The day we decided we would try for baby number 4, I ordered a book off Amazon called The Babydust Method. My three boys are the best of friends, they live in a perpetual world of tractors, dirt and all things farm! They’re inseparable most of the time. I love the way they love each other, and their friendships are one of the greatest gifts I’ve ever experienced as a mother. Having said all that, Gavin is desperate for a girl (and I didn’t realise just how much I was until we found out the gender of baby number 4)!

I first learned about gender selection strategies from a bother mother who tried and succeeded in the method. The Babydust Method proclaims it has a 94% success rate. I ordered ovulation sticks, downloaded an app and made charts. As directed by the book, I started charting my cycles to an inch of my life, also taking my temperature each morning and peeing on sticks every afternoon, meticulously jotting all 5e I formation down. Hardly anyone knew I was doing this, only Gavin. It became my biggest secret, like an undisclosed shopping addiction, only instead of hiding a mountain of credit card debt, I was hiding a mountain of sticks I had peed on.

Each stick displayed various shades of lines. Looking for my peak ovulation. Each month I would go 5rough everything with a fine tooth comb, looking for THE pattern. I found solace in a Facebook group filled with women doing the exact same thing. Every other day someone would post a gender reveal with twenty exclamation points, a successful sway!!!! I can’t believe it!!!!! Thank you, Babydust!!!!!!

In spite of my desire for having a baby girl, there was a much bigger emotion at work: overwhelming guilt. I have three healthy boy, we’ve never had fertility issues and I’ve never miscarried. What right do I even have to be desperate? How selfish can I be? And yet, there I was praying to God for a specific child.

After three months of charting, it is then suggested to start trying. My periods were regular (32 day cycle – period lasting 4 to 5 days) my ovulation peak was regular (day 12), everything was positive for the go ahead. We fell pregnant on the first month. So the baby dust method says that male sperm is fast but dies quickly whilst female sperm last longer but is slow to die and sperm in a foreign body only can last five days maximum.

I sit on the fence with any method. We were always destined to have the sex we were given, in my eyes. Because of this I wouldn’t recommend the baby dust method to people myself. I truly believe that God has given me what he thinks I am able to deal with and what I need in my life.

Normally I aren’t this type of person but when it came to 8 weeks pregnant I ordered a test which is a blood test done at home. The test is looking for male chromosomes within your blood which would then say if you were having a boy or a girl. The sneak peak test. This time round I was so intrigued as to what the babies gender was that I couldn’t wait to find out. The test results took around five days to come back now the answer did come back as a boy but and this is a big but I wouldn’t recommend this test to anybody going forward either! The test is really open for contamination no you have to wash your hands dry them but you can’t use to tell you to let them air dry and you can’t be in the vicinity of a meal at all so that’s even a male cat in your house whilst you’re doing the test because it is easily influenced by picking up male chromosomes.

This is the part where I feel the need to say again that i most certainly know with expecting our fourth boy, he will be loved and is very much wanted beyond measure. I feel like a walking contradiction, but both of these statements are true:

1. I would always regret not trying one more time for a girl.

2. I would never, ever regret having more boys.

Much love Rebecca