Text service predicts baby's sex

By hthompson holly thompson holly.thompson@essnmedia.co.uk

When a couple found out they were expecting their first baby they wanted its sex to be a surprise.

But when they jokingly asked a text service to reveal its gender they weren't expecting all the mystery of the birth to be divulged so accurately.

Jon and Chrissie Perdy, are celebrating the birth of their first child, Jacob Daniel, after the text service successfully predicted he would be a boy, his birthday and middle name.

Jon, 35, said: "It all started as a bit of a joke really, we never thought the text service would get it right.

"Back in January we were out with friends when they told us about this service which can answer any question you ask it by text.

"So, as a joke, we texted asking 'what sex is our baby?' And within five minutes it replied saying 'your baby is a boy, he will be born on a Saturday, and you will call him Daniel'."

The couple, of Effingham Road, Reigate, didn't give the text much more thought until Chrissie went into labour late one Friday night.

"We suddenly remembered the text, and thought, 'maybe they were right after all," said Chrissie.

"And when our baby was born on Saturday April 25 and it was a boy, it got a little bit weird.

"After a short conversation we decided Daniel should be his middle name – considering they got everything else right."

The couple sent their text to a service called AQA 63336, a research service that can answer any text question within five minutes.

Jon said: "We've used it a few times since but for less mystical questions like 'where shall I go skiing?' or 'why is the sky blue?' It's great at sorting out arguments in the pub, when you're all disagreeing about a certain subject."

But despite AQA only having a one in 14 chance of predicting their baby's sex and birth correctly, the couple are putting it down to coincidence.

Chrissie, 36, said: "I took it in the spirit of which it was meant, just a bit of fun. But it was nice to give Jacob a middle name with a story behind it.

"When he's older we can say, 'you were named after a text message'."

Paul Cockerton, communications director of AQA 63336, also put it down to a "lucky guess".

He said: "It was definitely just luck. We're not going to pretend we've got psychic powers.

"When we initially started our aim was to answer questions like, 'what are the football scores?' but recently we've been getting more and more mystic questions like 'what's the meaning of life?' or 'what shall I call my child?'."