to go the DIY insemination route?

[ElizabethDarcy]

To cut a really long story short... many years married, most of them we have been trying to conceive, much medical intervention, only option is donor or adoption.

Tried adopting in the UK, not able to. Looking to try donor route, and also contemplating moving abroad so we can adopt. We'd like a large family, and would love giving an unwanted/orphaned child a mum and dad who will love, care for and protect them.

So, due to all the medical intervention I have had for many years (fertility stuff plus I have had another health issue which has got better since I had an operation), we are keen to try the DIY donor route.

I am so tired of being poked and prodded and baring all. We order the little lads, they arrive frozen, we do it ourself at the right time, at home.

Aside from me having an affair (not an option obviously!), this is the only way I will ever be able to have a child, something I have longed for always.

ChristinedePizan I hear you.

Anyway, finance is not all what it's about - where there's a will there's a way, and we'd make a plan. Somehow. But not sure how to get around all the other 'horrendous probs' we have, like being Christian etc.

'No, but adopted children may come with traumatic backgrounds that will make it highly desirable to give them a secure space of their own. One sibling may be bullying another at night time. There may even be sexualised behaviour due to past sexual abuse (which you may not know about at the time of adoption).'

I hear you Hester.

But if you get pregnant and have a baby how will you manage if you can't afford to take time off?

I'll probably get flamed for this but if you can't afford to take time off work to look after a new adopted child then I can't see how you can consider having an adopted or DI child. It seems blindingly obvious to me that being in with a load of other children all day would be totally the wrong environment for a newly adopted child. Pretty miserable for a baby too. It's got to be about the child and their needs first and foremost. Maybe you just aren't in the right time/place in your lives to have children?

Um dials loads of people don't take 6-12 months off after the birth of their child due to finance.

On the Christian thing, I wonder if you're sufficiently aware of what the concerns are about this and how you can put their minds at ease? I know they've been horrible and you detest them, but do you think it's worth ringing and just asking them to explain to you what the issues would have been?

I think we had an easy ride through adoption, in part, because we really got how to speak the language of social workers (through working in the public sector, reading professional journals etc). There's something about knowing the language, and understanding how to put yourself across, that's really important. I'm not saying this was a problem for you, but it may be worth considering? So, on Christianity, I think that what they want to hear could be that:

• your faith gives you values: a moral compass and a way of working through problems and conflicts with love and understanding
• your faith gives you sustenance: when times are hard (and you know they will be sometimes with children) it gives you a place to reflect, draw strength and carry on
• your faith gives you a community, a network of support that will be of real benefit to an adopted child

They may be concerned that you are a narrow-minded bigot (sorry to be crude, but let's get to it). So they want to hear that you see your Christian faith as a wonderful opportunity that you can offer to share with your child, and that you will provide access to it and a role model of how to live graciously with faith in a largely secular world. But that you also honour and respect children's right to explore their own spiritual beliefs and direction, and you will support them in doing that wherever it takes them.

They probably also want to hear you're not anti-gay. And that is important. We didn't have to do that convincing because we ARE gay.

I'm sorry you're going through so much to start a family. We TTC for 8 years to have DS1 and I know what you mean by being sick of getting poked about. It really does make what should be a lovely experience into an intrusive one.

I do however agree very much with what hidingidentity has said. You really need to assess the risks of the DIY route and it seems there are many. If it isn't legal in the UK, there seem to be some pretty good reasons why.

Sorry it's a little off-topic, but I used to CM for two little girls, one of whom had been conceived using a donor, and the younger sister had been adopted. Their parents were very open about their origins, and I once heard the older sister (about 7 at the time) explaining to a friend, very matter of factly, that here daddy's sperm didn't work properly so her mummy and daddy had got some more from the Doctor. She was completely unfazed by the notion.

Incidentally I also saw the little sister (about 4 at the time) being teased by an older boy saying "you're adopted" in a mean way. She retorted "Yes, I've got two mums!" as if that was the best thing ever. That shut him up!

Wishing you the best of luck by the way, I hope it works out for you.

Threefeet... out of the mouths of babes :)

I gave up a senior corporate job to become a CM as I just love working with kids, and it has helped fill this maternal need I have, for now.

Financially I could take a few months off, but not 6 months or a year, unless we downsized, and I need this size home for my childcare business. I have had little mindees as young as 3 months old.. so know many families cannot afford to take a year off work. Even with maternity pay... and I wouldn't get any pay if I adopted. But as I have said... we would make a plan financially. The desire to be a mum and dad is so very strong.

Hester... yes, they pigeon-hole people, which is so unfair. Each person is unique and should be treated so. I have many gay friends (was in the design industry for many years and have some of the best friends ever from that time), they've never had a problem with my faith, as they KNOW me. How dare the SWs make such assumptions of someone they don't know?

They discriminate against us because we are Christian, and this is not right. I am not a SW or in that kind of industry, so don't know the speak they want to hear. They never even gave us the airtime to get to know us... they were just anti Christian. Full stop.

If you do go down this route, you will at some point have to have The Conversation with your child.

