NEW FILM ON GAY PARENTING IN THE UK COMMISSIONED

A brand new film about gay parents, focusing on families from the UK has been commissioned by Square Peg Media.

The film is being produced by Violet Productions and will shoot on location around the UK this summer before being shown worldwide at Gay festivals in 2014.

The currently untitled Gay Parenting film is in production stages at the moment with Violet Productions inviting any potential gay parents to share their stories.

The documentary aims to highlight the increasing prevalence of gay families in the UK, understanding the challenges, the joys and the realities that come with bringing up a family as same-sex parents.

Violet Productions is headed up by Jay Hunt, who worked in television as a producer/director for 20 years before setting up her own company in 2008.

The commissioners, Square Peg Media are the publishers of gay magazines G3 and Out in the City, as well as the organisers of the European Diversity Awards and the Alternative Parenting Show, for which actors Charlie Condou and Sophie Ward are the ambassadors. The company is headed by Linda Riley and Sarah Garrett who are parents to 6-year old twin girls.

Gay parents can contact paul@violetproductions.com for more information or for an intial chat about being involved in the film.

The films Twitter page can be found at @GayParentsUK

Choices & Challenges - Erin & Kate's journey to a family

By Hannah Latham, Editor of We Are Family Magazine

First Published in We Are Family Magazine, www.wearefamilymagazine.co.uk

Having kids was part of the package from the second date for Erin and Katie. Once their relationship was established they pushed ahead with plans to start a family. The couple are now the proud parents of a beautiful daughter, Maisie, but they had no idea it would take three years, all their savings, months of therapy and the heartache of two miscarriages to get there. The conception also turned out differently to how they’d planned…

When they met, Erin was 38 and really wanted to have a child. Katie could see herself as a parent but was not interested in being pregnant. It was the perfect match. Erin had a friend in London (Tim) who had approached her about becoming a dad. They invited Tim over for the weekend with his boyfriend, Blaise; the four of them got on famously and started meeting regularly to talk about parenting. They discussed everything: their upbringings, discipline, education, schoolyard bullying, culture. They would, after all, make a diverse family: Erin and Blaise are American, Tim is Dutch and Katie is English. They also needed to consider the geographical logistics between Portslade and London.

Teasing out everybody’s expectations took time as it often can in co-parenting

arrangements. They laid out their expectations and found as they did so some of

their needs changed. At this stage Erin and Katie went to a therapist to establish if co-parenting was for them. They were still seeing the therapist eight months later. So although exciting, the discussion process was long and emotional.

“The boys wanted to discuss their involvement,” says Erin. “We were really worried as we wanted to be the primary parents. We imagined having the child 90% of the time with them parenting 10% of the time.” “We thought they’d want more then that,” Katie continues, “but they were really worried – they’d imagined a similar split but thought we’d want them involved more.” They had an awkward discussion. “Tim nervously suggested a split of 85% us parenting, 15% them parenting”, says Erin. “We were like great, yeah, it’s a deal!”

The two couples also considered drawing up a pre-conception agreement through a solicitor, outlining the terms of their arrangement; who has how much responsibility, where the child lives and who takes what role.

The law protects the best interests of the child so such documents are not legally binding: they would only be taken into consideration if things went to court. For this reason they decided against it. “We came to the conclusion that you couldn’t ever cover every scenario; we’d have to have a bit of trust in one another,” says Erin. “So long as we communicate and are honest about our feelings, we’ll be alright.”

It was decision time. After a lovely day all together, Erin and Katie texted the boys asking them to be the daddies. “They were on the train. Blaise burst into tears! They had a cuddle and it happened to be Father’s Day so it was the greatest Father’s Day present,” says Erin.

It was all systems go. Erin had some tests through the NHS. Erin and Katie planned to go to a clinic as it would give them the best chance to conceive and they could legally both be on the birth certificate. The tests gave Erin the green light, but to be sure she had her ovarian reserve checked at a private clinic – a test not offered on the NHS. The result was awful. It came back as ‘critically low’ – she had very few eggs left and those that she did have wouldn’t take or would end up with abnormalities. “I was in shock,” says Erin. “My periods were a little irregular but not much. The scary thing is the tests on the NHS were positive. I could have been trying for years.” Their only option was for Erin to have IVF with donor eggs. Katie then had tests. “Ironically my fertility rate was really high,” she says.

