioion is all depends on where the believe life begins, some feel conception, and some feel that its not until a heartbeat is present. Where your thoughts lie will determine what you do with left over embies.  There are embryo adoption programs or some ladies feel the need to put all abck over time.  TBH, without microsort and the fact that you only want to put back one gender the likelyhood of having masses of embies to freeze is not likely.

Thats why on a board such as this we have not seen great results coming out of Thailand, because we are halving our chance of IVF success with the gender selection part, and they dont have access to Microsort so we can't hedge the bets prior.  But if we wnt to the states we could only afford one go, and I know that the likelyhood of a OHW is not great. 

HTH

Thank you. That helps heaps. I really want to do lots of research before I approach DH. Although perhaps I should ask him first to save myself the heartache

Have there been lots of women here who have gone to Thailand and haven't been sucessful or not a lot have gone there? Or is there a thread with all this info in it and I am being annoying asking all over again? Sorry if I am being annoying and asking too many questions.

merlinmoose:

God gave us technology [& GD?!] & why would s/he want us to be unhappy about never getting a DD or DS without it?

I like this

Welcome Mel, lovely to have you!

I have 3 boys and a DH who really only wanted 2, the third we had because I convinced him thta it was our turn for a girl! Well I think we'veall been there.  I'm so glad we had our third boy though because he is divine and even though I have 2 others I needed one justlike this one!  My husband doesn't know about my plan yet, lik you I want to get my facts straight.  I think the US is  popular option because of the availability of MS, it is more expensive though (about 20 grand?)  That way most of the embryos would begirls and if there were leftovers they could be frozen and I think brought home to Aust for transplanting at a later date, so even if you wern't successful first time you could give it another go without having to leave the country again.  having said this, bear in mind that many emryos don't survive the freezing process, or even the pgd process so this is not something to count on.  It's all a big gamble really.  I also feel a bit uncomfortable about leftovers but I think I'll cross that bridge when I come to get because as far as I can tell after MS and PGD you really don't end up with many viable embryos anyway.  Sorry this is all abit confused I have to feed my hungry bubba, bit distracted!  Welcome to the journey, I'm right at the beginning too, I don't even know if I could really do it, but how can I not? 

Opel

Opel:

That way most of the embryos would begirls and if there were leftovers they could be frozen and I think brought home to Aust for transplanting at a later date, so even if you wern't successful first time you could give it another go without having to leave the country again.  

sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but this option hasn't been available for some time now, I'm guessing, but I think its mostly due to the trial ending.  Perhaps once the FDA come back with their findings etc then it may be a possibility again.  It is considered illegal to bring MS sperm and/or embryos into our country..... I know this, b/c others have tried.  I know that it was option this time last year, b/c I looked into it myself, not sure when it stopped being an option, but I would guess again, to say shortly before the trial finished. 

Opel:

bear in mind that many emryos don't survive the freezing process, or even the pgd process so this is not something to count on.  It's all a big gamble really.  I also feel a bit uncomfortable about leftovers but I think I'll cross that bridge when I come to get because as far as I can tell after MS and PGD you really don't end up with many viable embryos anyway. 

this is correct, although, it can depend on the quality of the embryo that is frozen, but as a general rule up to 75% survive the thaw.  We do often read on here that after the whole MS/PGD process that very few actually have anything to freeze and/or some don't make it freeze.  It really is a numbers game.  GL!

Fairyfloss:

Thanks jjn. I see you got your princess. Congratulations! Thank you for replying. I see you used IVF/PGD Did you go to the US? I tried to look at your blog but it didn't work.

Thanks for the warm welcome.

You can only access my blog if you have Gold membership, which I highly recommend.... there are many benefits that go with it.

jjn:

sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but this option hasn't been available for some time now, I'm guessing, but I think its mostly due to the trial ending. 

You are talking about Microsort right? Are you sure it's not available? I had my telephone consultation with HRC last week and the doctor was going on about Microsort as if it were an option. I've decided against it for this cycle but I seriously got the impression I could have used it if I had wanted to.

WELCOME!!! nusing at keyboard.  more latr!

