Beck Laxton, 46, and partner Kieran Cooper, 44, kept their child Sasha‘s gender hidden because they wanted his “real” personality to develop, according to The Daily Mail. For five years, they referred to Sasha as “the infant,” only gave him gender-neutral toys, dressed him in boy and girl clothing and didn’t allow a TV in the house!

But when Sasha started primary school, the secret was too hard to keep. “I wanted to avoid all that stereotyping,” Beck said. “Stereotypes seem fundamentally stupid. Why would you want to slot people into boxes?”

Only a handful of close family members knew the child’s gender, while friends and other relatives were left guessing. The secret was almost revealed when Sasha took to running around naked, but Beck encouraged him to play with dolls instead.

At school, Sasha wears a top from the girls’ uniform list and encouraged to wear flowery tops on weekends.

“I just want him to fulfill his potential, and I wouldn’t push him in any direction,” Beck explained. “As long as he has good relationships and good friends, then nothing else matters does it?”

What do YOU think of their decision to raise this child gender-neutral? Are they totally crazy or so smart?

More gender-neutral stories:

1. Tori Spelling Designs A Gender Neutral Nursery For Her Unborn Baby — She Really DOESN’T Know What Sex She’s Expecting!
2. Parents Could Be Banned From Finding Out The Sex Of Their Unborn Babies!
3. Meet Storm — The World’s First Gender-Less Baby!

Lawmakers are worried that too many parents-to-be are aborting fetuses based on sex — and they’re trying to take control!

If the law is passed, doctors would be prohibited from sharing the sex of unborn babies. It could become law in Europe as soon as next month and parent groups are understandably outraged. What do you think about this?

The whole issue stems from a worrying trend in former Soviet states of aborting female fetuses. High birth rates of boys in those countries indicates increasing numbers of parents are discovering the sex of their unborn babies and terminating the pregnancy if they’re expecting a girl!

It’s a terrifying practice — but is a universal ban the answer?

Justin Roberts from online parents network Mumsnet, says ‘no.”

She tells the Sunday Telegraph, “I can understand that there may be problems in some parts of the world but it seems ridiculous to apply the thinking to countries where this has not been shown to be a problem. I think pregnant women would feel pretty angry and disappointed to be told they can’t be told the gender of their unborn child.”

And Dr. Gillian Lockwood, a former vice-chair of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists’ ethics committee, agrees, explaining that most couples learn their unborn child’s sex at around 20 weeks, which, unless for medical reasons, is too long of a gestational stage for an abortion to be permitted.

What do you think, HollyMoms — weigh in!

–Leigh Blickley

More On Hollybaby:

1. The New Pregnancy Test That Lets You Find Out Your Baby’s Sex After Just Seven Weeks! Would You Take It?
2. New Blood Test That Warns Pregnant Women Of Premature Birth — Could Save The Lives of 250 Unborn Babies A Year!
3. HollyBaby Bloggers Sarah & Neil Find Out The Sex Of Their Baby!

There’s no tell-tale blue or pink in store for TV star Tori’s third baby with husband Dean McDermott — the new arrival will be bathed in a sea of canary yellow and charcoal gray!

Pregnant Tori Spelling wasn’t lying when she said she’s waiting to find out what sex her new baby will be — she’s even creating a gender neutral nursery for her mystery bundle.

“Canary yellow is very in again,” Tori tells OK! magazine. “So I’m going to do a charcoal gray, canary yellow and then I will do pops of turquoise if it’s a boy and pops of fuchsia if it’s a girl.”

The 38-year-old is leaving it late — her baby is due in less than a month’s time!

But we’re sure she’ll get plenty of help from hands-on hubby Dean McDermott, dad to her two kids Liam, 4 and Stella, 3.

Better hurry guys – Tori looked ready to pop when we bumped into her at the Red CARpet event in LA on Saturday, September 10!

We can’t wait to find out what Tori’s expecting. Can you guess?

