When you get pregnant, the majority of us will agree that there is at any given time pretty much a 50/50 chance as to whether you will deliver a baby boy or a baby girl.  And while there are many guessing games to try and determine what you are having once you are pregnant, less is said about what you can do to try and determine the outcome before conception. For UK parents Holly and David Allen, they decided to at least give pre-planning a shot, after four generations of just boys being born in her husband David Allen's family. According to The Express, the couple searched through quirky old wives' tales such as elevating your legs after intercourse to give slower female sperm a head start and eating acidic oranges to kill off male sperm. However, it was in the end "boring sex" that lead them to the family's first girl in 101 years being born. Hollie, 30, credits her baby girl to using the Shettles method when conceiving, a theory which involves having sex two to three days before a woman ovulates and the woman avoiding an orgasm to make the journey more difficult for male sperm – which are known to be faster but have a shorter lifespan than female sperm. This is what Allen, who is also mum to 2-year-old Jacob, had to say:

"We never thought it was possible to have a girl to be honest. It was at the 20 week scan where they said she might be a girl, but she was being a bit awkward so they couldn't give us a definite answer. It wasn't until she was born and they said 'it's a girl', and we asked 'is it really?' It was a bit of a shock."

As for how the extended family feels about the family's first female in over a century being born?

"The family are so over the moon because of the family history we just thought we would have another boy. The last baby girl to be born into the Allen family was Winifred on May 10, 1915, and formed the myth that 'Allen men don't make girls,' the mum-of-two explains.