Planning IVF/PGD journey next year after gender disappointment

Just found out that we’re having our second boy :(. The baby is healthy but I have major gender disappointment.

The only way I feel like I can move on is planning for a next one for IVF/PGD. My husband and I both talked about it and he seems very interested.

I had some questions -
- I am currently due in October 2021. How soon after birth can I start trying for ivf/PGD?
- Is it a guarantee that we will have a girl? Does it work better if I am perfectly healthy and fertile?
- where in the United States is the best place to go to? I’ve heard The Fertility Labs in LA is great. Any other recos?
- when should we start planning the whole process? Is it too soon to even be thinking about this? This is the only thing that offers me some consolation.

We’re ok spending the money and I’d like the age gap to be as less as possible.

I really thought I was done having kids but I desperately want a girl !! Any advice on this will be greatly helpful.

Most will say six months, though some prefer you wait longer particularly if you have a c-section.

It is guaranteed that you will have a girl BUT it is NOT guaranteed that you will a) conceive a girl to start with (all your fertilized eggs may be XY) and also not guaranteed that you will successfully get pregnant and carry the baby to term. The reason I mention this is too many people approach IVF assuming it's "a guarantee" but really it's more complicated than that.

Many people go to HRC. We have a list of various clinics by state https://www.genderdreaming.com/forum...ted-state.html and you will want to check the success rates https://www.cdc.gov/art/artdata/index.html

You will likely want to have your plans somewhat in place, but you'll need to wait for the testing till closer in. You need to have accurate information to give the doctors so they can plan your protocol, and you'll need to know if you'll have a c-section or not and when to cycle.

Hi there. I'm sorry to hear you're experiencing gender disappointment. I've been there twice and it's rough.

As far as when you can do IVF, like Atomic said, wait at least 6 months after birth. You'll need to wait until after you've had your first AF as well (if you haven't had it by that point). If you're breastfeeding, then you'll need to wait until you've weaned and you've had at least one AF.

Yes, gender is guaranteed BUT a baby is not. I've seen plenty of ladies on here who are healthy, have proven fertility (they have several kids) yet they have poor pretesting or their pretesting is fine but they end up with no embryos, abnormal embryos, embryos of the opposite gender, or they have embryos of their desired gender but they don't stick so they have to cycle again. So you can be very healthy and fertile but it's really a roll of the dice doing IVF. Natural fertility does not always equate to good IVF results.

As Atomic said, HRC is very popular here and they deal with a lot of gender selection. SHER Institute is also popular, which is where I cycled, and they have clinics all around the US. I've also heard good things about Dr. Braverman's clinic in NY and Conceptions in Colorado.

I don't think it's ever too early to start thinking about IVF. I knew as soon as I found out we were having our third son that I wanted to do IVF. It didn't happen until four years later though and I'm still waiting to try another frozen transfer. It's a big process to go through and it can seem overwhelming at first. You can start researching clinics so that at the very least, you know where you want to cycle when the time comes. Pretesting can be done once you're at least 6 months postpartum, your cycle has returned (and not breastfeeding if you're doing that). You can also have a consultation with the doctor and he/she can go over the whole process with you.

If you have any other questions, please let me know!

Thank you for your replies, very helpful! We will start researching clinics this year. I totally understand that having a baby is not a guarantee at all, just praying that we will end up having a girl and spend a reasonable amount of money.m, otherwise it will all be for nothing.

I plan to breastfeed for about 6 months, so will start the process 8 months in. Including testing and retrieval time etc, by the time I hit the 1 year mark, hoping to have the first transfer done ( if everything goes as planned). I think starting early is better coz I want the age difference between my second and third to be as close as possible, but I realize I can’t have everything my way :)

May I ask why the process took 4 years for you? Is it because that’s when you wanted it or because of failed transfers? Just trying to understand how long we should be hopeful if things don’t go as planned..

Thanks for all the clinic suggestions, I will certainly post questions if I have any!

It took four years mainly because life kept getting in the way and there were things I wanted to do before we started that journey. I breastfeed for over a year so that was one thing and then I didn't feel ready for another baby yet (despite my strong desire to have a daughter). I also had a hard time deciding if I wanted to try IVF or do embryo adoption. At the time there were no clinics near me that were worth using and I couldn't travel due to DH's work schedule. It wasn't until a few years later that we happened to move to a city with a Sher clinic. So basically it was just waiting until the right opportunity hit. Once we decided to get started, we had to wait a month to have our consultation then three more months to cycle. After that I had to wait two months to do a transfer. The process is a little more drawn out I think than some expect.

Ok, thanks for those details and I hope you get your girl ❤️

GD is slowly getting better, but still hopeful to start the process next summer when the baby is 9 months old.

I’ll probably post some more questions when we actually start researching the process towards end of the year.