Pride Angel

It was a Friday, the day the pregnancy test was positive. Day 29 of my cycle, fifteen days after insemination. A drab August day. The rain drizzling down the window panes seemed incongruent with my mood, but I was struggling to identify my mood at all. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t wished for a positive test. It was exactly what we’d been hoping for, of course. And it had happened much sooner than expected. A huge success.

But it was a strange feeling and I skulked around the house, not sure what to do with myself. I didn’t feel any different from the previous day, week, month. Yet somewhere deep inside me, a complex manufacturing process was taking place: cells were dividing and multiplying, and something microscopic yet undeniably human was starting to take shape. I was on holiday from work and normally I’d be getting on with something or other: odd jobs around the house, some lesson preparation ready for the new school term…but now I was four weeks pregnant and it didn’t seem right just to carry on as usual. But what do you do when you’re four weeks pregnant?

What you don’t do when you’re four weeks pregnant is tell anyone. I knew that rule well enough, so after an excited text to my partner, Sally, I put my phone aside and (perhaps it was the effect of the miserable weather) found myself a ‘helpful’ chart on the Internet showing the percentage risk of miscarriage at each week of pregnancy. After a brief period of amazement that even to make it thus far, our little embryo had defied the odds of 3:1, in that same rain-inspired spirit, I focused on the 10% chance that I would still miscarry – a 10% chance that wouldn’t go down to 5% until we were to hear a heartbeat. And when would that opportunity arise? When placed on my lower abdomen, Sally’s stethoscope was sadly lacking in the ability to detect anything other than a rather embarrassing set of noises emanating from my intestines.

The next couple of weeks were exciting, secretive and notably uneventful. Sally encouraged me to stock up on tasty snacks: eating regularly would prevent me from lacking in energy and feeling sick and I dutifully snacked away, attributing a vague trembling in the legs or a slight rumble of the stomach to dangerously low levels of blood sugar.

The August Bank Holiday Weekend arrived, and Sally and I were at Manchester Pride. It was the Sunday, about 5pm and wandering the busy stalls I suddenly felt as though I might be sick. I’m not generally a very sickly person and I’d forgotten what nausea felt like. Confident that food was the answer, Sally led me to the row of burger vans while I shuffled along behind her, clocking alleyways and dingy corners where I might vomit unnoticed. A couple of hours later, after slowly picking at a baked potato and beans, the blandest food I could find, the nausea faded. We found some friends, gave the usual imaginative excuses for my glass of lemonade, and settled down to relive our early childhood, watching Toyah Willcox in Sackville Gardens.

Over the next few days the nausea would turn up in time for afternoon tea and make itself at home for the evening. By the following weekend it had come to stay and save for, ironically, half an hour when I first woke up, ‘morning’ sickness became my main daily activity, the day punctuated by attempts to force down various food items and galloped trips to the toilet for retching – no actual vomiting at this stage. I eventually settled on a fairly consistent diet of breadsticks, boiled eggs, small pieces of very mild cheese and watermelon.

September arrived and it was time to return to work for the new school term. The mere notion of teaching five classes of teenagers each day, followed by time spent planning lessons and marking their books seemed laughable in my current condition. Nevertheless, left with little choice, I armed myself with a roll of pedal bin liners and motion sickness wrist bands and, after guiltily confessing all to the school management, got on with it – albeit slipping out into the corridor now and again with a bin bag for a tactical retch, and surreptitiously shoving small cubes of cheese into my mouth as Year 11 exited, and Year 10 came in.

The worst time was always the evenings, and while this meant I generally managed fairly well where work was concerned, poor Sally got me at my worst each day. Arriving home from work at 7.30pm, she would usually find me lying as still as I could on the bed, perhaps emitting a faint moaning sound. Little would change until I’d wake up in the middle of the night, feeling almost normal and wondering whether beginning a nocturnal life was the answer.

Sally put aside her fears that she’d be stuck with this new miserable, retching girlfriend for life and focused her time on reading voraciously about pregnancy and obsessively sending off coupons for free stuff. It seems there are no trial-sachet lengths that companies will not go to in order to get the custom of mothers-to-be, and we were soon stockpiling sample packs of stretchmark lotions, nappy creams, fabric conditioner and even packs of nappies and the occasional towel.

Meanwhile both my nausea and my fury that no one had given me any kind of realistic warning about what the nausea would be like were coming to a peak. I was ready to do serious damage to the next person who suggested my problems might be solved by the consumption of ginger. I’d moved on to hot school dinners at lunchtime which were going down quite well, and at least providing me with some vegetable intake, but I was now vomiting every evening, and by nine weeks I stopped bothering to eat at all after 3pm; it was just a waste of good food.

At school rumours of my pregnancy were already rife: much to my bafflement, it seems wearing motion sickness bands during the working day is an obvious sign of pregnancy to today’s Year 11 girls. I would hear whispers as I arrived at my classroom door, “you can see it, look!” and I’d hold my tummy in as well as I could, and make sure my top was covering the extender clip on my trousers. Despite having lost five kilogrammes and having had to remove my rings from my fingers before they slipped off, there was now a slight bump becoming noticeable, although only really obvious when I was naked.

At twelve weeks the midwife came to visit. After a rather amusing moment where she asked for Sally’s genetic history, and we had to remind her of the use of donor sperm, she asked me to lie flat on my back while she prodded my tummy with some midwifery device. And there it was, a heartbeat, inside me, that wasn’t my heartbeat. Suddenly I felt an amazing sense of relief – until now, no one else had offered any confirmation that I was actually pregnant. I’d done the test myself and then felt sick. People just believe you, but what if it had all been in my head? Anyway, it wasn’t – there was something inside me that wasn’t me. Something alive, and in a week’s time at the scan, we’d get the further confirmation – that this creature was a baby.