– Ian Garland

More on Tori:

1. Candy Spelling Made Tori Cry At Her Daughter’s Third Birthday Party!
2. Tori V. Jessica — Bikini Bump Battle! Who Looks Better?
3. Tori Spelling: I Want a Fourth Child With Dean McDermott!

So A Family Grows in Brooklyn readers, are YOU ready for the big reveal? Sarah & Neil found out the sex of their baby! Read more to see if Baby Eggleton is a boy or a girl!

HE SAID:
We are now in the twentieth week of the pregnancy, so today Sarah and I went to Lenox Hill Hospital for the Level 2 Ultrasound. Sarah had had this one marked on the calendar for some while, and had even sent me an Outlook invite so that there would be no chance of me double-booking with a meeting.

The Level 2 Ultrasound is primarily to check that the anatomy of the fetus is developing normally, but we were excited, as we knew we would be coming away with confirmation of our long-held belief that we were going to be having a baby girl.

Going in for the scan, neither of us had a great preference for the sex of our baby, just the hope that all was proceeding on track and the baby was healthy, but for reasons mostly related to family history and gut feeling, our selection of wallpaper samples featured flowers, butterflies and fairies in various shades of pink.

The examination began with the ultrasound technician liberally applying jelly to Sarah’s bump, and then started by looking at the baby’s bone structure. It was a little shocking at one point — during one of the views of the baby’s head, I thought we would be having a baby Skeletor. However, that was nothing compared to the surprise when the technician switched the monitor to a 3D view of the baby’s face – seeing the baby’s face as clearly as that really makes your heart jump and I was not expecting to be so emotionally taken.

So the scan moved over the rest of the baby’s body and everything seemed to be going smoothly; heartbeat strong, spine in good order, there are the kidneys, all the toes and leg bones accounted for, and there is the penis… My first thought was — oh my god, our baby girl has a penis! When it dawned on me that our baby girl was actually going to be a baby boy, I was excited, but not nearly as excited as Sarah was. I still stand by my mantra that all I wish for is a healthy baby, and I was most excited when the doctor had examined the scans and confirmed that everything was going smoothly.

I would say that looking back on the day, I feel as though the way we found out was a little anti-climatic — “and there is the penis” — as opposed to something akin to a golden envelope being opened at the Oscars, but our own excitement that we shared more than made up for it.

Next up — wallpaper shopping. Should we go cars and trucks, or dinosaurs?

SHE SAID:
Since the day we found out we were pregnant we both felt pretty confident that we would be having a girl. We focused on girls’ names, looked mostly at girls interior design elements for the nursery and even referred to the baby as “she” on more than one occasion.

With the anatomy scan on the calendar for the last few weeks I began to wonder, “Will I be upset if this doesn’t go how I plan.” (This was in the pregnant Carry Bradshaw voice in my head obviously.)

Because there are only 3,963,296 things to worry about during your pregnancy I decided to add in another factor “What if they tell me one gender and I suddenly realize I wanted the other?” This growing fear crept up on me for a few weeks. I’m the type of person who shakes my Christmas presents… I don’t do well with surprises. (Ask Neil about the “luggage incident of 2009”). I also began to feel like I would be a bad parent for realizing that I really DID have a preference a little too late.

When we walked into the exam room the ultrasound tech asked a series of questions: “How old are you?” “Is this your first child?” “Would you like to know the gender?” I basically yelled, “YES!” After looking at image after image of bones, internal organs, blood, penis…….. WAIT, WHAT!? Yes: penis.

I cried.

Tears of pure pure joy. I suddenly realized that this was exactly what I wanted. I was going to be the proud mother to a son.

I spent the whole rest of the day walking around New York with “pudding face,” you know, the huge grin. This is the first boy in my family for three generations. I cannot wait for him to get here!

Neil Eggleton and Sarah Main

–Sarah Main and Neil Eggleton

Want more? Check back every Tuesday for ‘A Family Grows in Brooklyn!‘
Get More of Sarah & Neil’s HollyBaby Blog!

