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.

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
 

Equality Act 2010 - what it means for lesbian women

Under the Equality Act 2010 PCT’s would be unable to treat same sex couples any differently to heterosexual couples. It would be unlawful therefore for your local PCT to say a particular treatment was only available for heterosexual couples and not same sex couples or for heterosexual women and not lesbians. The criteria they ask for from same sex couples would need to be the same and they would need to assess you in the same way. If their policy states that a heterosexual couple would be entitled to fertility treatment if the woman has been diagnosed with a fertility issue and are entitled to certain drugs then the same should be applied for same sex couples.

Stonewall are working with PCT’s across the country to help them address the health needs of lesbian and bisexual women. You may also find the following contact of use:

Equality and Human Rights Commission
http://www.equalityhumanrights.com

Infertility Network UK
http://www.infertilitynetworkuk.com

What's your PCT's policy on NHS fertility treatment?

Grant Shapps (yes the guy who is now Local Government Minister) did some research when he was an MP in opposition. Using Freedom of Information, he found out what each PCT's policy is on their criteria for NHS fertility treatment - view the article here http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2009/aug/06/fertility-problems-nhs and this also includes a link to a detailed spreadsheet.

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!