Article: 5th May 2013 by Lindsey, West Yorkshire

Tell us your story, for a chance to win £50 Mothercare vouchers, at www.prideangel.com

A Separated lesbian couple have both been summoned to testify on behalf of a sperm donor, with whom they had made a written agreement, but who was ordered to pay child support after they split up.
A Kansas judge recently ordered William Marotta, a sperm donor to a lesbian couple, to pay child support after they split up, raising questions of how the law protects sperm donors.

Mr Marotta and the couple he donated to did not use official channels, and instead met up using a website, and wrote up their own agreement.
Because the US state of Kansas did not have a legal way for same-sex couples to marry, when the couple split up, the Kansas Department of Children and Families sought out the biological father of the child, Mr Marotta, for child support.

The court clerk’s office at Shawnee County District Court issued subpoenas on Wednesday for Angela Bauer and Jennifer L Schreiner.
Reports suggest that the women have been ordered to appear on 15 February, in order to give depositions to an attorney for William Marotta, HutchNews reports.

Laws in other states, such as New Jersey are similar to those in Kansas, said Bari Weinberger, a leading family law attorney, and managing partner of Weinberger Law Group.
He said that the judge could legitimately rule that the contract written up by Mr Marotta, and the former couple was void, because they did not use official channels to complete the agreement.
Mr Weinberger said that these definitions, and the liability of people in relationships with children in their care to pay child support, needed to be updated and clearly laid out.

Article: 25th January 2013 www.pinknews.co.uk

Read more about lesbian parenting and finding a sperm donor at www.prideangel.com

Our first insemination had taken place in mid-July. It had been a trial run. I was hoping to go on maternity leave around June, when my GCSE and A ‘level students’ exams would be over. So getting pregnant about September time would be ideal. We’d read a lot of books on the topic, some suggesting that it might take a year or more of inseminations before one was successful. Somewhere or other I’d read that each insemination has only a 6% chance of success. But then there were all the variables. I was thirty-four years old and was, like a supermarket on Shrove Tuesday, running rather low on eggs – well apparently, according to statistics. Nevertheless, I was healthy and not overweight; I had been taking pre-pregnancy vitamins for three months; my menstrual cycles were regular and I didn’t smoke. And, as a vet, my partner was both adept with a syringe and also very accustomed to poking around in various orifices. So we reckoned on ‘a few months’… maybe three? What when we got to five or six months? Get the sperm tested? Swap to the back-up uterus and egg supply? (The one obvious advantage a lesbian couple have in a quest for children.) We didn’t have a definite plan.

I’d said there would be no point in taking a pregnancy test until my period was late: it seemed like a waste. That is until two days before my period was due, when I was overcome with an overwhelming desire to wee on a stick. Aged ten, I had awaited Father Christmas with more patience than this. Would our lives be permanently transformed by a tiny, screaming bundle of chaos, or would they not? I weed on the stick, and it seemed they would not.

It had been a trial run and I whilst the statistics were confusing, I knew the chance of it working first time was unlikely. I hadn’t really wanted it to work this month. So the feeling of failure came as a surprise. The knowledge of a lonely, aging egg, taking its chance after thirty-four years of waiting, sighing at the devastating sight of carnage: a million sperm sprawled helplessly across my fallopian tube. Either my body had let me down, or I had let my body down, and we had both let everyone else down. Was I going to have to feel like this every month?

My period came with the school holidays: the start of six weeks off work and two weeks off insemination. Time for a glass of wine…

Two weeks later and we were returning from a short break in Paris for one day before setting off on a five-hour drive to the south coast to visit relatives. The one day back home was day fourteen, and another wee on a stick confirmed I had ovulated. So, between a hasty unpacking, washing, and repacking, we conveniently managed to fit in a visit from our donor (who was setting off the next day to northern France).

We then spent two weeks visiting various relatives around the country, offering a range of imaginative responses as to why I was refusing both alcohol and caffeinated tea. We hadn’t told even close family of the baby project: I didn’t like the idea of their curiosity hanging over us every month like a dead cat, and we knew from coming out four years ago, that they generally coped quite well with surprises. Nevertheless, we were sure they were on to us. After all, the owners of the bed and breakfast at which we’d stayed in Southampton had guessed when I’d asked for my eggs well done.

Ten days passed and it was weeing on stick time again. And again the feeling of failure. If I squinted a bit I could sort of see a hint of a blue line, but there was no doubt that it was negative. We hadn’t expected it to work first time, but now a pattern was emerging and the odds against me seemed to be rising. Next time we were to inseminate, I’d be almost thirty-five.

Four days later and my breasts were feeling tender. “Pre-menstrual,” I told my partner. “You don’t get that do you?”
“Yeah I do…I think I usually do.” But my period should have started today and it was now 11pm. “I think you should wee on a stick.”
I hopped back into bed, with the stick, and we watched as a feint blue line began to form. It wasn’t as bold as the control line, but I didn’t have to squint to see it this time. “What do you think?”

“I think it could be positive. You’d better do another test tomorrow.” For a good night’s sleep I’d recommend a warm, milky drink and a few pages of a good book. I would not recommend a semi-positive pregnancy test. I lay awake for most of the night and wondered what was happening to my body and why exactly we had decided to ambush the next twenty years of our lives. And, in case it wasn’t actually positive, I added in a chapter of wondering whether it would ever work.

