gender related? *updated pg.2*

[trixipaws]

gosh well i did find this JOLLY interesting http://www.members.shaw.ca/copingwithil ... inact.html

however its hard for my brain to handle on a monday morning, it has been 8 years since i left school! i always found genetics really interesting. does that article mean that females are much more complex/varied than males? explains a lot!

another hopeful story tho thanx babydust

 

[DaisyRose]

Hiya,

It's great to read some of your stories - they give me hope that if I did ever try for another I may be able to have a little boy. I guess for most of us it's a bit like tossing a coin. Some of us my toss heads followed by tails, yet other may get 4 tails in a row.

Trixipaws, I'll ask the lady I know more about her situation when I see her again. There's likely no reason why you can't have a little boy in the future although girls are good; I wouldn't be too bothered if I had another girl.

 

[abcd1234]

My great aunt lost a girl at full term (about 50 year ago) and my aunt had 3 miscarriages before having 2 healthy boys, now she's convinced her MC's were girls and she cant carry them, she thinks it's to do with genes and her aunt having lost a girl.

I'm not convinced tbh, i do think gender can play some part but im not sure if people can out right not carry either sex

I really would try not to over analyze it, early miscarriages are unofrtunately very common and it could be any number of reasons for it, i know that doesnt make it hurt any less but i dont think you'll ever find a reason behind it

 

[trixipaws]

i got a reply here's the link: http://www.genetics.emory.edu/ask/quest ... 4872093478

 

[*Star*]

i did have this going through my head a lot.
i had benjamin. got pregnant with oliver, who was a twin, but i lost his twin at 7 weeks.
then after oliver i had two more early miscarriages.

and i thought i would NEVER get my daughter....

 

[bumblebee87]

hi, my mum had a lot of problems when it came to having children, she had many MC's before she had me (im the oldest) and had been told she would never carry a child past 16 weeks, ta-da, i arrived! she then went on to MC another 3 beanies, and was told that it was likely they were all boys, and she would never have a son, guess what happened next...... i have a brother!!! she then suffered another 2 MC's and was told she would not be able to carry another child to full term, and she did! my little sister was born only 3 days early! there is always hope, and i hope this makes you feel a bit more confident that you will take home your son one day x

 

[buddabun]

well trix from what I can see... if you are miscarrying due to sex, the miscarriage 'trait' (as it were) would be carried down the paternal line because sex is determined by the sperm.

Females (XX) produce sex cells with only the X chromosome of pair 23... Males (XY) produce two types of sex cell: those carrying the X and those carrying the Y (hence why people say you can choose the sex of your baby based on slow, long-lived X sperm and fast,short-lived Y sperm).

So if it was a problem with males dying in utero it would most likely be a problem with the Y chromosome, carried in the sperm, hence the male heritage... so it's unlikely it's from you.

however the X chromosome is a bit of a mystery. All the genes on it have to be powerful enough to function with just one copy (men only have the one copy). Which means that females get a double-dose (XX). So in every cell in the female body, one of the X chromosomes is 'switched off'. It's randomly determined. It's not known how this works but it may well be determined by the 'healthier' X chromosome staying switched on.

There may be a genetic abnormality on ONE of the X chromosomes which is recessive (i.e. you need two copies to show the trait). Just like two brown-eyed parents can produce a blue-eyed baby (no milkmen involved!!) due to the 'hidden' blue gene masked by the dominant brown gene, so genetic defects can arise.

Haemophilia, colour blindness and Duchenne muscular dystrophy are all examples of sex-linked recessive genetic disorders - hence why you see them so often in men and very rarely in women (female haemophiliacs, if conceived (very rare as most parents know and choose to undergo IVF specifically so they don't have girls) miscarry almost every time).

Now this is of course hugely hypothetical as I have NO idea of your genetic background but its THEORETICALLY possible that you might have some recessive condition which, coupled with your partner's DNA, might manifest itself and cause male embryos to die in utero. However, there is still a 50% chance of them living as only one of your X chromosomes will carry the trait (as it's recessive). Hence 50% chance of having a normal X and 50% chance of a defective X.

My apologies for the rather long-winded answer (I did my degree in genetics and it still fascinates me) but in theory: yes it is possible to miscarry only boys but your chance of having a healthy one IF THERE IS EVEN A PROBLEM is still 50/50 as far as genetics is concerned.

Again sorry for the waffly answer but hope it helps a little. In short: I wouldn't worry too much hon.
xxxx

 

[trixipaws]

thanku bumblebee, that gives me lotsa hope!

buddabun- wow! thanku for that- its hard to get my head around i only went as far as GCSE with it but genetics always fascinated me also. its amazing when u think about stuff like that.

i am a brown-eyed blue-eye-gene-carrier as my mum has blue eyes and i understand from her side i could have only inherited blue. my boyf has blue eyes so he can only pass on blue- it was down to me what colour millie's eyes were it was 50/50! they have turned brown now, but like me she is a blue-eye-carrier! i *think* thats right? sorry going off-topic now

 

[buddabun]

yeah she will be. there is a way of working it out visually. you draw a little square, put in the genes for each parent and it gives you the 4 combinations of what the offspring can be... so (I can't acutally draw the square on here but you put your genes on one side and OH's on the other then combine them int eh middle, like a times-table square ):

If B = gene for 'brown' eyes (dominant)
and b = gene for 'blue' eyes (recessive)

You will be Bb (carrier for blue eyes)
OH will be bb (blue eyes must have 2 copies of the recessive gene)

Your square would look like this (if it was a square):
Your eggs: B and b
OH's sperm: b and b

So offspring would be either :
B x b = Bb = brown eyes
or
b x b = bb = blue eyes

As there are only two combinations of those particular genes then your kids have a 50/50 chance of blue/brown eyes. It's not sex linked so it's 50/50 for each child.

ETA: the sciency bit about gender determination at the top: as soon as sperm and egg meet the baby has a gender. It is either XX (female) or XY(male). But it's that Y chromosome which 'switches on' at some point during development to produce hormones to cause the BODY to develop into a male body. If you could somehow stop that Y chromosome from turning on the relevant genes (as some diseases do) then you would have a genetically male individual (all DNA tests etc would reveal a boy) who has the body of a female.

So that is why you have to wait till a certain stage in the pregnancy to determine the sex - before then the gonadal ridges (GR) look exactly the same for boys and girls, after that Y chromosome has been switched on, produced those hormones and caused changes in the GR then it will start to develop into testes and penis etc.

So even though the baby could well be a boy, there is just no way of knowing (without actually sampling and testing the foetus) until a certain stage in pregnancy as the anatomy is exactly the same.

HTH x