1. Whoever Says Maternity Jeans Aren’t Trendy Is WRONG!
2. Sarah & Neil’s Baby Registry Nightmare: Strollers & Onesies & Breast Pumps, Oh My!
3. Nurseries ARE NOT For The Baby — They’re For The Husband Whose Pregnant Wife Keeps Him Awake At Night!
4. Do We REALLY Have To Give Up Dirty Martinis, Cheese & Oysters For A Baby?
5. It’s Not Only The Woman Who Gets Fat During Pregnancy, The Man Packs It On Too!
6. Sarah & Neil Say: Gender Reveal Parties Are NOT For Us — We’ll Pass On The Cake! How About You?
   

The blood test can be bought online for less than $300 and promises it’s more than 90 percent accurate!

It works by analyzing fetal DNA in the mother’s blood — giving a reading just weeks into the pregnancy! Do you think this is a good idea, HollyMoms?
The tests, made by a variety of manufacturers, have been on sale for several years — but their popularity was limited, because of questions marks over their accuracy.

But a new study by the American Medical Association reveals they DO work!

Dr. Diana Bianchi, executive director of the Mother Infant Research Institute at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, found the tests were 98.8 percent accurate at predicting a boy and 94.8 percent accurate at predicting a girl.

The results mean women may not need to have more invasive tests to discover if they’re expecting a boy or girl.

Not everyone is excited about the findings — some researchers are worried women may abuse the tests, and terminate a pregnancy if their baby isn’t the desired sex.

In the new study, scientists note that these sort of atmospheric blasts rather than on-the-ground incidents have an impact on birth gender worldwide. Researchers are seeing an increase in the number of baby boys compared to baby girls — and it’s all due to the nuclear age!

Scientists at Helmholtz Zentrum München, Germany, analyzed population data from 1975 to 2007 for the U.S. and 39 European countries. From 1964 to 1975, there was an increase in the number of baby boys versus baby girls, and the same for several countries after 1986.

These statistics led researchers to discover that the atomic bomb tests in the 1960s and 1970s and the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, in which the reactor exploded in the Ukraine, could be the reason behind the baby boy boom.

“The closer the country was to Chernobyl, the stronger the effect,” study co-author Hagen Scherb, a biostatistician at the German Research Center for Environmental Health in Munich, tells the Daily Mail. For example, more males were born relative to females in Belarus – the Ukraine’s neighbor – than in France.

The findings, which were primarily based on the Cold War era, determine how gender could be effected by future nuclear disasters. And in the wake of Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident experts are predicting another baby boy boom could be imminent, especially on the U.S. West Coast.

“We do not know how much radioactivity was emitted through Fukushima and how it will spread throughout the world,” Dr. Scherb said. “Maybe it’s confined to just Japan, but if it gets in the water and the air, it’s possible that we could see a similar effect, especially on the West Coast of America.”

So how does this radiation effect the gender ratio? Dr. Scherb says tests showed that radiation caused damage to the X chromosome in sperm. A human sperm cell contains either an X or Y chromosome, while an egg only has a Y chromosome. An XY combination will become a boy, while an XX combination will be a girl.

So obviously a decrease in the X chromosome would lead to a decrease in the number of females born.

What do you think of this new study, HollyMoms?

–Leigh Blickley

More:

1. Meet Storm — The World’s First Gender-Less Baby!
2. Kate Hudson Reveals: Doctors Thought I Was A Boy Until They Saw My ‘Parts’ At Birth!
3. Hot New Pregnancy Trend: And It Involves Cake!

Is it a boy or a girl? Only immediate family, a few close friends and the midwife who delivered Storm on New Year’s Day, know the answer to that question.

Why? Because Storm‘s parents want to bring their kids up in a world where THEY can choose what gender they want to be. Inspired parenting…. or just plain damaging?

David Stocker, 39, and Kathy Witterick, 38, from Toronto, Canada, want the four-month-old to escape the constraints society imposes on males and females. But are they doing more harm than good?