The next morning unsurprisingly found me skulking along the medical aisle of the supermarket, like a thirteen-year-old checking out the condoms. I selected a posh one. Digital. Actually flashes up with the word ‘Pregnant’ for those who find judging between shades of blue a little challenging.

And, half an hour later back at home, that’s exactly what it did. Pregnant, it told me. And how odd it sounded to have that word describe me. Pregnant was mother, mummy, grown-up and prams. Not me at all. I took a photograph of the stick, for when the digital display had faded after 24 hours, and I didn’t believe it any more. We’d only tried twice. After thirty-four years of trying not to grow up, of confused sexuality and finding a lesbian identity, my body, apparently still as fertile as a sack of fresh compost, had just got straight on with what it had always been designed to do. I was pregnant.

Winning article: by Lindsey, West Yorkshire, United Kingdom 27th January 2013

Read more about lesbian parenting and getting pregnant by home insemination at www.prideangel.com

Kansas sperm donor being sued by the state for child support put himself in a precarious legal position by donating to a lesbian couple using artificial insemination at home. Kansas law states that a sperm donor is not the father of a child if a doctor handles the artificial insemination. But the law does not specifically address the donor's rights and obligations when no doctor was involved.

That was the case in 2009, when William Marotta answered an online ad for a sperm donation for Angela Bauer and her then-partner, Jennifer Schreiner. The three signed an agreement they believed severed Marotta's parental rights, and Schreiner became pregnant. But because they didn't go through a doctor, the state argues, Marotta is the legal father and should be responsible for about $6,000 in public assistance Schreiner received to help care for the child. The state also wants him to pay child support, though neither woman is asking for money.

Marotta's attorney said Thursday that the law is outdated. But legal experts agreed that Marotta and the women put themselves in the predicament.

"I don't fault the state for this," said Corey Whelan, who runs workshops for lesbian couples interested in having children through the New York-based American Fertility Association. "I don't think this is a homophobic issue. I think this is a financially driven issue." Whelan said her group has a long-standing practice of advising single women who want a child to work with doctors and attorneys. She said avoiding professionals is "a buyer-beware proposition."

But money can be a factor. Artificial insemination generally isn't covered by health insurance and usually costs between $2,000 and $3,000, said Steve Snyder, a Minnesota-based attorney and chairman of the American Bar Association's group on assisted reproduction technology. "It is happening a lot," Snyder said. " A lot of LGBT couples use home insemination kits. I have a lot of cases involving those types of kits or people who intend to use them."

That sets up a tricky legal situation, said Dr. Ajay Nangia, the former ethics chairman of the American Society of Andrology, a national medical group for male reproductive health. "The problem is the guy exposed himself to a situation that made him potentially liable because he had no legal protection," said Nangia, an associate professor of urology at the University of Kansas Hospital.

Still, Ben Swinnen, one of Marotta's attorneys, said his 46-year-old client cannot be declared the father of Schreiner's now 3-year-old daughter because of the written agreement with the two women. He pointed to laws in nine states that say a sperm or egg donor is not the parent of a child conceived through artificial reproduction.

"The state of Kansas is lagging behind in following the trend," he said. "It is a freeze, in my opinion, on artificial insemination and alternative family settings."

He also believes state officials' pursuit of Marotta's case in Kansas, where voters approved a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage in 2005, is designed to reinforce the definition of a family as a married man and woman, and their children. He said the state is trying to send a message that, "anything else is no good."

But the Kansas Department for Children and Families, which started pursuing Marotta in October, argued in a court filing Wednesday that at least 10 other states require a doctor's involvement in artificial insemination for a sperm donor to be protected from having to pay child support. "It's a commonsense law," said Washington state-based attorney Mark Demaray, a past president of an organization for attorneys who handle assisted reproduction legal issues. "It's very common for them to have to go through a doctor's office and get a sworn statement from the doctor that he or she performed this procedure."

Marotta is trying to get the case dismissed. A hearing is scheduled in April in Shawnee County District Court.

Article: 4th January 2013 www.news.yahoo.com

Erika from Pride Angel stated 'The law regarding sperm donation varies from country to country and within different states.' 'It's really important to seek legal advice when choosing a known donor and to consider taking the donor to a licensed fertility clinic for treatment.' 'In the UK married couples and lesbian couples in civil partnerships are considered the legal parents, regardless of whether the insemination is carried out within a clinic or at home using an artificial insemination kit'.

Erika continues....
'However it is more tricky for single women choosing to have a child with a known donor. The sperm donor would be seen as the legal parent in the eyes of the law, unless they conceived through a clinic'

We’d had it pencilled in the diary for three months. Our first insemination. In fact we hadn’t pencilled it in at all: there was just an ominous unmarked weekend on the calendar; a question mark by Days 11 and 13 on my chart; a pair of affectionate parentheses in my diary, embracing nothing.

There’s an element of trying to be discreet – when I jot down the time of my next dental appointment, I don’t want Brenda on the surgery reception to glance across and see…well, what? What would you write? “Man we met on internet coming to masturbate into cup 6.30pm”. Clearly that’s far too convoluted, but the five-syllable “Insemination” doesn’t seem much shorter – “Insem 6.30pm perhaps? At least its obscurity would tick the box for discretion – it sounds like a business meeting with a software company.

It was fortunate I’d been at work during the designated day. Despite occasional surges of excited panic, my mind had been distracted from the evening ahead. My partner, however, had been at home, which was useful in the sense that she was able to review the instructions and put together a checklist, scatter a few candles about in our bedroom for ambience, and place a specimen cup in the spare room (with a bottle of water and a tube of Smarties as light refreshments). Meanwhile without the distraction of work, her brain had been free to muse on our plans. “What are we doing?!” she asked, on my return from work and I felt the bile of panic rise.

