JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 What if you\u202fcould decide whether your baby is a girl or a boy, before they are even born? <\/p>\n
Action News Jax anchor Chandler Morgan found out families in Jacksonville are successfully selecting their baby\u2019s gender. <\/p>\n
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/a><\/p>\n Life is busy these days for the Schuman family. <\/p>\n \u201cWe have three boys so they are 13, 9, and 5,\u201d Hillary Schuman said. <\/p>\n But Schuman and her husband wanted to try one last time. <\/p>\n \u201cUnfortunately we did have two miscarriages after that within the year,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n The couple sought out Brown Fertility for help in their pregnancy journey through IVF (in vitro fertilization). <\/p>\n \u201cHe said, \u2018Well, you have three boys. Is that something that you\u2019d be interested in?\u2019 And I said, \u2018Absolutely. We\u2019re always looking into something like that,\u201d Schuman said. <\/p>\n Schuman\u2019s dream of adding a little more pink to their family could become a reality. <\/p>\n READ: CBS47\/FOX30 Action News Jax & KFF Health News win prestigious duPont-Columbia Award<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s those that have the ability to say, we\u2019ll just go with the lottery, with whatever God gives us. And you have some couples that have different scenarios where they\u2019ve had five boys and they want a girl,\u201d Dr. Samuel Brown with Brown Fertility. <\/p>\n Like Schuman\u2019s experience. <\/p>\n \u201cBut he did tell me there\u2019s no guarantee,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re like, \u2018You know what, let\u2019s give it a go, see if it works.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n Brown calls it \u201cfamily balancing,\u201d and he said there is the ability to take it one step further. <\/p>\n READ: First IVF baby and Jax doctor working to bring awareness to infertility<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cWe do have the scientific ability to choose embryos in regard to eye color or some other things, but you won\u2019t find a center in the United States that does that because we\u2019re held to a moral and ethical standard where we don\u2019t do that,\u201d Brown said. <\/p>\n \u201cIf you\u2019re choosing your baby\u2019s gender, are you designing the baby, are you \u2018playing God?\u2019\u201d Morgan asked Brown. <\/p>\n \u201cWe get that question from time to time, \u2018Are you playing God?\u2019 And we don\u2019t feel like we are at all. These are God-given techniques, and God- given equipment, and God given procedures that we have,\u201d Brown said. <\/p>\n Medical boards are split on the topic of gender selection through IVF. <\/p>\n A report from the ethics committee<\/a> of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine cites arguments that gender selection could encourage issues like gender bias. <\/p>\n That same report also notes it\u2019s a patient\u2019s right to make their own informed choices. <\/p>\n IVF allows doctors to discover if embryos will likely become boys or girls, but at its core it isolates embryos with the best chance of producing a healthy child, according to Brown. <\/p>\n READ: Woman sues clinic after IVF embryo mix-up<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cThe medical goal is to have a healthy child and to avoid having a child with genetic problems or diseases,\u201d Brown said. <\/p>\n \u201cHave you seen a lot of people in Jacksonville asking for a gender selection for their baby?\u201d Morgan asked. <\/p>\n \u201cWe do,\u201d Brown answered. \u201cBut sometimes when they hear the price tag, they immediately say, \u2018Oh, no thanks, we\u2019ll just take what God gives us.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n A price tag of an extra $5,000 to $10,000 on top of the IVF costs. <\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/a>]<\/p>\n But what about deciding traits, like if your baby could be born with no chance of developing acne, or having food allergies. <\/p>\n \u201cIf there\u2019s not a genetic marker for it, then we don\u2019t have the ability to test the embryos to see which embryos have that or don\u2019t,\u201d Brown said. \u201cI think that it empowers couples, especially infertility couples that are grieving and are suffering because they want a child so desperately.\u201d <\/p>\n Schuman and her family welcomed their girl. <\/p>\n [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/a>] <\/p>\n \u201cI look back on it now almost as if it was easy, even though I know in the moment it wasn\u2019t, but it just so worth it. She\u2019s a miracle little baby girl.\u201d <\/p>\n And her advice? <\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t worry about what anyone else thinks. Do what\u2019s best for your own family.\u201d <\/p>\n Click here<\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here<\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here<\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/p>\n Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 What if you\u202fcould decide whether your baby is a girl or a boy, before they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":141526,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[982,643,9691,6454,68730,2006,18687,22140,68728,116,118,117,2816,634,68729,68727,13822],"class_list":["post-141525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-action_news","tag-action_news_jack","tag-brown","tag-chandler_morgan","tag-committee_of_the_american_society_for_reproductive_medicine","tag-doctor","tag-dr","tag-god","tag-hillary","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-jax","tag-local","tag-samuel_brown","tag-schumann","tag-united_states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141525\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/141526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}