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

Building a happy family

This week we made the not-so-life-changing decision not to have our own children. To pretty much all of our friends and family, this will be a complete surprise. So how did we get from deciding between a known or unknown donor to help create our family to a life path that does not include having our own children at all?
If you'd have asked us a week ago if we were going to have a baby now that we've got married (or civilly partnered if you're being pedantic) we would have said yes without a doubt. So it is quite surprising to us that we have both had a re-think and changed our minds.

The scene is a rainy sunday car journey on the way back home to London from a softball tournament (a common situation for us on summer Sunday afternoons). The conversation, which we have been having on and off for the best part of the last 18 months (following the trend of many of our friends starting their own families), began with an attempt to reconsider using a known donor.

We charted the pros and cons of the unknown donor route and considered the two biggest cons with this route. 1) the personal safety risks of meeting up with a stranger; and 2) the challenge to guarantee medical history without the use of a clinic.  Another consideration was the cost in thousands of pounds when using a clinic for insemination. These had also become top of the list of reasons to say no to this option. So we went back to the original plan and we discussed building a relationship with a potential known donor, where the main risk we considered would be the donor's proximity to the upbringing of the child and potentially wanting shared custody, however tight our family contract defining relationships might be.

Our decisions weren't difficult in the end, but it wasn't easy either and it has taken months to mull over and consider the multitude of routes available. Over the last few months, we've looked at a lot of options. Partly because we could potentially face fertility issues due to (Katie's) ongoing health problems, and partly because the cost of using a clinic is prohibitive and money we would rather spend on the family than making the family. However none of the myriad of options has ever felt quite right. Perhaps this was why we had been having the debate for the last 18 months rather than settling on a method and working towards it. We then started to think about adoption as an alternative for us to having a child, this conversation developed, and then we decided that rather than have a baby of our own perhaps we could adopt a baby. Then we took our thoughts a step further, because we know that the adoption process in the UK is slow and drawn out, and also that we would still have to make quite a few adjustments to our busy and fun lives (Planet London would surely not survive and which one of us would get to play softball?).

We thought more and more about the fostering route and supporting LGBT young people through Albert Kennedy Trust, and maintaining an open door policy for friends and family in need. Both of us are really keen on this and want to incorporate it into our life. Having our own children would potentially be a hinderence to this.

We are also really committed to Planet London and the other activities we do outside of work. Could we really continue to do any of those if we started a family? Probably not, or not to the same extent. And in all of the couples we know, we've found one is able to still take part, the other stays at home with the baby. How would we agree who got stuck at home?

It was at this stage that we both realised that there was another option, one that quite suits our ethos, and general love of providing a safe haven whenever we can to people who need our support. We decided that we would look to have a home where we would have a spare room. The aim being to offer a space for working with a charity like Albert Kennedy Trust to home young LGBT people who have been made homeless due to their sexuality; and for friends who need a sofa for a week or two.

For some reason on that particular Sunday, for the first time in our many conversations, we posed the question "do we need to have children?" It was a revelation. It was the one aspect of having a family we had never seriously considered. And we had considered all the elements of having a family very seriously. From naming the children, to picking out friends who could be potential donors, to saving to buy a family friendly home near a good school.

All of a sudden it felt like the clouds where clearing in our conversation.

The options for our life together without having our own children felt like the possibility we'd been waiting for. Rather than adapting our lives to accommodate children, why not just not have children? What were the reasons we thought about starting a family for anyway? Because it's what all our friends are doing, or because as women in their early thirties there is still a societal pressure that's what we should be doing.

We're letting the dust settle on the decision. And also, it's one we could change our mind on at any point. But we both agree, having babies isn't the right way for us to grow our family - at least for now. And we're excited about the opportunities we'll have to help young LGBT people in need.
Article by Naomi and Katie Bennett-Hall
 

Starting a Family – Our Journey

Mari, Hannah and baby Evelyn

Whether you’re thinking about starting a family or you’ve started one already and are keen to compare notes, hearing about other couple’s journeys can be a comfort in the minority situation that is lesbian parenting. Here’s how we did it.

