Baby's gender: no longer a secret?
The phrase "It's a boy!" (or "It's a girl!") used to be a delivery room highlight and the obstetrician's one big line. More recently the gender news has often come way ahead of the baby—at around 16 weeks of gestation with amniocentesis or sonogram. Now parents-in-waiting can find out the gender just five weeks after conception and without even leaving home. All this takes is a quick finger jab, a dot of blood, and an overnight FedEx delivery. Two days later the parents can get the results by E-mail.
"It's quite simple," says Susan Scola, a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Scola checked and rechecked her E-mail until she learned, after one day, that she was carrying a girl.
Why find out so soon? "I like to prepare as much as I can," says Scola, adding that she wanted to use the extra weeks "just getting acquainted with gender issues and social issues." Other parents have other reasons. "We've heard everything," says Sherry Bonelli, CEO of PregnancyStore.com, currently the only retailer selling the Baby Gender Mentor Home DNA Testing Kit. "One couple said, 'We have two girls who want nothing to do with a brother, so if it's a boy we need to know so we can get them prepared.'"
The kit is billed as 99.9 percent accurate and comes with a double-your-money-back guarantee. But early knowledge isn't cheap. The kit runs $25 and includes two pregnancy tests and one Acu-Gen blood specimen kit. The lab fee is an additional $250, paid directly to the lab. Says Scola, who is glad she made the investment: "It's kind of a high price point, but if the anticipation is too great, people will pay it."
Imagine waiting nine months.
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