Katie decided to donate her eggs to Erin. This would save a lot of money as donor eggs are expensive. Erin would still get to carry the child and one of them would still be genetically related to their child.

Complications forced the couple to move to a London clinic. The travelling added extra stress to the already stressful experience of IVF. Both women went on strong hormone treatment – Katie in preparation for egg harvesting and Erin to prepare her body for having the fertilised embryos implanted. The drugs can cause serious physical and emotional side effects. “We were both batty,” says Erin. They were also administering the daily hormone treatment themselves – Katie’s by injection, Erin, who is phobic of needles, had pills. When they added injections into her backside to her plan she was in tears. Katie had to do them for her. The sheet explaining how to avoid the sciatic nerve did not help with Erin’s anxiety levels. They got through it and the first egg was implanted. After two weeks the pregnancy test was negative. Erin and Katie were upset but Tim and Blaise were optimistic and positive. The second attempt was a success. Everyone was over the moon.

Erin felt symptoms and everything went well until week seven when she had a scan (they do them early in IVF pregnancies). They couldn’t find a heartbeat. “They told us to come back in a week because it happens and can be wrong. I think they were trying to be optimistic,” says Erin. They went home and did some research and suspected she was no longer pregnant. With heavy hearts they got a blood test. It confirmed she’d had “a missed miscarriage” – the foetus had died but her body was yet to flush it out.

Erin was devastated. She was given three options: a pill that would cause a miscarriage in the next couple of days, to have the foetus removed in hospital, or to go home and let the miscarriage happen naturally. “I was so upset. I just wanted to go home.” So she did. A week later nothing had happened despite her still feeling pregnant. “That bit felt so cruel,” she recalls, “the nausea was still there as my body was still full of hormones.” She couldn’t take any more and went in to hospital to have the foetus removed. It was a difficult time for everyone.

Erin picked herself up and gave IVF another try but it didn’t take. Having spent several thousand pounds already, the pressure was on. They discussed their options and for the first time Katie considered pregnancy. They had embryos on ice, which had “cost a fortune”, but the fee for implantation was small.

Katie decided to give IVF a go. Two embryos were implanted and two weeks later she was pregnant. “I was relieved but in shock,” she says.

Normal pregnancy symptoms kicked in: feeling sick and tired. The date for her early scan came up and as they knew this was normal proceedure, Katie trundled off up to London on her own, unprepared for what they were about to discover. The scan showed two heartbeats – twins! “It was amazing. I couldn’t believe it,” she says. She phoned Erin who was in total disbelief, then elated. This solved the problem of siblings. They’d be tired but they wouldn’t have to face IVF and pregnancy later.

Everyone adjusted to the idea and the couple thought about moving house as their two-bedroom home in Portslade was quite small. But then at around nine weeks Katie started getting painful cramps and blood-spotting. After Erin’s miscarriage they feared the worst. Could it possibly be happening again? After everything they’d been through? Were they about to lose a second pregnancy and twins too…?

It was a Saturday night after a busy day working a stand at an art fair (Erin’s other passion is for her art). They were in bed early. Katie got up with a sense of urgency. “Oh God, something’s happening,” she said, waddling to the bathroom. Erin watched, panic setting in. “I saw blood rise up to her panty line, over and down – nothing but blood. It was horrific. Never mind the pregnancy and losing the babies, I thought she was going to die.”

They suspected a miscarriage but didn’t know what they should do. Erin phoned a gynaecologist friend. “She said, ‘forget about the babies, you need to think about Katie. If she’s really pale get her to hospital.’” Katie was slumped on the bathroom floor in a pool of blood with no colour in her face. They drove straight to A&E where she was admitted to the early pregnancy unit. A miscarriage was confirmed but it was the weekend and there were no staff to do a scan and find out exactly what was going on inside. “They said they didn’t want to get our hopes up but the cervix wasn’t open,” says Erin. “If the cervix is open everything comes out.” They were sent home, told to rest and let the miscarriage run its course.