My partner Mari and I got together at Brighton Pride seven years ago and we’re what you’d describe as a lipstick and chapstick with a mortgage and a cat. Both from large families, we are often surrounded by kids and we’ve always shared an interest in wanting to raise our own children. Mari is two years older than me so it was a natural and mutual decision for her to go first in sprog-popping. I would then follow suit, popping out the next one a few years after. Having considering every possible conception method known to man (IVF, known donor, unknown donor, spermdirect.com, one night stand…I could go on), we decided we’d be most comfortable with IUI at King’s College Hospital London with an anonymous donor. However after multiple visits, tests, a round of artificial insemination and a humorous car journey on the rush-hour congested south circular, with Mari’s legs on the dashboard, it sadly wasn’t meant to be. Thanks to Mari’s younger brother, who is rather educated about all things gay (yes, two in the family), we found out about the London Women’s Clinic, which turned out to be the miracle clinic that helped produce our beautiful daughter Evelyn.

Located on Harley Street, the LWC is a private clinic specialising in assisted reproduction technologies for straight and gay couples as well as singles. If like us, you winced at the H word, naturally assuming you’d be paying through the nose (sculpted or otherwise) for extortionate IVF treatment, hold your horses. After attending one of their aptly named inseminars (yes, you read that correctly), we were enlightened not only on their incredibly high success rate, but also on their egg-sharing programme, a scheme whereby women can donate half of their healthy eggs and in return, receive free IVF treatment. I’d be lying if I said we weren’t initially attracted to the oxymoronic idea of free IVF, given the money we’d already spent on failed treatment at King’s, but at the foot of this was a decision not to be taken lightly. After a few weeks of talks between us and our families and some counselling provided by the clinic, we decided that egg-sharing was the way forward as we’d be giving both ourselves and another women the possible opportunity to become Mums. Since we already felt indebted to the powers that be for the sperm to make it all happen for us, this felt like the right thing to do, giving something back and restoring a harmonious balance in the reproduction process.

Choosing a donor was much like filling in a dating application. You state the specifics of what you’re looking to then be matched with potential suiters. Seemed simple enough on paper, less so in conversation. Aside Mari’s trademark indecisiveness (she takes 15 minutes to choose a sandwich filling), we wanted to give ourselves the best chance of a good donor. Too specific and we could risk having no matches, not specific enough and we could end up with all sorts of weird and wonderful candidates. So there we sat in the consultation room, with a form on a clipboard, deciding among a number of things, height, weight, age, ethnic origin and interests. A few weeks later, we were matched with a canoe loving, Brazilian Research Scientist standing at 6 ft 3. Perfect.

Living in Kent, visits to LWC were not cheap, but with the new high-speed link and the cost-saving on treatment, journeys to and from the clinic were pretty pain free. Treatment started in late spring 2010 and after a number of blood and fertility tests, Mari was given the IVF drugs to stimulate egg production. Within 3-4 weeks Mari had produced 24 eggs ripe for the picking. 12 of these were donated to the other couple we’d been matched to and 12 were used for our own IVF, using the sperm from our selected donor. Within 24 hours, the embryologist telephoned to inform us that 10 eggs had fertilised successfully and that they needed to incubate for another 48 hours to find out if any would be viable for implantation. Early morning on day 3 we were informed we had 2 viable “grade 2 – 7 cell” embryos and were asked to go to the clinic to be implanted. My partner was thrilled but also confused and worried as to why only 2 embryos out of 10 were viable for implantation. We later found out that each fertilised egg needs to develop into 6-8 cells within 36 hours of fertilisation in order for it to be viable or strong enough to survive implantation, and what happened to us was fairly normal. Within hours we were at the clinic and Mari was “implanted” with one little embryo, and sent home to rest for a week. This for Mari entailed watching 3 box sets of Brother’s and Sister’s, 1 box set of L Word, gorging on copious amounts of chocolate and surrounding herself with a plethora of blue and orange coloured scarves (she read somewhere that these colours aid the conception process).

Whether it was the Brazilian super sperm, Mari’s miracle eggs, the indulgent rest period or the blue and orange scarves, the pregnancy test a week later proved positive, concluding a successful first round of IVF. We were thrilled! 9 months later Mari gave birth to a beautiful little girl who we named Evelyn Rose, giving her a double-barrelled surname using both our surnames, just like the Spanish tradition.

As for me, well I have a sneaky couple of amps of Brazilian super sperm tucked away in the freezer waiting to create a half-blood sibling for Evelyn (I realise this sounds like a partially magical Harry Potter character). Let’s just hope my eggs are just as welcoming.

http://www.londonwomensclinic.com/index.php/london/p/what_is_egg_sharing
http://www.kch.nhs.uk/service/a-z/acu

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Blog post by Hannah Revill

Do you have a story to tell? Would you like to contribute to this or one of the other Planet London blogs? Email Planet London (admin@planet-london.com).

