Boy or Girl? Couples Choose Unborn Children's Sex

March 25, 2006 — -- John and Kristen Magill of Grafton, Mass., have what you'd call a full house: They have three girls and twin boys who are about to turn 1 year old.

The Magills conceived their daughters naturally, but with sons Patrick and John III they entered a brave new world.

They were actually able to select their babies' sex.

"I always wanted a boy to, you know, play sports and stuff with, you know," John Magill said. "Not that I mind the girls. We love the girls, you know, and wouldn't trade them for anything. But you know, we just always wanted both."

The Magills had their sons through a process called pre-implantation genetic diagnosis. The procedure requires in vitro fertilization because embryos are screened for their gender before being implanted in the womb.

"I feel my family's complete," Kristen Magill said. "And I won't look back 10 years down the road [and say], 'I wish we'd tried to have a boy.' "

But PGD was not originally created to help couples like the Magills. It was developed to help people like the Rinaldi family, who are prone to genetic disorders.

"If it wasn't for this procedure, I really believe we wouldn't have a baby," Diane Rinaldi said.

PGD tests embryos for disease by looking for defective chromosomes. This helps couples prone to miscarriage or who carry genetic diseases to have healthy babies. But PGD also can screen embryos for gender, which is how the Magills had their twin boys, with the aid of Dr. Jeffrey Steinberg's Fertility Institutes.

"We're coming up on 2,000 couples now that we've done PGD on," Steinberg said. "Eighty-five [percent] to 90 percent of those couples have done it simply for gender selection. And we're coming up on close to 940 babies."

There are no exact numbers on how many couples are doing this, but it's probably very low because of the high cost -- $18,000 for just one try. Also, the process requires IVF whether you are fertile or not, which turns off some interested couples.