The Shettles Method, and Fun with Numbers

If you've been reading a while, you may know that C's family makes boys. Pretty much exclusively. In an effort to produce the first girl in this generation of the family, we're trying the Shettles Method. We got a copy of How to Choose the Sex of Your Baby through paperbackswap (have I mentioned that they ROCK?! Also, if you sign up, please mention "ckolak" as your referrer. I'm not sure if I get any benefits from it, but I'd like to find out). Having read TCOYF, most of the book wasn't really new to me, but the methods for gender selection were. Anyway, we figured it would be worth a shot to try for a girl, since if we "fail" we'll get another boy, which we'd still be happy with. We've been planning on having 2 boys and then adopting 2 girls anyway. Anyway, HTCTSOYB just outlines the history of gender selection methods around the world, and how Dr. Shettles arrived at his conclusions, as well as scientific support for his methods. From a scientific standpoint, the book and it's claims are pretty sound. It is more detailed than this, but it boils down to having sex up to 3 days before ovulation (or maybe 2 days before) for a girl, and one day before through two days after ovulation for a boy (which held true for us when we had J).

I figured I'd see what I found by surfing around on Fertility Friend's chart gallery for "pregnant with girl" versus "pregnant with boy" charts. I found that out of the 232 charts that I examine(116 for girl, 116 for boy), most (92%) of the babies were conceived with sex 1 day before through 2 days after ovulation, regardless of gender. However, the percentages break down thus: 

116 girl charts:

103 conceived with sex between one day before to two days after ovulation (89%)

4 conceived with sex 4 days before ovulation (3%)

2 conceived with sex 3 days before ovulation (2%)

7 conceived with sex 2 days before ovulation (6%)

116 boy charts:

111 conceived with sex between one day before to two days after ovulation (96%)

1 conceived with sex 4 days before ovulation (0.08%)

1 conceived with sex 3 days before ovulation (0.08%)

3 conceived with sex 2 days before ovulation (2.6%)

More girls were conceived by sex several days before ovulation, such that:

of 5 total babies conceived by sex 4 days before O, 4 were girls (80%)

of 3 total conceived by sex 3 days before O, 2 were girls (66.6%)

of 10 total conceived by sex 2 days before O, 7 were girls (70%)

Also, of the total babies conceived by sex the day before to a couple days after (214 of 232): 48% were girls, and 52% were boys.

Interesting, huh?

I realize the numbers were very low for charts listing sex 2, 3, and 4 days before O, mostly because those I looked at included a lot of charts where sex was had every day for a week including the days before and after ovulation, so there's no way to tell which of those times really "took" so to speak.