There were two things going on here:

1. We return to that ‘man we met on Internet coming to masturbate into cup 6.30pm’, but with the added entry of ‘Insert product of said masturbation into me.’
2. To continue in diary entry style, ‘Sacrifice next 20 years of life to child/ren

At that moment, an hour before our donor was due to arrive, it all felt so rushed. It felt like we had just decided on a whim, to have a baby, and having recently read that your nine months start from the first day of your last period, I realised that I was feasibly already two weeks pregnant, and we hadn’t even done it yet. I had to remind myself that we’d talked about this. For, ominously, nine months, we’d talked about this. We had to rely on the fact that whatever panic we felt in this moment, we’d made a careful, considered decision.

The familiarity of the sound of the doorbell was strangely comforting, amid the chaos of my mind and the impending awkwardness of “when he arrives”. Unfamiliar with the etiquette of receiving a sperm donor, since we’re English, we resorted to the offer of a cup of tea, which, to our relief, was gratefully accepted. Thence an hour of polite conversation before he suggested perhaps it was time he got on with it.

Meanwhile, leaving him in privacy upstairs, the two of us headed down to the kitchen and nervously completed a week’s worth of housework in about fifteen minutes (‘nesting ‘, I’ve decided, is actually just a fevered release of nervous energy encountered by expectant parents). Anyway, just as we got the iron board folded back up, he popped his head round the door and was ready to get off home; we all knew it was advisable not to leave the stuff lying around cooling down for long. My partner put the sample bottle down her bra for warmth while I prepared to be bedbound for an hour or two, by gathering personal possessions like someone about to be deposited on a desert island for ten years.

I arranged myself on the bed, with my hips propped up on a pile of pillows in a position which I very much doubt is listed in the Kama Sutra, and my partner used my tummy as a handy table for her list of instructions. I closed my eyes and waited to feel the squirt of the syringe, but when it happened, I felt nothing. I opened my eyes and we smiled at each other in nervous collusion. After twenty minutes lying on my back, I rolled over and did five minutes on each side, and then on my front, like an obedient sausage turning itself on the grill.

Then, nicely browned on all sides, I watched as my partner snuffed out the candles and, exhausted, we settled down to sleep. Somewhere very nearby, a million or so little beings had just woken up and were starting to have a look around…

Article: 3rd August 2012 by Lindsey, West Yorkshire, United Kingdom

To read more personal stories click here.

Whilst defrosting the fridge-freezer yesterday, two things occurred to me. I firstly wondered whether my motivation to complete this magnanimous act was rooted hormones. To some extent, yes of course it was to do with the fact the freezer no longer really closed properly, due to the developing foetus of ice across the front of the top drawer. Nevertheless, was there a hint of the nesting mother there? My second reflection was that when I next defrosted the freezer, I might have a child. I remember the last time I set to with the scraper, two and a half years ago when we moved house, and that didn’t seem very long ago at all. But in two and a half years from now, my child could be walking and talking, and that’s a bewildering thought.

In the meantime insemination is looming. The charts pile up but the patterns are elusive. A 5am visit to the loo throws leads to wild temperature changes. A friend, staying for six weeks happens to be what I believe is known as a ‘menstrual pace-setter’, and draws all three of us into synchronous menstruation; I have one unusually short cycle followed by an unusually long one. And then we do two Atlantic flights, affecting two cycles – how do you count days when you’re 8 hours out due to the time zone? Identifying an insemination date feels a bit like trying to make an accurate accusation in a game of Cluedo before you’ve fully investigated what Miss Scarlet was up to with the candlestick: how about Miss Inseminee, in the bedroom… with the speculum?

On the subject of the speculum, one major advantage of all this charting is I did not recoil with horror on receiving an ‘invitation’ to go for a smear test. Whilst I would still generally prefer not to be naked from the waist down and prodded by a stranger (and I am aware that is something I am going to need to get used to in pregnancy), I’ve realised how these nurses have honed their technique: it’s far more painful when, daily, I insert the thing myself – mirror and torch in hand, as if I’m going on some kind of narcissistic pot-holing adventure.

After speculum, the next ‘s’ is supplements. Three times a day I gulp down three capsules: Agnus Castus (to balance hormone levels), a pre-pregnancy multi-vitamin (because pre-pregnant is what I hopefully am) and flax seed oil (there was a reason, buried deep within the immense quantity of literature we’ve read on the subject – I no longer have any conceivable notion what it might have been). I feel like a strange combination of a fertile woman and a geriatric as I fumble to release my dose from the 7-day pill organiser box. I’ve no idea what good these things might be doing but there is definitely a placebo effect of taking 5455% of the Recommended Daily Allowance of Thiamin, one of the 35 ingredients that are crammed, incredibly into a tiny – well not exactly tiny – but swallowable capsule. I have no idea what Thiamin is or what it might do, but I already feel slightly dependent on it, and its companions in that little pill.

And then there’s insemination itself. There’s a vague plan in my head and it’s all very straightforward. Donor arrives, bit of time alone, hands it over, donor leaves, inseminate. Too easy.

Can it really be that simple? To put it rather dramatically, which tends to be my way, semen has wildly opposing properties: fertile, it gives life; infected, it takes it. And I’m going to put the stuff inside me. Probably repeatedly and frustratedly, over the next year or so. Which, I have to admit, makes me feel just a little apprehensive.

