talk to me about gender selection: what if your partner kind of wants to and you don't?

[Dazedstella]

Ok, so some advanced planning here. We are just now talking about TTC #2 sometime in late fall/winter of this coming year. Our last pregnancy was an oops/if-you-are-going-to-use-withdrawal-you-have-to-withdrawal pregnancy so we haven't done any of the preparatory work before. I have a paraguard that I love and have never charted my cycles before. I want to purchase TCOYF but I was reading on the website that one of things charting helps with is gender selection for future children. My DH has expressed some preference in future gender. Now, my DH isn't driven to have to try for his chosen future gender but would probably lean towards it if he could and I don't really want to be armed with any information that could effect gender selection, I really like the magic of not knowing what's going to happen.

So for those of you who have TCOYF what, really, are they talking about here? I know a little bit about the shettles method and o+12 just from stumbling across them so is just like that or more indepth or... IDK?

[RosieL]

It doesn't sound like TCOYF will add anything to your knowledge. IIRC (I read it and returned to the library) it discusses the shettles method exclusively. There's so much controversy over its effectiveness that it doesn't really matter if you glance at a little more information, I'd guess. 

[BubbleMa]

I haven't read TCOYF, but I agree with Rosie.  Since there really are no guarantees that it those methods even work, it won't hurt to read about them.

[RosieL]

I'll add a bit to my earlier comment. Even if the theories and methods were consistently useful, they're useful in increasing chances of a particular gender, not ensuring a particular gender. I read someone else put it like this: if you normally have a 50/50 chance at a female or male, using the shettles method or some other NFP method would sway your chances one way or another to about 60/40. 

This excludes IVF gender selection, of course. 

[Dazedstella]

Originally Posted by RosieL 

I'll add a bit to my earlier comment. Even if the theories and methods were consistently useful, they're useful in increasing chances of a particular gender, not ensuring a particular gender. I read someone else put it like this: if you normally have a 50/50 chance at a female or male, using the shettles method or some other NFP method would sway your chances one way or another to about 60/40. 

This excludes IVF gender selection, of course. 

Thanks for both your replies. This is sort of what I was thinking but wanted to check against others. I picked up my copy of TCOYF and am really excited to learn how to chart, etc.