Pride Angel

I’m Adam and currently working on the second series of the prime time show Don’t Just Stand There….I’m Having Your baby which airs on BBC3 at 9pm. Last series, first time Dads-to-be were shown how to be more supportive during their partner’s pregnancy and during the birth itself.

In one to one sessions with a fully trained midwife, the Dads were taught about many aspects of pregnancy and labour including cervical dilation, pain relief, massage, breathing techniques and birthing positions.

They were also given practical home work like wearing an empathy belly, looking after a robotic baby and watching a birthing video. We wanted to help him become the perfect birthing partner for Mum and make the whole experience more positive than petrifying!

Last year we worked closely with the Royal College of Midwives in the making of this series and they were very pleased with the result. The first series was very successful and the Dads we filmed found the experience both positive and rewarding as they became more equipped to deal with the arrival of their little ones.

This series we would love to meet and speak with gay and lesbian couples who are currently on the journey into parenthood. I would really like to hear your story and find out, as a first time parent, what this means to you and also how we could help.

If you have any questions and fancy a chat about the series please feel free to call me on 0208 008 4901 or email me on adam.lonergan@bbc.co.uk. Thanks for your time and hopefully speak soon. Adam.

Article: 21st May 2013 www.prideangel.com

Gay or lesbian? want to have a baby? find your donor or co-parent at www.prideangel.com

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

Are you a UK-based co-parent, searching for a parenting partnership, or going through a co-parent pregnancy? If so we'd love to hear about your journey to parenthood.

Award-winning television company Windfall Films is researching a documentary about modern families and co-parenting. At this stage, we'd simply like to talk and this won't commit you in any way to taking part. Many new kinds of family are being created now.

If you're interested in reflecting thriving modern families as they actually exist today, please do get in touch. Windfall Films has a trusted reputation and proven track record in making sensitive documentaries for all major broadcasters.

Our programmes have not only won awards but many have been used to help train doctors, social workers, and teachers: www.windfallfilms.com

For a chat, confidence guaranteed, please contact producer Kim Duke: kimduke@windfallfilms.com or 07966 139582 Alternatively contact us at Pride Angel for more information.

Article: 1st May 2013 www.windfallfilms.com

A sperm donor and lesbian couple from Ontario Canada who have been fighting over custody of their two year old son, have suddenly settled their case, after months of litigation and shortly before a scheduled trial.

The man had signed an agreement that he would have nothing to do with his genetic offspring. But he had second thoughts after the baby was born, felt the biological mother had reneged on her part of their deal and asked the courts to recognize him as the father, providing liberal access. The suit, whose parties cannot be named under the terms of a publication ban, has now been effectively withdrawn.

‘It is always better for litigants to come to a resolution on their own’

“This is certainly the right outcome for this loving, bonded and stable family,” Michelle Flowerday, the couple’s lawyer, said in an emailed statement. “It is always better for litigants to come to a resolution on their own, as opposed to having one imposed upon them by the court.” The fact that the courts will not rule on the dispute, however, leaves a gap in the law in Ontario and other provinces, she said. There is a growing national movement to make clear that donating sperm does not equate to being a parent, but only B.C., Alberta and Quebec have enshrined the idea in their legislation, said Ms. Flowerday.

The donor and his lawyer could not be reached for comment.

Growing numbers of children are being born in Canada as a result of in-vitro fertilization and other forms of “assisted” reproduction. When donations are obtained anonymously from sperm banks, and in the few provinces with laws that directly address the issue, parenthood is generally uncontested.

Where couples and single people make arrangements with sperm donors they know, however, the rights of the various parties remain largely unresolved. The northern Ontario dispute boasted the most clear-cut set of facts of any to reach the courts, making it an ideal legal testing ground. A trial was scheduled for this summer.

The donor was a high-school acquaintance of the biological mother, and initially agreed to bear a child for him, as well, if he agreed to provide his sperm. The actual agreement he signed, though, did not mention that part of their arrangement.

He went to court after the boy was born, saying that he had felt pressured by the mother and that she now appeared unwilling to have a baby for him. But then, at a meeting last week, the parties agreed to a declaration that the two women are the child’s parents and the donor is not his father, according to an order issued by Justice Gregory Ellies of the Ontario Superior Court.

