Lesbians looking to conceive..where to start!?

[rnb972]

Hello!

Me and my lovely partner are looking to have a baby and have no idea where to start. Our plan so far is just to go to my GP and see what kind of advice/help they can offer but was wondering if anyone has any advice? We know we don't want to use a donor we know but we would like to do it the cheapest, safest and most efficient way.

If anyone has any advice, words of wisdom or anything at all please let me know, would be great to make friends with people who have been through/are going through a similar thing.

Rachel

Yes, go to the GP, because what you're entitled to seems to vary from place to place. We went private, because we were lucky and could afford it. But as we'd have had to try IUI six times (IIRC) before they'd have funded us, and since DP was 34 at the time it seemed more sensible just to crack on.

Donor sperm through a sperm bank is relatively cheap. The expensive bit would be IUI/IVF, but if you've no known fertility issues I'd be awfully tempted to DIY. The only major reason IMO for going to a clinic is that, if you're not married/civil partnered, it will make the non-birth-mum automatically the child's legal parent.

Please get some legal advice and do some research and don't get some random internet person.
I've seen it go very wrong

I'm not being funny, but ... legal advice?! Really?!

You do realise that .gov has really easily accessible info on the legalities. There is absolutely no reason to pay a lawyer for advice, unless you're doing something really quite odd, or unless you want to play about with non-registered sperm donation etc.

I'm a non-birth legal mother to my DD, and I get quite stroppy about this, because a huge number of people insisted on scaremongering and telling me 'ooh, I hope you made sure it was legal!' or 'ooh, isn't it risky not to adopt her! You're not even married to her mother!'

It literally took me a single google to work out what the situation was for us.

The link is here, btw. www.gov.uk/register-birth/who-can-register-a-birth

Well I am dealing with a case that had gone horribly wrong because they didn't take advice and didn't do things properly.

I'm so glad it worked for you with no troubles but things do go wrong.

It's not that it 'worked for me'. It's that the law protects me, and there is pretty accessible advice about what the law is.

I do recognise that people (straight and gay) who have children without thinking about the legal situation can run into issues. I wouldn't suggest anyone should be careless. But I find it quite depressing and weird the way people are in such huge haste to assume that if you're a gay parent, you need special legal advice and special protection.

Apologies if that's not you, but it is many people's response.

Thanks for both advice, I'm hoping I have no fertility issues however my mum had to use fertility treatment (and had twins) to have me and my brother and also my aunt couldn't have children at all and ultimately had a hysterectomy. I'm hoping they will do some kind of investigation into whether or not I have any fertility issues before we start spending money on trying to get pregnant, not sure if that's how it works though.

Might do. My GP very happily referred me for investigations. I have a history of miscarriage, but perhaps a family history of issues would also let them look. She did a couple of really basic blood tests, too, which she said they'd do more or less for anyone who asked.

Granted, she then fucked up by referring my recently-post-partum DP for tests instead of me, cos she got confused by the amazing two-women thing, but we did sort that.

You should contact or join Brigton Rainbow Families - they're holding a worship soon on this I think, plus you can ask stuff like this on the Facebook page and get lots of advice from women who have done this already

Workshop not worship! Second the legal advice thing too ... Don't really need it unless you're doing something really odd... Law is straight forward now on what you need to do to be equal parents both on birth cert

Ooh how exciting! We decided to use a UK clinic so that the donor was anonymous to us/not involved and also so that our children could find them when they are adults - that was very important to me.

We were lucky that we could afford, just, to fund our treatment (0% credit card resulting in lots of jokes about Wham's 'Credit Card Baby" - showing my age!!

We were offered details about a possible donor link which we accepted and then had IUI as I was only 33 then. I fell pregnant on the third attempt and then, after we had DS, we put some sperm from the same donor in the freezer. When we were ready for our second child, we used the same donor but had IVF this time because I was older - I became pregnant first time.

So we have two gorgeous children, DS and DD. They are full bio siblings because DW was older and not keen to carry in any case. She couldn't love them more than if she'd carried them, she is a total natural! The children know how they were made thanks to a great HEFA book.

We didn't want a third person involved in the situation at all so that was why we did not go down that route.

DW and I are both on the birth certificate.

It has been really positive for us!

Good luck, and enjoy.

Oh, btw, there's a book called 'Pride and Joy' which has some good advice and also lots of anecdotes about same-sex parenting.

Unmarried, non-civil-partner parents
When a mother isn’t married or in a civil partnership, her partner can be seen as the child’s second parent if both women:

are treated together in the UK by a licensed clinic
have made a ‘parenthood agreement’

LRD, I guess the legal situation is straight forward if the couple know to have treatment at a licensed clinic and to sign parenthood agreement forms - then they both are considered to be the legal parents of their child irrespective of their marital status.

There may be other difficulties though, for example with using a known sperm donor, that the couple would be well advised to seek some legal advice around to ensure there are not disputes and conflicts in the future that might end up in the family court.

Hi, we we to the gp and got referred to a fertile clinic, in our area you get 6 rounds on IUI and 1 round of ivf, or, 2 rounds of ivf if IUI wouldn’t work (I have blocked tubes so no point doing IUI) they even find the sperm :) best advice I could give is ring your CCG, google the name of your council and CCG it should come up with a number. They will be able to tell you exactly what is open to you on the NHS is your area (most doctors don’t know, especially for same sex) they were great with me and even called my clinic when they refused to pay for sperm. Good luck x

Oh and ALOT of legal paperwork to fill in, stuff like if the partner dies before the baby is born do they still go on the birth certificate etc. And there is compulsory counselling if you used an official donor as it’s treated similar to adoption, they won’t approve you if there are concerns for the future welfare of the child x

I would think a surrogate is one thing they don't need

juneybean the spammers need to shoehorn their adverts for the dodgy Ukrainian clinic they’re actually here to advertise somehow!