Mixture of Emotions...Journey of thoughts about a daughter

I told myself I would be much better with keeping up w/ posts when I decided to take of this new adventure of blogging, but lately I have taken a step back to think about our future plans so my apologies...the plans/thoughts I am referring to are the ones that I have been thinking about for the past 3-4 yrs! Just like my blog reads, how can I add some PINK into our lives??? A daughter that would utimately fill this void in my heart and complete our family? Some may not understand why I feel this way, I guess it has more to do w/ balancing my family out and of course having "that" special bond w/ a daughter that I have w/ my mother (although this is never a guarantee). I want to start by saying that my life is so full and so blessed in so many ways, I have a wonderful husband whom is amazing w/ the boys, two beautiful healthy boys that I love to pieces and a fairly stable life (i.e. good job, nice home, etc...the basic needs of life met which is somthing I will never take for granted especially in todays economy) SO am I unhappy? No, I feel my life in enriched, what is not to love? Do I feel I am missing a piece of something in my life? Yes...and that would be a little girl to put bows in her hair, watch princess movies with, take to get pedicures...all those fun little girly things that girls do! Although difficult to imagine I can still live my happy life if we are not blessed w/ our girl, but it does bring some amount of sadness to think about. So....here we stand...my husband and I. We both agree that adding a daughter to our family would be a blessing and up until recently we thought very strongly about adopting a daughter. I have always felt adoption would be such a miracle and a perfect way to our daughter...I still do, but w/ the present economy and our financial situation we are exploring other options. This saddens me some as my heart was set on adoption, but realistically we would have to have a large amount of money up front which is difficult for us right now so we have just recently within the past few wks begun to think about PGD (gender selection) and IVF. I realize this is an ethical issue for some, I read articles and watch television shows on how gender selection is unethical and some fertility clinics refuse to perform the procedure for purposes of gender selection only. PGD (preimplantation genetic diagnosis) was first established to identify embryos that are at risk (i.e. carry the possible gene of down symdrome and other genetic diseases) but later became a method to determine gender. Through PGD we would have a 99.9% chance of having a daughter (leaving room only for human error). Through much discussion and identifying the postive and negatives to both adoption and IV we have chosen to give this a try. Although IVF is not cheap we have more flexibility when it comes to funding this procedure. I must confess I am a little nervous about the procedure, being pregnant again especially since I have very complicated pregnancies w/ both the boys and in the back of my mind I can't help but to think that there is never a gurantee that this will work for us. I think of it a little bit like rolling the dice...it is a CHANCE. I have done a lot of research on this procedure and w/ IVF alone it appears I would have about a 50% success rate. Some agencies go on to say they gurantee a 50% success rate. My head feels full w/ so many thoughts, mix of emotions, but we have decided to give this a try. At this time, we feel this is what is right for us and I pray that it is the first step towards our long desired baby girl! So, we have an appt next week w/ the fertility clinic...I do not know what to expect, but I have a list of questions. So I hope to feel more informed after our appt. By the way, I respect all views on this topic, but personally feel that gender selection is a way to balance families and through this procedure I hope to one day say my family is FINALLY balanced ;)