They claim they were inspired by the reaction to their decision to allow Storm’s older brothers Jazz,5 and Kio, 2 to explore their genders by choosing their own clothes and how to wear their hair.

When the pair both opted for a more feminine look, they were bullied by other children and mocked in public — so David and Kathy decided to go a step further.

The very modern mom and dad tell the Toronto Star that friends and family members are concerned Storm and his/her brothers will be damaged by their upbringing. Experts are divided on the issue.

Child psychologist Dr. Jeff Gardere insists the only danger to Storm is bullying from other kids:”If the parents are able to fulfill all of the needs of the child and are able to meet the child’s needs in terms of guidance and nurturance, I really doubt that there’s going to be any real damage to the child. I’m more concerned about how other people are going to react to the child.”

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie‘s almost 5-year-old daughter Shiloh has captured the attention of the public with her tomboy style and attitude. Are Brad and Angelina allowing her to the same ‘privileges’ Storm’s older brothers have?

But American Family Association spokesman Bryan Fischer describes Storm’s upbringing as “lunacy”: “I don’t think there’s any question that this is going to do severe harm to this child. That child is either a male or female, and it’s a tragedy that his parents or her parents are apparently unwilling to base their approach on scientific and biological truth.”

“The vast majority of people have enough common sense to recognize that this is lunacy. The vast majority of people are motivated by a deep level of concern of what’s going to happen to that poor child.”

We want to know what YOU think HollyMoms!

– Ian Garland

More On Angie, Brad And Their Kids!

1. Do Brad & Angelina Want To Turn Shiloh Into A Boy?
2. Angelina Jolie: My Kids Are My Toughest Critics!
3. Shiloh Feels Abandoned By Busy Angelina & Brad’s Not Happy!

The results of a four-year study on fertility treatments revealed that women who undergo certain types of IVF give birth to more boys than girls. So maybe it’s not a surprise that Kelly Preston, who used IVF, is expecting a son?

Anyone who has struggled to conceive will tell you that it doesn’t matter if they have a boy or a girl. They just desperately want to have a healthy baby, which is why they’re often willing to undergo the painful process of in vitro fertilization. Now, new research has shown that women who undergo in vitro fertilization and have the embryo implanted in their womb five to six days after fertilization — as opposed to two to three days afterward — have an increased chance of giving birth to a baby boy.

Australian scientists studied 13,165 women who underwent the IVF procedure from 2002 to 2006. Those women gave birth to a total of 13,368 babies and the overall male ratio was 51.3 percent. That’s a gender ration of 128 boys for every 100 girls, compared to natural conception, which is 105 boys for every 100 girls. The commonly used method of IVF actually increases the odds of conceiving a male by almost five percent! But how? Male embryos appear to be better able to survive the process, although why is still unclear.

After 6 rounds of IVF, Celine Dion is pregnant with twin boys

Professor Michael Chapman of the University of New South Wales headed up the study. He feels that the methods used in fertility clinics are definitely manipulating the gender ratio. “If we can discover which techniques are responsible for the difference, and why, we may be able to ensure the sex ration returns to normal,” he says. But he’s also quick to point out that males may just be the stronger sex, right from the get-go. “It could be that fitter embryos are male and it may be the female embryos which fall away at the various hurdles,” adds the professor.

Celebrities Celine Dion and Kelly Preston are both pregnant, thanks to IVF and they’re both expecting boys, so it sure seems like there is something to this study. It actually took the singer six attempts before she got pregnant, but she’s now expecting twin boys, which shouldn’t come as a surprise to scientists. “It was physically and emotionally exhausting,” says singer Celine, 42. “These treatments were truly hard on my wife’s body. It wasn’t simple at all,” adds her husband Rene Angelil, 68.

Kelly Preston and John Travolta are expecting a baby boy with the help of IVF

Like Celine and Kelly, have you had any experience with IVF, HollyMoms? We’re curious to know if you have a bunch of boys or if you beat the odds and gave birth to a beautiful baby girl?

–Amy L. Harper