But sperm and speculum issues aside, what I have realised is, that I’m ready for this. Prepared would be the wrong word. You can defrost the fridge-freezer, paint the nursery and read a parenting manual, but from watching friends who’ve done the baby thing, I don’t think you can ever really be prepared for the biggest change most people will ever experience in their lives. But you can be ready, and after thirty-four years in this world, I think for the first time, ready to get pregnant is what I am.

Article: by Lindsey, West Yorkshire, United Kingdom 11th July 2012

Read more about lesbian parenting and getting pregnant by home insemination at www.prideangel.com

One of the great things about my family is that, instead of the usual two parents, Georgia (and baby-to-be) have three. That's three pairs of hands to share the load and, especially given that we're all flexibly self-employed and close friends, it means that life runs pretty smoothly most of the time.

Last month, for example, we decided to make the most of the sudden burst of late-summer weather, as well as the fact that I had a bit of time off from Coronation Street, and all head down to the country for the week. Georgia loved having all her parents (and one set of grandparents) around, and the three of us enjoyed chilling together and spoiling her, making the most of these last few months of "her-only childhood".

Last week I found myself in the highly unusual position of being a single parent. Cam had gone back to Canada for his mum and dad's 50th wedding anniversary, while Catherine had a number of work things to deal with. She's also entering the third trimester of pregnancy, and is at the stage where she tires easily, particularly as an older mother-to-be, so I took Georgia home with me for three days.

Aside from the obvious lone-parenting issues – plonking your child in front of Peppa Pig while you go to the loo with the door open, for example – the biggest difference was being able to create our own timetable.

I didn't have to meet Catherine or Cam for hand-overs or meal times, so Georgia and I could pootle through the day at our own pace, going wherever the mood took us. Because, of course, the down side of three parents is that there are three people's schedules and needs to consider. So, for those few days, much as I love Catherine, much as I miss Cam, having Georgia all to myself was a rare treat.

Yes, I know how spoilt that sounds. I'm sure there are countless single parents reading this and rolling their eyes. I have plenty of friends who really are bring up children alone, so I'm well aware that the reality of single parenting, day in, day out, is that it can be stressful, exhausting and lonely.

The time alone with my daughter felt like a luxury precisely because I don't have to do it all the time. I don't have to struggle out of bed seven days a week, regardless of how I feel, I don't have to juggle work and childcare and shopping and cooking, while trying to cling to the vestiges of a social life. I have it easy and so, when I do get Georgia to myself, I make the most of it. In fact, I wallow in it – playing and snuggling and enjoying every minute of her two-year-old cuteness. The fact that I also have to spend so much time away in Manchester filming the TV show only serves to make time alone with Georgia feel even more like a luxury.

I wonder again how I'll manage to love the new baby with the same ferocity with which I love Georgia. Even though I know rationally that I will, and everyone tells me "babies bring their own love", it still seems unfathomable.

Before Georgia was born, I had a clear picture of what fatherhood would be like, but this time, when I try to think ahead to being a father of two, my imagination fails, and I struggle to see it emotionally or practically. I am excited about the new baby, but I'm apprehensive, too.

Right now, fatherhood feels so perfect that the thought of any change makes me nervous. Then I think about holding my son in my arms, and I know it's going to work out fine.

Article: 29th October 2011 www.guardian.co.uk

Read more about gay and lesbian families at Pride Angel

For many people, the lack of ‘creative material’ be it sperm or ovum, can stymie their plans for a family. As appealing as the thought of backless nightgowns, fluorescent lighting and leg stirrups may be, the solution doesn’t have to be found in a fertility clinic. High costs and reduced funding for lesbian couples has made home insemination an increasingly popular option, particularly for those in the LGBT community.

Home insemination using a known donor can be a more rewarding process than a traditional clinic route, possibly resulting in a co-parenting agreement or at least some knowledge of whose sperm or egg you will be using.

Success rates of IVF or IUI within a clinic range from 5-25%. Home insemination has the same success rate and can be more successful due to the relaxed home environment and the freshness of the sperm. Other benefits include cost, privacy, comfort and the final say over who is involved in the process.

Somewhat unfortunately referred to as the Turkey Baster method, home insemination doesn’t have to be an actual turkey baster, (eye watering thought) but rather, a needleless syringe or soft-cup to hold the sperm around the cervix.

Home insemination does carry some risks though, both to your health and your legal rights, so it’s really important to be sure that it suits you and your future family.

When home insemination could be considered;
• When you are planning to co-parent with another single or couple, whom you know well, and a legal co-parenting agreement is in place.
• When you are in a civil partnership and you are planning to use a known donor with a legal sperm donor agreement in place.
• When the donor has had all their health screening checks, has no history of genetic disease in their family and has practiced safe sex for the last 6 months.

As importantly, when it should not be considered;
• When you are a single woman not planning to co-parent as the donor will always be the legal father in the eyes of the law.
• When you are a lesbian couple, but not in a civil partnership and not wishing to co-parent. Again, the donor will be the legal father in the eyes of the law.
• When you do not know your donor or co-parent well enough.
• When your donor has not given evidence of full health screening tests
• When your donor may be at risk of infection, (not practising safe sex, donating to other women by natural insemination, has ever been an intravenous drug user)

If you do find the right donor or co-parent, you may wish to start trying for a child right away. Before this, your donor must visit their doctor or local GUM clinic to get a complete series of infection screening, to include HIV, Hepatitis B & C, Chlamydia, CMV, Syphilis, Gonorrhoea and Genital herpes. (It is important to be aware that many of these tests will not show as positive if they have caught an infection within the last 28 days)

The woman should also consider getting tested for infections and get a vaginal swab taken to rule out any possible vaginosis or thrush. Bacterial vaginosis is present in as many as 20% of lesbians. It is not a sexually acquired infection, rather an imbalance in the natural bacteria. Bacterial vaginosis has been linked with reduced conception and higher risk of early miscarriage. There is now a new product, Zestica Conception Kit which prepares your vaginal flora to reduce the chance of infection.