NHS & NICE propose IVF overhaul to give lesbians the right to free fertility treatment

"Same-sex couples and women aged up to 42 may soon be eligible for IVF treatment, according to new draft guidelines published today. The proposals were issued by the National Institute for health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) and featured prominently in the news, although they also include a range of recommendations not covered by the media." According to the NHS website.

"What do the new proposals say?

The updated draft guidelines released today for public consultation include the following key suggested changes:

• extending the upper age limit of women who can receive one cycle of IVF to 42 years old
• increasing the number of embryos implanted into the womb during a cycle of IVF
• excluding oral ovarian stimulation agents that have previously been recommended
• making new groups of the population eligible to receive fertility treatment

The draft proposals suggest making IVF available to a number of identified groups including same-sex couples."

According to Pinknews.co.uk,

"The recommendations, which puts same-sex couples on par with heterosexual couples when it comes to fertility treatment, is issued by the government watchdog for cost-effective treatment in the NHS, National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE).

Then new guidelines also call on health authorities in England and Wales to fund intra-uterine insemination (IUI), which uses donor sperms to help same-sex couples conceive. If IUI should fail for six cycles in a row, then, they should be considered for the more costly, and medically complex IVF, the guidelines will say."

The guidelines are open for consultation and more information including the full proposals and how to respond to the consultation are available on the NICE website. Individuals are not able to respond, however a representative of LGBT people will be collecting views to formally respond.

The Miraculous Conception

Well it’s come to that time for us where we are starting to think seriously about having children – we’re not ready to start quite yet, but we are starting to think about the ifs and hows, and are wanting to ensure that we are ready and fully prepared.

Now, for any female-female couple this takes a lot of planning, discussion and decision making given there is a missing ingredient, and many sources of obtaining and using this vital ingredient. There is so much information available online, and so many avenues you could choose to take. How do we choose what is right for us?

However, we were also approaching our GP for advice because of previous gynae conditions that might make it difficult to conceive, in advance of trying to help us make the right decision when the time comes based on what options we might have. One of us is facing a scenario where it might not be possible to conceive or even carry a baby (and not without medical support for sure) but that’s okay – because there is a back up womb, right? But what if this womb isn’t going to work either? We don’t know, because we’ve never tried, and aren’t going to have any unplanned discoveries.  So all we wanted to know from the GP was if womb number 1 isn’t going to work, will womb number 2? Given womb 2 is experiencing problematic periods and currently trialling various medications and tests... are we overreacting in checking or trying to be mature, and sensible?

Apparently, it’s just not that easy. First of all, you have to have tried and failed reproducing before you can get a test to tell you whether you are able to. Not that easy for lesbians is it? Not without spending a shed load of cash on your method of choice in the first place. So, this policy is somewhat implicitly discriminating, yes? Furthermore, the GP states (verbatim) “you would not be eligible (for NHS fertility treatment) as you are not a heterosexual couple”. What she apparently meant by this was the point made previously, you have to have tried and failed before you can even get a test.

So where does this leave us? I asked (womb 2), instead of getting up and leaving as she clearly would have preferred. Apparently we can have a blood test to check some hormone levels and she reluctantly mentioned the possibility of an ultrasound – letting me know that was the most that the surgery would offer, however she didn’t give me any hope or any indication that they would give me these tests. Despite my pushing I left the surgery without a future appointment, without any action plan, and with absolutely no indication that they were even going to consider helping us out.

But what if we do have fertility issues? Can we get NHS support? Or are we  not eligible because we are a female-female couple?

Where do we go to get information? What are our rights? We thought there was a law in place that protected us from discrimination in the delivery of goods and services. Stonewall have written about how we might assert our rights in response to the Equality Act 2010 but there is nothing specific about accessing fertility services here. The NHS’s own health page is a one page superficial description of a couple of the options available, but again no information on how to access the options.

Two years ago, a lesbian couple successfully sued the NHS for refusing to treat them as an infertile couple (Source: BBC News) – but they had to spend money on fertility treatment first – as the doctor told us. So where do we stand and where can we go from here? What about those lesbian couples who don’t have thousands stored in the bank to give to The London Women’s Clinic for private fertility treatment?

So that is the background to this blog. We positively encourage you to contact us with your experiences. We’ll post them, and we also want you to comment on these posts. Share your shock and anger, your dismay, even the fact that you’re not at all surprised – or share your experiences with us if they have been positive. We want to hear from you.

We will continue to look into this, talk to friends, charities, companies, and most importantly, we’ll keep trying to “conceive naturally” (ahem!) in the mean time, and go back to the doctors for advice following what we are fairly confident will be an unsuccessful attempt at an immaculate conception!