“I was devastated,” Erin says. “We had no money left. It was done. We’d have to adopt.”

“But I had a really strong feeling I was still pregnant,” says Katie.

They got home at 4am and spent the rest of the weekend holed up. Tim and Blaise were also upset. They then had an agonising two-day wait for a scan. Back in hospital they dimmed the lights. Erin gripped Katie’s hand. The first thing they saw was the spot where an embryo had come away. Then, there it was, the other embryo, intact with a strong heartbeat. “It was amazing one was alive after all that,” says Erin.

The next couple of weeks were torturous. Katie was a mess. Bleeding on and off she was obsessed with checking the blood was brown, not bright red (the sign of a miscarriage). She also had severe morning sickness. They had a scan at just over 11 weeks and were told their baby had grown, was a healthy size and all was well.

The debate about finding out the sex of the baby had been long. With Tim outnumbered, it was decided they’d wait until the birth, but after everything Katie had been through she felt she’d be able to connect more with the baby if she knew. Everyone understood. At the 20-week scan they were told it was a girl.

The pregnancy continued without any more scares. The due date was the 1st of May, but things kicked off a few days early and after an initially fast labour, then a ventouse delivery, Maisie Marie JoAnne Parker Burns was born at 7.35am on 29th April 2012, weighing 8lbs 8oz.

How to make a baby... a personal experience by Jene

At 30 my biological clock started ticking.  At that point I wasn’t concerned, I still had 5 more years before it became urgent.  Unexpectedly finding myself single at 34 was devastating to my baby plans and I cried on my 35th birthday, believing the time to have children was gone.  Not surprisingly my luck changed pretty quickly and now I am 7 months pregnant.  This is my story of how we (my partner, myself and our baby) got here.

When we first got together my partner and I were both very sure that we wanted children.  We’d been friends for a long time and had always known about each other’s desire for a family, falling in love was the icing on the cake.  The first thing we did however had nothing to do with planning babies, instead we started planning a wedding.  It’s a sad fact of life in the UK that if you are the non-biological parent in a LGBT family, you have few parental rights unless you are married to the biological parent.  There are ways around this of course, but the easiest and most secure is to simply put a ring on it.  So we had a beautiful wedding and invited all of our friends.  I wore a white dress, we had pink flowers at the ceremony, I drank too much champagne and it really was one of the best days of my life.  We woke up the next morning together hungover and in love, and I’ve wanted to do it again ever since (my partner says once is enough).   

That was Stage one.  At this point I had been recording my periods for months using the P Tracker app on my iPhone, so Stage two involved going to a doctor and getting a referral to a clinic. I had been warned that this initial stage sometimes takes quite a while,but it was surprisingly quick for me. Within two months I met my gynecologist   She outlined a number of tests for me to have and within 6 months I received all of my results.  I was normal and fertile.  At this point we were to be referred on to a clinic which would provide us with an IUI, but here I baulked.  The thought of having unidentified sperm injected into me just didn’t sit comfortably in my head.  It was irrational I know, but then I think a lot of the baby-making process is inherently irrational.  Why do we worry about what to name our kids when most people grow up to love their own name?  And why do we consider a black kitchen set better than a Hello Kitty toy gun when kids would have just as much fun with either of them?  Hell, why do we want kids at all when life would be much cheaper without them?  Deep down I knew a clinic was the easiest option but I didn’t want it.  What to do?  We were stumped.

At a house party several weeks later I had my answer. ‘We’ve found ourselves a known donor!,’ the hosts told me happily, and pulled up a site on their iPad.  It was a website for people who wished to make babies and my friends had been talking to a married man who was planning to donate his sperm.  Also available on the site were potential co-parents, surrogate mothers, egg donors, and a lot of other sperm donors.  That night I made up my mind and set up a profile almost as soon as I arrived home.  Telling my partner about this new development didn’t go down well.  We spent several weeks in stalemate, just talking things through before we finally reached a resolution.  It was scary to put our faith in someone who would ‘know’ us, who would know what we looked like and may in the future try to gain access to our baby.  We finally agreed to go ahead with some safety precautions in place.