The next important thing is to get legal advice and a properly drawn up legal donor or co-parenting agreement. This may be an extra expense, but will help prevent any potential problems, further down the line.

The Ins and Outs
Basically, all you need is a container of your chosen sperm and a syringe. However, there are ways to maximise your chances of success.
1) Choose latex free syringes - latex can damage sperm
2) Use a speculum and extender tip with the syringe. This ensures that the sperm reach the cervix and helps them on their journey.
3) Use a sperm friendly lubricant – the wrong lubricant can damage sperm, whereas a sperm friendly lubricant can help their motility.
4) Have an orgasm following insertion of the sperm, this causes the cervix to dip down into the sperm and again helps them on their journey.
5) Tilt and raise your pelvis with cushions for 30 minutes after insemination.
6) Use a soft-cup following insertion of the sperm (this is placed around the cervix and can be worn for up to 12 hours to keep them in their place)

The most important thing to get right when performing home insemination is the timing. Insemination on the right day will greatly improve your chances of success. Many women presume that they ovulate on day 14 of their 28 day cycle but this may not be accurate, it can be between day 11 and day 19. Sperm and eggs only have a chance of meeting for around 48 hours, so how to make sure they do?

Ovulation tests show as positive when your hormone LH rises just before ovulation but performing a positive ovulation test and then racing down the motorway to pick up sperm is not always very practical. The better option is to track your ovulation with tests and charting basal body temperature. Determine the actual day your egg is released and make plans for the following month. Inseminations can then take place ideally 2-3 times just before ovulation and on the day of ovulation, so that the sperm have time to make their journey to the fallopian tube in time to meet the egg.

Other ways of getting your timing right include using fertility monitors to predict your fertile window, such as DuoFertility. This new product is able to give advanced warning of your ovulation by several days and has been shown to be as successful as a cycle of IVF when used for 6 months.

Above all, home insemination works best when those involved in the baby making process are relaxed, happy and positive. It can be a real alternative to IVF for many couples and helps create modern gay families with pride. For further information about home insemination instructions, home insemination kits and other fertility products available to purchase visit www.prideangel.com

We hope that the Easter bunny came to your home today and we wish all of you who are trying for your own little chick much luck and happiness on your journey.

Getting pregnant may be easy for some although for others it may mean a little planning and a little lifestyle change. If you’re planning to get pregnant, or you have been trying to get pregnant for some time now and you are not having any success, you may possibly need some tips about fertility and pregnancy.

If you have been trying and planning to get pregnant, you’ll need to prepare your body and understand your fertility to help you facilitate the process. One important thing to keep in mind when planning to get pregnant is to understand when you ovulate or when you’re most fertile – as this signifies your chances of getting pregnant easily.

For tips and techniques to get pregnant easily, you might find these helpful.

1) Know when to conceive: If you have a regular 28-day menstrual cycle, count fourteen days after your first day of menstruation and mark that as your fertile period. If you want to increase your chances of getting pregnant, make sure you inseminate on those fertile times. Ovulation tests will help to detect the best days around your ‘fertile window’.

2) Lie still: One additional helpful detail around this issue. – Spend a few minutes lying after insemination or support your buttocks with a pillow to help give time for the sperm to swim to its destination.

3) Check if you’re not killing the sperm: Some artificial lubricants, vaginal sprays and douches may alter the pH level in the vagina that may lead to infection or may wash the mucus that helps transport the sperm, or may kill the sperm before even reaching its destination. Saliva as well can be harmful for the sperm, so make a healthy environment for the sperm as possible if you’re planning to get pregnant.

4) Quit smoking and alcohol: It has been proven that smoking can reduce your chances of,getting pregnant and if you successfully were able to conceive, smoking may also increase health risks to your baby.

5) Exercise but don’t overdo it. Enjoy regular exercise to help your body perform its functions well, but don’t overdo it. Excessive exercise can also lead to absence of menstrual periods or may cause fertility problems.

6) Have the right diet: Diet plays an important role in fertility and pregnancy. Increase fruits and vegetables in your diet to get good amounts of vitamins needed for your body to function well. When you’re planning to get pregnant, have a good dose of zinc as it can help in boosting fertility for men and women. One very good source of zinc is oysters.

7) Artificial insemination: Whether you are using a donor or just finding it difficult to conceive using a home insemination kit can give you that extra help needed in aiding the sperm along its journey!

8) Relax: Above all try to relax and not get too worried about conceiving straight away. Stress can reduce fertility – so take some time out for yourself, have a massage or read a good book.

So if you haven’t yet done some of these tips, start with them and find other natural ways to help your body prepare for that wonderful feeling of finally having your baby.

For more tips on getting pregnant and home insemination visit www.prideangel.com

The following recent article by the Daily Mail highlights the risks both physically and emotionally of sleeping with a sperm donor met online. As a single woman any donor would be classed as the child’s legal father and could be held financially responsible. For this reason many donors may try to conceal their true identity, which adds a greater risk for the recipient, of not having adequate identification for CRB checks and health screening tests. Not to mention the importance of any child not being able to trace their biological routes when they are older.