‘I don’t think anybody wants to be a test case’

The document also includes a restraining order preventing him from having contact with the child or the two women. In exchange, though, he and his parents have the right to one meeting of at least an hour in a public place, with an agreed-upon third party observing. The donor and his parents “may not initiate physical contact” with the boy, and cannot take photographs or video. As well, the man and his parents are barred from identifying themselves as the child’s father or grandparents, said the order.

“I don’t think anybody wants to be a test case,” noted Fiona Kelly, a University of British Columbia law professor who studies the field, about the settlement.

The lack of a ruling, however, means continued ambiguity in the majority of provinces that lack laws like one recently enacted in B.C., she said. That legislation says being a sperm donor does not in itself make someone a father.

Article: 13th April 2013 www.news.nationalpost.com

Read more about using a known sperm donor in the UK at www.prideangel.com

Braiden Neubecker was sitting on the bed and her dad was shaving at the sink as the president made his historic remarks about gay marriage during his second inaugural address.

President Barack Obama talked about "our gay brothers and sisters," and declared "if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well." In the kitchen after the address with her dads, David and Lee Neubecker, Braiden, who is 10, had a question. "Aren't you guys married?" she asked, confused.

Her dads, in fact, were married -- in a service in California, but the marriage was nullified in 2004 after the state's Supreme Court declared all marriages performed from February to March that year invalid. "I don't think she realized before that gays and lesbians couldn't marry," David Neubecker recalled in a recent phone interview with his daughter and The Huffington Post.

"I got upset," she agreed, singing into the phone, "everybody should be treated equally." Plus, she continued to her father, "it's safer to be married because when you guys aren't married it's easier to break up and split apart."

Braiden is now one of a number of children, many of them raised by gay or lesbian parents, who have stepped into the spotlight to directly address the courts and public as part of a debate in which they have long been central figures, but have rarely taken part. A week after Obama's address the Neubeckers started talking again about the speech and the laws that prevented Braiden's dads, who live in a suburb of Chicago, from getting married. Braiden had so much to say that David encouraged her to get out her journal and write it down.

A couple of drafts later, a letter written by Braiden was included in an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in time for the court's two landmark cases on gay marriage in March. The amicus brief was from Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG), meant to show how the families of same-sex parents are affected when they are not allowed to marry.

For decades, those opposed to legalizing same-sex marriage have argued that they might somehow harm the children same-sex couples raise or adopt. In court in March, Justice Antonin Scalia, arguably the court member most staunchly opposed to gay rights, offered "one concrete thing" about legalizing same-sex marriage that could harm society.

"If you redefine marriage to include same-sex couples … you must permit adoption by same-sex couples," he said in the hearing to determine whether Proposition 8, California's law banning same-sex marriage, was constitutional. "And there's considerable disagreement among … sociologists as to what the consequences of raising a child in a … single-sex family, whether that is harmful to the child or not."

But Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg pointed out that California gay couples already can legally adopt children. Sociologists, child welfare experts and pediatricians have argued that those raised by same-sex couples do just as well as their counterparts raised in heterosexual households.

"Its very surprising in many ways how uniform he results of the research have been," said Charlotte J. Patterson, a psychology professor at the University of Virginia, who has been researching child development in same-sex households for more than 20 years. "What we've found is that what's important is not the sexual orientation of the parents but rather the resources the parents can offer the kids and the quality of relationships with their children, and of course that's true for gay and straight parents."

Read more...

Article: 13th April 2013 www.huffingtonpost.com

Read more about gay and lesbian parenting at www.prideangel.com

For some couples the decision is easy, and the choice of a donor obvious, for others knowing your own standpoint on this or agreeing with your partner is harder. For some couples basic characteristics such as height, hair and eye colour are essential. For some couples meeting the donor in person is a very important step in being able to decide for the right donor or even co-parent. For some couples the wish for involvement from the donor is critical and the level of wanted involvement also varies greatly among couples.

Common for all British lesbian couples though, is that the donor cannot be completely anonymous, as law prohibits this. The law from April 2005 was enforced, because it was believed that every child has a right to know its genetic background. How this influences couples' choices of a donor, is what greatly interests me.

Looking for couples to interview
My name is Siff Groth and my own thoughts on starting a family with my partner, has made me passionate about working with this subject in an academic way. I am a Danish student of Social Anthropology, and am currently in Brighton to do a five month long fieldwork, ending by the end of June.

I meet with lesbian parents and parents-to-be and listen to their stories and hereby learn about how couples start their family and decide on the right donor for them.