Operation ‘Find a donor’ started easily enough.  First we bought a new mobile phone with an anonymous number, and then set up a new email address for correspondence.  We decided to only meet up with potential donors together, and in busy areas such as Kings Cross, Waterloo and Liverpool Street Station. For our profile picture we used an ‘arty’ photograph that bore little resemblance to the real us and kept all personal details off our profile and out of our correspondence.  Once all this was done we were ready.

What had initially seemed to me to be an abundance of donors, very quickly whittled down when you started to look more closely. Many were no longer active, some were actively seeking sex (or 'natural insemination' as they call it), while others were advertising as sperm donors while really wanting a co-parenting arrangement, and some were just odd.  It was frustrating and I tried several different sites before finally stumbling upon Pride Angel and FSDW.  Both gave us positive hits within weeks.  At the end of a 4 month search we finally found our donor.  He was not only a lovely guy, he was happy to answer all of our questions, had donated before so already knew the drill and had no interest in being a father.  We were ecstatic.  Now to get pregnant!

The preparations for getting pregnant are much easier than actually falling pregnant.  First we needed a venue.  Any cheap hotel close to a major line would do.  During that time we had trouble with one venue, which objected to us having so many people in and out of a single room, so after that we stuck to doubles. It was more expensive but worth it to not worry about drama.  The only equipment needed were some digital ovulation kits (for the lead up to the insemination), a small plastic bowl with a lid for our donor, a bag of 10ml syringes (with no needles obviously), and a small tube of Conceive Plus lubricant.  To carry out the operation we arranged to meet the donor at a spot near the hotel, lead him up to our room and leave him there to do his business.  Once he was finished, he’d find us at whatever cafe we’d designated as our waiting point, hand over the keys, and then we’d make our way to the room.  My partner would do the insemination and I’d lie on my back for 45 minutes.  I’m fairly sure 45 minutes is an excessive amount of time, but we were so keen for a baby that I would have stood on my head if needed be.  As I was quite regular we could generally arrange in advance when to inseminate.  If you're not so regular it's probably best to wait until the day you ovulate.  Sperm generally stay healthy and active for at least 3 days, so are quite happy to hang around and wait for an egg if you are a bit early.

Obviously I didn’t fall pregnant straight away.  As the months go by, you really start to appreciate a decent donor.  Through it all he stuck with us and even agreed to do a last minute insemination one month, when my cycle decided to throw a surprise party.  At the end of it all he told us to contact him again if ever we wanted a second child and that was it.  Our time with him was over. 

At the moment we are thinking we’d like a second child, but after the well publicised High Court ruling regarding the two gay male donors and their lesbian recipients, we’ll probably be asking him to sign a legal document next time.  So far, as a married couple our rights are still protected, but that ruling was a timely reminder that laws can and do change.  As LGBT parents it’s always a good idea to stay aware of the law.

Ps. If you do decide to choose the known donor/home insemination route and find yourself pregnant and sitting in a doctor’s office, the correct answer to ‘Is this a natural pregnancy?’ is yes.  The alternative is a clinical IUI, fertility drugs or IVF.

Jene

Choosing a reputable Sperm Donor or Co-parenting Website

Perhaps inevitably, the World Wide Web now has a role in that most human of accomplishments; procreation. Sperm donor websites are becoming increasingly popular in the UK with many people now searching for a sperm donor or co-parent online. The demand for this has been partly fuelled by the vagaries of the NHS. Many health authorities are cutting back on IVF treatments because of the expense, trusts already refuse treatments for single and lesbian couples and these factors coupled with the shortage of sperm donors here in the UK seem to be pushing the advantages of the internet over the more traditional clinic route. For those looking to create their own family, are these websites a realistic option? Could they even pose a health threat? Like dating online, isn’t there something potentially seedy or unknown about such an endeavour? Or do these websites provide the transparency, advice and directness of purpose that people who just want to be parents are in need of?

Whatever the risks, these services have swiftly established their legitimacy as a resource, enabling people with limited options to choose for themselves where and from whom that all important genetic material comes from.