Erika from Pride Angel states ‘ There are many advantages for personally meeting a sperm donor and having them involved in their child’s life’ ‘Making sure that both parties have the same views regarding their parenting and level of involvement is imperative to any successful arrangement’

‘It is also important to consider the risks, getting legal advice and full health screening tests before attempting to conceive’ ‘Using a regulated clinic is the only real way of being certain about any health risks and gaining fertility treatment through a clinic also clarifies the legal position for both the donor and the recipient’ .

For these reasons Pride Angel unlike many other websites, has strict terms and conditions regarding donors not donating by natural insemination, no payments being offered and anonymous donation is strongly discouraged. Profiles are monitored constantly and users are able to ‘Report’ any concerns they have regarding other members.

Article: Frances Benning, 29 has chosen to conceive with a sperm donor. She has scheduled the event meticulously; planned every detail with military precision — for her sole purpose is to become pregnant. But the man she has chosen to be the father of her baby is neither her husband, nor her partner nor, even, a long-term friend. In fact, he is Toby, a sperm donor she met for the first time just a few hours ago.

Toby, 30, who is affluent and handsome with a glamorous job in the film industry, and Frances — attractive, articulate and privately-educated — were introduced via a website that matches potential sperm donors with would-be mothers. After she singled him out as a prospective father, they corresponded before arranging to meet.

No money would change hands but, at the end of their brief encounter, Frances fervently hoped, Toby would have bestowed on her the priceless gift of life.

After that, she planned to embark on life as a single mum. She figured she could manage perfectly alone: she is resourceful, financially secure and owns her own house outright. But as is often the case with even the best-laid schemes, Frances’ went awry. For a start, she failed to factor emotions into her plan, and had not reckoned on the impact of seeing the father of her future child face-to-face.

‘When I first met Toby I thought, “Wow!”,’ she recalls. ‘He is 6ft 5in, dark-haired and blue-eyed with lovely broad muscular shoulders. He looked even better than he did in his photos. Under different circumstances Frances, a legal secretary, and Toby, whose job as a researcher takes him round the world, could have been made for each other.

They enjoyed an afternoon of sightseeing then dinner together; chatted amicably and shared a few drinks. And even though she had convinced herself the intimate act that would ensue would be nothing more than a clinical, emotionless contract, Frances found herself fantasising about a future with Toby.

‘It crossed my mind what an idyllic family life we could make,’ she admits. ‘But I tried to force these thoughts away. I kept reminding myself that this was a transaction. I told myself it was a bonus that I got on so well with him and found him attractive and interesting. I took consolation in the fact that our baby would have such good genes.’

In these days, when the traditional nuclear family is fast becoming a rarity, Frances’ decision to become pregnant by sperm donor is no longer exceptional. Perverse as the idea may seem, Frances believes her baby — she is now four months’ pregnant with a daughter — will be happier knowing she was conceived ‘naturally’ rather than artificially.

‘I wanted to be able to tell my child that I did share an intimate moment with her father. That was important,’ she says. ‘I think donor children find it far harder to grapple with the idea that they were conceived by IVF, in a petri-dish, as if they were somehow the product of a mere scientific process. ‘She’ll also know she was very much a loved and wanted baby, which cannot often be said for babies who are born as a result of one-night stands. ‘Some of my friends asked me why I didn’t just go out and get pregnant by someone I met at a bar. But I felt it was dishonest and unfair to impose fatherhood on a man who hadn’t chosen it.’

Short-lived: Frances and Toby, who she did not want to identify, arranged to meet to conceive naturally and then fell in love. But he later decided he did not want a relationship

To many of us, it may sound shocking that you can go online and, seemingly, with one click find not just a man willing to donate sperm, but that men and women are willing to meet and have conceive naturally with strangers solely to fulfill this desire to be a parent. Donors on the site — primarily used by lesbians — offer women the option of artificial or natural insemination, in other words sex. But why did Frances, an attractive and intelligent young woman who was not encumbered with fertility problems, take such a contentious route to parenthood? Why not, instead, simply find a man she loved and share the joy and responsibilities of raising a family with him? She had, she explains, been unlucky in love and her urge to have a child was pressing; too urgent, it seems, to wait for a man she loved to come along and pursue the conventional route to parenthood.

‘I’d been engaged three times and none of the men were what I wanted for myself, let alone to be the father of my child,’ she says. ‘They’d been duplicitous, unfaithful and unreliable. Yet, for years, I’d wanted to be a mum, and the yearning became very strong after the break-up of my last engagement.

‘I had a miscarriage without even realising I was pregnant. This broke my heart and I realised that I wanted a child more than ever.’ So, impelled by the ticking of her biological clock, she convinced herself time was running out. She told herself, too, that she would rather raise a child alone than in an unsatisfactory relationship — she is, herself, the only child of divorced parents — and she resolved to detach herself emotionally from the whole business of finding a father for her child.

‘I decided to find a donor who wanted little or no contact with the child,’ she explains. ‘My idea was to find someone who would be happy to receive photographs at birthdays, maybe have the odd visit. I was hoping I could treat him as an uncle figure until the child was old enough to have his role explained.’

She concedes the process was fraught with huge risks: ‘It felt like a strange version of internet dating. As with all such meeting sites, you do encounter a lot of weirdos. There were men who were at best rude and barely literate, and others who were downright perverts. ‘Some were clearly in it to make money. I worried, too, about the risk of encountering sex offenders. ‘Then there were married men whose wives were infertile; you name it, every kind of aberration was there.

