Let's talk about sex, baby.

So I thought that in posting my poll on the side bar guessing the sex of BabyPhinney, I should disclose some more information (the poll will close the night before our big ultrasound at 18 weeks).

Mr.P and I would like a healthy baby of course, but we are both kind of leaning towards preferring a boy. Especially for our first born, we'd love to have a boy (that way if we have a girl later on, she'll have a big brother to look out for her). If BabyPhinney is a girl we won't be disappointed and we will love her just as much (plus we have a super cute girl name picked out). Also, since my sister has two young daughters, we'd pretty much be set on clothing.

When I was charting my cycle prior to TTC and then during the TTC process, I came across some info on the Shettles Method. It's basically a theory that you can "time" things to increase your chances of having a boy or a girl. To sum it up, the theory is that Y (male) sperm are faster but more fragile than X (female) sperm which are slower but live longer. If a couple is trying to maximize chances for a girl, they can time sex to be 3-5 days before the woman ovulates, and then to abstain from sex until after ovulation. This will give the X sperm time to swim up into the fallopian tubes, meanwhile the Y sperm may die off during those few days of wait before the egg is released. If a couple is timing sex to try for a boy, they should abstain from sex the week leading up to ovulation, and only have sex in the 24-36 hours prior to ovulation. This will give the Y sperm a chance to swim ahead and beat the X sperm to the egg.

In our situation, we were traveling the week I ovulated in late November. We were both busy with work and getting ready for our trip early in the week, so we did not have sex in the week leading up to ovulation. I was using digital ovulation predictor kit sticks (like a home pregnancy test but it tests for the LH hormone released 24-36 hours before ovulation). I got the positive OPK on the Friday of our trip, so that night and Saturday morning we did our business. I am pretty sure I ovulated Saturday evening, because I remember feeling some intense cramping pain from my right ovary for a short period of time that evening. Basically, as far as the Shettles method goes, we followed the rules to try to maximize our chances of having a boy.

This is a somewhat controversial method, and there is a lot of research going both ways....but it's kind of fun to try it out. I'm anxious for our big ultrasound to find out!