Yes we will... but at least we'll have a child :)

somewherewest - yes, but there is a lot of evidence out there that "the talk" doesn't have to be a traumatic or difficult event. Children who are told in the normal course of the "where did I come from?" conversations, and are therefore told when they are young, are completely fine with the concept. Just like adoption, it's the lying and then the big reveal when they accidentally find out that is the damaging thing, not the adoption/donor sperm/donor egg part.

Talking of which - ElizabethDarcy - I would highly recommend this website :
www.donor-conception-network.org/
for information about DI. They are very pro-disclosure, but then so am I, and that's what all the evidence points to.

I cannot say that my nephews have been traumatised by The Conversation...and it was pretty obvious that with two female partners, they must have come from somewhere.

two female PARENTS, that should read...

I'm going to hide this thread after I write this because it is making me sad. I worked for SS in the UK and lots and lots of my co-workers were Christians. Very much practicing and we all knew and respected it. SWs are not heartless and cruel. They have to take lots of things into account, many of which you are not trained to consider. The amount of rooms in your house is relevant, as is race and culture, as is homophobia. They have to consider all these things and many more.

I have also recently seen two friends adopt their wonderful children. The parents are, again, practicing and devout Christians. They are very involved in their Church and worship and volunteer there. It is a huge part of their lives. No discrimination from their SW.

I'm going now. Please stop telling everyone how dreadful SWs are. As well as being reviled everywhere, lots are now losing their jobs. It's a pretty thankless job and it's easy to say things about them when they aren't allowed to comment on specific cases.

Malificence for example, is a twat

Hope you can work a way round it OP - I find the moronic comments very offensive too as apparently I am "creepy" as my DD is biologically DH's but not mine....

For what it's worth, studies (don't ask me to link or find!) have apparently shown that children born thru surrogacy and similar (and yours would be like surrogacy in reverse) cope very well with the whole thing if handled correctly. My dd is a VERY stroppy and difficult teenager and doesn't even have a passing thought about throwing parentage at me or DH.
Adopted children have different issues to face, being taken away from parents/treated badly/neglected/rejected etc etc but a well handled donor sperm child would understand why and how they came about.

DD was home made!

MrsTerryPratchett - if you haven't gone - I actually think it's really important that you stay! I agree with you that often SWs get a right slagging off - on MN as on elsewhere - but there are many, many posters here who will speak up in their support. Me included. Just on this thread, I have acknowledged both good and bad social workers (my one was fantastic). I've also said expressed my surprise at Christianity being a barrier as, like you, I hadn't seen it being so in practice, and I've suggested how the OP can communicate how her faith will make her a good adoptive parent.

But people do sometimes get chewed up and spat out by social workers, and it's important that we hear from people with that experience. And learn from it. You are absolutely right that we don't know the sw's take on it, but I don't hear posters on this thread saying, "You're absolutely right, you would be a perfect adoptive mother and your social workers were worse than Hitler". Nor has ElizabethDarcy asked us to.

There are many sw-bashing threads that have me foaming at the mouth (just visit the adoption threads!) but this actually isn't one of them.

I also can totally see why not enough bed rooms, being a child minder, weight, previous health probs and not being able to take much time off would make a SW think twice - more likely those factors than religion or race I would have thought (and indeed hoped).

It is lack of openness with the child and not growing up with the info that is considered a problem. And I can well understand why. Dd is now five and well aware of the facts of her conception, at her level. School knows so won't be surprised and shocked. As for others, well those who we consider to be close enough to share really personal stuff with know and close family. As for others, it's never seemed a coffee morning type chat so I never lie but I don't chat about it either. It isn't secret, just personal. And if dd chooses to share the info widely, fine. At the moment it doesn't seem to be of all that much interest. The baby I'm carrying on the other hand is a source of endless interest and questions.

Same here hormoneoverload. We wrote a book for DD, very simple, photos of us and surro and her pregnant and us all together, surros son etc etc with real simple comments and read it to her and showed her photos from about 1ish.
I don't recall ever actually TELLING her, it was just what it was.
We talk about it fairly often, DD likes to bring up the fact that surro sent her a happy 13th birthday card, when she was 12, and forgets her actual birth date every year. Bless them both!

Hormone - that's the way one of my friend's deals with her adopted DD (it's not a secret but it's personal) and that's how I'm going to talk to my DI DS.

Right now, he's completely fine with the fact that he doesn't have a dad - just accepts that as a status quo. I have always told him that there are different types of family and he seems happy with that

Thanks for that Christine. I sometimes worry that some would say we're being in some way deceptive by not being super open, but it's a case of how relevant it is to people. And how you'd take that info on first meeting someone. Our story was pretty quick-six months from "there's a problem" to "wow we're pregnant!" so a lot of processing of stuff had to be done quite quickly. I am so delighted it happened like that, no worries, but it meant that I was still taking on board our infertility whilst making decisions about how to tell and who. When I meet in real life my first intolerant person I'll be glad in some ways that I will then know not to trust them in other ways too (mentioning no names from this thread!).

Oh actually Hormone & Christine... we also use the phrase "it's not a secret but it's private"
She went thru a stage of wanting to tell her friends at about 7 ish - when they all seemed to get baby brothers and she wanted to tell about her older technically half brother, I just said it was up to her but she couldn't ever UNtell people. She thought about it and didn't tell.