As far as bringing microsorted sperm and/or embryo's back into our country... no, not possible.  Did the RE say that it was possible?  I know a couple of aussie girls that tried to bring back their frozen embies and were told flat out NO.

Hope we're talking about the same thing here?

Fairyfloss:

I am new here. My name is Mel and I have 3 boys. I love my boys so much but I have a longing for a DH says that we are done but I hope to find out more about gender selection that is 100% accurate and I was directed to this site. I then want to put a proposal to DH, one that he can't refuse of course, to complete our family with a DD.

I am from Australia and is it illegal, immoral, frowned upon and disgusting to even mutter the words gender preference or gender selection. This doesn't stop everyone commenting on my family, telling me everthing from how much I need a girl to how awful my life must be

I hope I won't be judged here and I look forward to finding out everything you know!

I have a few questions if you don't mind. I am hoping to journey to Thailand ? (well, this is where I am starting) as it is the closest to Australia. My first main question is roughly how much will it cost? Ball park numbers are fine. I was thinking $20k AU plus travel. Is this even close?

My other questions are more personal. My main concerns are; am I going against God's will? What do I do with left over embies? Do I tell anyone what we are doing? I hope I don't offend anyone with these questions though I presume that many of you have already thought of these issues.

Anyway, that's enough questions for now.

Thanks. Mel xx

Hi Mel, nice to meet you!!  No, you definately won't be judged here asking about IVF/PGD!  Those are great questions and I was once in your position, wondering how it all would work out.  I don't know specifics about prices in Thailand but wanted to share my thoughts on your latter questions:

-Am I going against God's will:  I want to tell you that after going through 2 IVF cycles, what I have learned is that God is in complete control of your IVF cycle.  The drs cannot make even one embryo be a girl for you or even be healthy and they surely can't make the embryo attach to your womb if you make it to tranfer.  Even if you get pg, it's up to God for you to stay pregnant.  I have learned that it doesn't matter how much money you have, it cannot guarantee you that dream child.  You can take the chance, but then have to sit back and watch and see if God blesses it or not.  

-What to do with leftover embryos: Again, you don't even know if you'll have any left over...before we started our 1st IVF cycle I agonized over this and finally just gave up on worrying about it.  PM me if you want more specifics of how we worked this out in our minds/hearts before proceeding.  We started out with 17 embryos (collected from 2 ER's) and only ONE was still alive on the day of transfer.  We transferred that ONE and he attached and I was pg but then he stopped growing sometime around the 7th week.  So, we don't even have any left over.  That was my outcome though (and I'm in my 20's and have always been very reproductively healthy) .  If you have extras or healthy boys you don't want then these are your options:

1. Keep them stored for later use to have more children in the future.

2. Donate them to science.

3. Have them discarded.

4. Donate or "adopt" them out to another couple to give them a chance at life (BTW, if anyone has boy embryos they want to adopt out I'll gladly "adopt" all of them!). 

You have to decide which of these options you would feel most comfortable with. 

-Do I tell anyone what we are doing: For me, it was best not to tell anyone who does not want a child of a certain gender as badly as I do.  This site is great and the IVF drs and nurses will understand but the general public, friends and family may frown upon it....like you said you've already experience that preference for another gender is looked down upon....don't bring needless stress into your life if you don't have to.  I do not believe in lying so I had to be very creative to just keep quiet about it and very private about everything.  If you on the other hand have friends/family in your life who would understand why you are doing this, then it might help to have them to lean on when going through this.  Just make sure you are prepared to handle critisism if you decide to share your plans of GS.

These questions are NOT offensive...you've come to the right place...you will find lots of support here.  I'm always here if you need me too.  I have gone through it and it wasn't successful so our next step is to sway for a boy and then after we pay off this IVF debt, adopt a baby/toddler boy from Russia.  I hope this helped.  PM me any time!!

Take care!

edited: sorry for all the edits I had to make!

Hi all,

Regarding bringing the embies home.  This is the verbatim response from the Dr we are dealing with in Thailand, and that was an email I got last week

"Regarding the trasportation of the embryos, we can do that and we used to transport the embryos back to Sydney IVF already. However, as you are in Melbourn, you should also check with the center that will receive your embryos."