Knowing that gender was decided at conception I had did not know how to understand the gemara. Now I know, if it is supposed to be a male you must daven that everything forms correctly and it does not remain a female.
I learned at one point that when Leah was pregnant with Dina, she knew that the embryo was supposed to be a boy, but that would mean she would have 7 boys and Rochel would end up with only 1, less than even the Bilhah and Zilpah. She daavened that the baby should stay a girl so that her sister wouldn’t be considered lower than them.