‘There was also no guarantee, either, that the men were even fertile; or that they did not have sexually transmitted diseases. I encountered one man who had apparently fathered more than 20 children, yet when I asked if he could prove he was not carrying any STDs, he told me no clinic would issue a certificate since, as a prospective sperm donor who frequently had sex with strangers, he could become infected at any time.’

All of which, of course, begs the question: why wasn’t this enough to deter Frances from this emotionally hazardous and potentially physically dangerous method of conception? There are a multitude of well-regulated IVF clinics with carefully vetted donors supplying sperm that has been screened for STDs.

But this is her explanation: ‘I worried about the failure rate of IVF and how traumatic it is to go through. ‘Besides, I wasn’t keen on the fact that you never got to meet the donor. And it was important for me to do so; especially as my child would have the legal right to meet him on reaching the age of 18.

Unusual conception: Frances said she will tell her daughter, pictured here at the first scan, where she came from when she's old enough ‘I didn’t want someone with a glowing paper reference who in real life was an anti-social, inarticulate geek. Let’s face it: anyone can write themselves a good reference. But to me the issue of personality was vitally more important than what eye colour the child might inherit.’

Small wonder, then, when she spotted a donor as personable as Toby — a man who not only possessed all the physical and intellectual attributes of an ideal father, but was also altruistic enough to donate his sperm for nothing and even meet their hotel expenses — Frances decided she had struck gold.

Toby, it emerged, had volunteered to give sperm when his GP, assessing him as an ideal candidate, told him there was a dire shortage of suitable donors in the UK. Rather than donate his sperm through the NHS, though, Toby decided he would rather be a more hands-on father, and for that reason, he’d registered on this website — originally planning to help a lesbian couple. ‘That reassured me that he wasn’t just on the site looking for sex,’ Frances explains.

But when his first attempt to impregnate Frances failed, frankly, she welcomed the chance to meet him again. This time they went away to spend a week together in Yorkshire. Slowly their mutual resolve to be detached and businesslike was evaporating.

‘We had a lovely time,’ she recalls. ‘We felt as though we were a real couple. In fact, we agreed that we were falling for each other whether we’d planned it or not.’ Meanwhile, Frances had begun to question her naive belief that life would be ‘easier’ if she were a single mum. ‘Originally, I was determined I didn’t want the pressure of an emotional relationship on top of a new born baby,’ she says. ‘But then I found myself falling for Toby and I thought, maybe I could have the fairytale ending, after all.’ So veering away from their original plan, the couple decided to try to have a relationship and see how it worked out. ‘Neither of us wanted to look back and think we could have had a happy family life if only we hadn’t been so stubbornly set on going our separate ways,’ she recalls. When, a couple of weeks after their trip to Yorkshire, Frances discovered she was pregnant, Toby was present at her home in Canterbury, Kent, to share her jubilation. ‘I’d asked Toby to be there when I took the home test, and when it was positive I ran through the house laughing with delight. Toby broke into a huge smile and said: “Wow! It worked!”.’ For a while, it seemed, their relationship would, too.

Indeed, Toby and Frances even made plans to sell their respective houses, pool their resources, and make a home for their baby daughter, like any other conventional couple. ‘Toby did everything he could to convince me he was going to stay,’ she recalls. ‘He told me he loved me and wanted a family with me. It seemed dreams I’d long since given up on were coming true.’

But then, four months into her pregnancy, he had a dramatic change of heart. He decided he wasn’t actually ready for fatherhood; indeed, perhaps he wasn’t even ready for a serious relationship, either. ‘I was devastated when it ended,’ confesses Frances. ‘He didn’t give any kind of explanation, it just seemed he’d got cold feet. ‘It hurts that I trusted him and got burned. I try not to get upset, but this just confirms my belief that you should not follow your heart — in the end you always get hurt.’

Meanwhile, she has resolved to hide no detail from her daughter of the convoluted story that surrounds her conception. ‘When she’s old enough, she’ll be told the truth. I’ll explain that her daddy was a good guy and that both of us love her very much. ‘Toby says he wants to stay in touch, and I’ll never stop him having access to her. I’d love her to know his family, too,’ she says. Frances’ own mother died four years ago; there will be no maternal grandmother to support her, and while her daughter is young, she plans to be a full-time mum.

She takes solace in the fact that her father, a retired financial director — who was initially shocked by her decision to sleep with a sperm donor — has now adjusted to the unusual circumstances of his only grandchild’s conception. ‘Dad was very upset at the start,’ she concedes. ‘What father would wish this for his little girl?’ she asks, with justification. ‘He was worried there was a stigma attached to surrogacy. He said: “Can’t you just meet someone the ordinary way and fall in love?” ’ However, little by little, he has come round. Now she is convinced he will be a doting and financially supportive grandad. ‘Dad paid for my education — I went to a private girls’ boarding school in Kent — and I’m sure he’ll do the same for his granddaughter,’ she says. ‘She’ll probably go to private school, although I’d miss her too much to let her board.’

So what kind of a life is now in prospect for Frances and her much-loved donor baby daughter? Nobody can question that she was very much wanted. And Frances will clearly be a devoted and adoring mum. But will Toby be close at hand or abroad; emotionally detached or involved?

Today little is certain, but Frances remains resolutely philosophical; both about her contentious decision to sleep with her sperm donor, and about her single parent status. ‘I feel I’ve no right to moan. I chose a donor because I’d decided to go it alone,’ she says with irrefutable logic. ‘I’m pregnant with a baby girl I already love. So, in the end, I guess I’ve achieved exactly what I set out to do.’

Article: 17th February 2011 www.dailymail.co.uk

For more information about finding a co-parent or known sperm donor visit www.prideangel.com