We spoke to Pride Angel, a leading online facility, for their views. The issues facing those using such a website include the benefits of using a known donor, anonymity law, working alongside fertility clinics and the importance of using a reputable sperm donor website.

Pride Angel is one of the foremost worldwide connection sites, with over 20,000 members. Though primarily aimed at the gay and lesbian community they are dedicated to providing quality information regarding health screening and fertility law for all. Created and run by Erika and Karen, they aim to equip those who need it with the knowledge and support necessary to negotiate such a potentially delicate undertaking. Both scientists, they are passionate about improving the services available for those looking to become parents. Not just academically qualified, Karen has fostered and personally experienced conception using the sperm of a known donor.

Using a known sperm donor
There has been a social and cultural shift in recent times, towards women wishing to meet a known donor. This could be because of high fertility costs, or perhaps the shortage of donors, whichever, the benefits of knowing who exactly will be credited with creating your own bundle of joy cannot be denied. There has been much research and evidence which has shown that children who know the identity of their donor and the honest circumstances of their conception from an early age are more secure with their identity as they become adults. Another plus is the potential for a prospective mother to meet a like minded individual who is happy to stay in touch, albeit, at a distance, omitting the longing within their child to meet an unknown donor as they grow up.

Anonymity law and future children
The change to the anonymity law in 2005 was certainly a positive turning point for donor conceived children, allowing them to trace the identity of their donor at age 18. However we are still to really discover the effect this will have on the thousands of children who may be wanting to meet their biological father in the future; they may find that the donor is simply not interested in being contacted.  There is also the worry that the donor may not be the kind of person the mother would wish for their child to meet, after all, she may have only received basic details such as height and eye colour by which to choose her donor originally. There is also the very real concern of genetic attraction, something which especially affects parents and children who have never met before adulthood. The repercussions of this could be catastrophic.
When the effects of this law are eventually felt, in the year 2023 and beyond (eighteen years after the law was introduced in 2005) will it be felt that children were better off not having access to this information? Would it not therefore be far better for donor conceived children to have known of their donor from the beginning?

Websites working alongside fertility clinics
Sperm donor websites assist in the much needed recruitment of donors and help bring together co-parents and the creation of alternative families in a way which clinics are less able to do. By working alongside the authorities and regulated clinics, websites can therefore provide a much needed service, providing they are educating their users about any health risks and legal considerations.

A spokesman for the HFEA (Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority) is advising people to only use sperm donor websites which direct their users to a licensed clinic, ensuring that complete health screening is completed and that a record of the donor’s name is kept on file.

Choosing a reputable sperm donor or co-parenting website
When choosing to use a sperm donor website to find a donor or co-parent it is important to ensure that they are providing the necessary health screening and legal advice and directing users to use regulated fertility clinics for treatment.

Erika, co-founder of Pride Angel highlights the advantages of their connection site and the safeguarding in place:

"All profiles are continually screened to ensure users are not offering ‘natural’ insemination or requesting an anonymous donor. Nor is payment for donations allowed to be offered or requested. If any donor attempts to contact more than 10 different recipients, an email is automatically sent, highlighting the ‘no more than 10 live births law within the UK."
She continues, "We are committed to providing a user friendly service, while ensuring that we do everything within our power to make it a safer environment for our members. We also offer email support for users requiring help and further information. Users should never consider using a donor who offers natural insemination, even if they offer artificial insemination as well. The health risks of such promiscuous donors are too great. Unfortunately many other connection services do not monitor profiles and restrict messages in the way that we do at Pride Angel. This means that many of the more prolific donors tend to use other sites which do not monitor them as closely. These factors are really important to consider when choosing a connection service to find a known donor or co-parent."

A bleak thought and a fair warning of the realities and risks inherent in such a situation but Erika is keen to point out that for most, the benefits of  the self determination and choice Pride Angel provides far outstrips the negatives.

"We have had so many people thank us for the service we provide, without which co-parenting arrangements would not happen and many lesbian couples and gay men would not have the chance to experience the joys of parenthood."

For more information regarding finding a co-parent, health screening, home insemination and fertility law visit and register for FREE at www.prideangel.com.