What’s so wrong about Chrissy Teigen choosing her baby’s gender?
I’ll never forget the time a pregnant colleague rushed into the office, her face flush with excitement, as she yelled: “It’s a girl!” We were all genuinely excited at the news and when someone asked if she had a preference for a boy or girl, she said: “No, not really. But it’s weird when you get what you secretly wanted.” Kids weren’t on my radar at the time but I remember thinking this was such a diplomatic way to publicly acknowledge that yes, you might care about the sex of your unborn baby.
We don’t like to talk about it, but the whole “Ten fingers. Ten toes,” mantra is not automatically enough. This week, while making the media rounds in support of her new cookbook, model Chrissy Teigen, 30, revealed that she and husband John Legend chose a girl embryo while undergoing in vitro fertilization treatments. “Not only am I having a girl, but I picked the girl from her little embryo. I picked her and was like, ‘Let’s put in the girl.’” Just last year, in 2015, reports circulated that Teigen’s friends, Kim Kardashian-West and Kanye West, had chosen only male embryos when trying to conceive through in vitro fertilization (in case you live under a rock they now have a boy, Saint).
However, the celebrated pair insisted through a publicist that they did not pre-select Saint’s gender.
In Canada, the 2004 Assisted Human Reproduction Act prohibits, “any procedure that would ensure or increase the probability that an embryo will be of a particular sex.” The only exception to this would be to prevent or treat a sex-linked disorder or disease. (Though disability rights activists take exception to gender selection even in the face of a disorder.)
Researchers have long observed that male births naturally outnumber female live births slightly—by a ratio of 51 to 49. In countries where male babies are deemed more valuable by their prospective parents (due to an outdated ideal that males will be better providers when the parents are older) demographics have gotten a bit wonky in an age of ultrasound technology that can reveal gender in the womb. In China, where a one-child policy was put in place to curb overpopulation, gender selective abortions sparked a male-female imbalance of nearly 116 men for every 100 women. Similarly in India, thanks to population growth and a still-prevalent practice of female foeticide, the number of extra men is growing among India’s youth. There will be about 30 million extra men in India between the age of 15 and 35.
In this age of instant gratification, I think learning your baby’s sex is one of the last and greatest happy surprises. I now have two boys and didn’t find out their genders until they were pulled from my body, let alone expressed any gender preference. So many women I know brag about being “a control freak,” how they just have to know what their baby is. Sure. I understand this attitude if you got pregnant easy or are young. But if you’ve ever struggled to have a child, why would any of that even matter remotely?
Not that I wouldn’t have loved to braid a little girls hair in the mornings and post it on Instagram à la Kim K. But there are many non-invasive (though not so clinically proven) ways to have a girl. Parenting site Babble has page devoted to “How To Conceive a Girl.” It suggests eating a girly diet and not having an orgasm (WTF). Someone I know says she successfully used the Shallow Technique to get her daughter.
After a flurry of criticism, Teigen took to twitter and stood by her girl embryo decision.
we didn’t “throw away” anything and still would love to have more of both in the future. hard to explain such a complicated process here.
— christine teigen (@chrissyteigen) February 25, 2016
Damn right it’s complicated. In fact, as Teigen knows, making a baby is a bit of drag. For nine months doctors test you for everything that can go wrong, and then once you have the baby, and shit really starts to happen, they send you home…with a human. So perhaps all those control freaks have a point? In utero is the most control you’ll have over your child. Maybe that power should be savoured.
 on Oct 12, 2015 at 4:55pm PDT
I’ll never forget the time a pregnant colleague rushed into the office, her face flush with excitement, as she yelled: “It’s a girl!” We were all genuinely excited at the news and when someone asked if she had a preference for a boy or girl, she said: “No, not really. But it’s weird when you get what you secretly wanted.” Kids weren’t on my radar at the time but I remember thinking this was such a diplomatic way to publicly acknowledge that yes, you might care about the sex of your unborn baby.
We don't like to talk about it, but the whole "Ten fingers. Ten toes,” mantra is not automatically enough. This week, while making the media rounds in support of her new cookbook, model Chrissy Teigen, 30, revealed that she and husband John Legend chose a girl embryo while undergoing in vitro fertilization treatments. “Not only am I having a girl, but I picked the girl from her little embryo. I picked her and was like, ‘Let’s put in the girl.’” Just last year, in 2015, reports circulated that Teigen’s friends, Kim Kardashian-West and Kanye West, had chosen only male embryos when trying to conceive through in vitro fertilization (in case you live under a rock they now have a boy, Saint).
However, the celebrated pair insisted through a publicist that they did not pre-select Saint’s gender.
In Canada, the 2004 Assisted Human Reproduction Act prohibits, “any procedure that would ensure or increase the probability that an embryo will be of a particular sex.” The only exception to this would be to prevent or treat a sex-linked disorder or disease. (Though disability rights activists take exception to gender selection even in the face of a disorder.)
Researchers have long observed that male births naturally outnumber female live births slightly—by a ratio of 51 to 49. In countries where male babies are deemed more valuable by their prospective parents (due to an outdated ideal that males will be better providers when the parents are older) demographics have gotten a bit wonky in an age of ultrasound technology that can reveal gender in the womb. In China, where a one-child policy was put in place to curb overpopulation, gender selective abortions sparked a male-female imbalance of nearly 116 men for every 100 women. Similarly in India, thanks to population growth and a still-prevalent practice of female foeticide, the number of extra men is growing among India’s youth. There will be about 30 million extra men in India between the age of 15 and 35.
In this age of instant gratification, I think learning your baby's sex is one of the last and greatest happy surprises. I now have two boys and didn't find out their genders until they were pulled from my body, let alone expressed any gender preference. So many women I know brag about being "a control freak," how they just have to know what their baby is. Sure. I understand this attitude if you got pregnant easy or are young. But if you've ever struggled to have a child, why would any of that even matter remotely?
Not that I wouldn't have loved to braid a little girls hair in the mornings and post it on Instagram à la Kim K. But there are many non-invasive (though not so clinically proven) ways to have a girl. Parenting site Babble has page devoted to "How To Conceive a Girl." It suggests eating a girly diet and not having an orgasm (WTF). Someone I know says she successfully used the Shallow Technique to get her daughter.
After a flurry of criticism, Teigen took to twitter and stood by her girl embryo decision.
we didn't "throw away" anything and still would love to have more of both in the future. hard to explain such a complicated process here.
— christine teigen (@chrissyteigen) February 25, 2016
Damn right it's complicated. In fact, as Teigen knows, making a baby is a bit of drag. For nine months doctors test you for everything that can go wrong, and then once you have the baby, and shit really starts to happen, they send you home...with a human. So perhaps all those control freaks have a point? In utero is the most control you'll have over your child. Maybe that power should be savoured.){kind=link}