If you and your partner are in the process of choosing a donor or have already had your child, if you are located in the Sussex area, UK, and would like to share with me your experiences, it will be very much appreciated and I will look forward to listen your story! Feel free to contact me at frk.groth@gmail.com, also for any questions regarding the study.

Article: 13th April 2013 by Sith, Student of Anthropology

Find your sperm donor at www.prideangel.com

Ask Janis Hetherington what kind of mother she is and she replies, without hesitation, ‘unconventional’. 'I’m not a “mummy” person at all,’ she says. ‘But I’m a brilliant father. I had to be both, so parenthood was quite schizophrenic in lots of ways.’ In 1972, Janis, now 66, made history as the first British lesbian to have a child by artificial insemination using sperm from a donor.

Her son Nick, 41, now a happily married screenwriter living in New York, has the unique distinction of being the first child in this country to grow up with same-sex parents — a revolutionary concept at the time of his birth in 1972. Born into a family which consisted of his mother Janis and her partner Judy, who had a young daughter of her own, Nick was nine months old when Judy died of a heart attack, aged 30. He was two when Janis met her current partner, Barbara, who became his second ‘Mum’.

Today, same-sex parenting is more or less accepted in Western society, but for Janis and Nick it was a sometimes difficult experience, and it is only now they feel comfortable enough to acknowledge the fault lines in their relationship. Janis says: ‘It felt wonderful to be a pioneer, but I was incredibly lonely because I was the first. People who opposed what I was doing waited for me to fail, so perhaps I was unable to enjoy motherhood in the way I might have liked. ‘Knowing what I know now, though, I would still have gone ahead with it.’

Dressed in a waistcoat and suit, her grey hair scraped back into a bun, Janis could easily pass for a country gent as she stokes the log fire in her 17th-century Oxfordshire house. In the kitchen, however, her feminine side flourishes. A brilliant cook, she shares recipes and doles out home-made chutney.

The overall impression is of intellectualism underpinned by a vulnerability borne from a lifetime of being judged — not only by those morally opposed to her choices, but by her own son. Today, Janis and Nick agree they share ‘an amazing bond’ — but it wasn’t always so. As an angry young man, he found her wanting.

When Nick first moved to America 20 years ago, he didn’t speak to Janis for two years because their relationship was so strained. It took ten years for them to mend fences. By comparison with his childhood, his adult life looks conventional. He married Soo Kim, 42, a TV producer, in the Caribbean two years ago, and they hope to have a child soon.

Read more....

Article: 5th March 2013 www.dailymail.co.uk

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

Leading UK Documentary Company Wants to Hear Your Co-parenting Story

Award-winning television production company Windfall Films, is researching a documentary about modern families and co-parenting.

If you’re based in the UK and are a co-parent, searching for a parenting partnership, or going through a co-parent pregnancy, we’d love to hear about your journey. We’d simply like to talk at this stage. Getting in touch will not in any way commit you to taking part.

Windfall Films has a trusted reputation and proven track record in making sensitive documentaries with a committed approach for the BBC, Channel 4, and all major broadcasters.

Our programmes have not only won awards but many have been used to help train doctors, social workers, and teachers. Please see more about us on our website: www.windfallfilms.com.

For a confidential chat, please get in touch with producer Kim Duke: kimduke@windfallfilms.com or 0207 251 7676.

Article: 19th March 2013

Read more about co-parenting and finding your ideal co-parent at www.prideangel.com

A Dutch lesbian couple has gone into hiding with their foster son after the boy’s biological parents went on television in Turkey and said that they consider the pair morally unfit to take care of their child.

The row is threatening to overshadow an official visit by the Turkish prime minister to the Netherlands next week. The Associated Press reports the Dutch vice prime minister told reporters on Friday that political interference from Turkey would be “inappropriate.”

He praised the foster parents for taking on a “child in danger” and defended Dutch social service policies as discriminating only on the basis of parental ability.

The nine-year-old boy was removed from his biological parents’ care in the Netherlands while he was still a baby. There’s currently a shortage of Islamic foster families in the Netherlands.

Turkish children have been placed in Christian families as well as with gay parents, both in Holland and in Belgium – which has caused anger in traditional parts of Turkish society. Last month, Turkish authorities began procedures to remove Turkish children from foreign gay foster parents.

Article: 15th March 2013 www.pinknews.co.uk

Read more about gay and lesbian parenting at www.prideangel.com

Recent Study shows children adopted by lesbian and gay couples are at no disadvantage.

Fears that children do less well in life are completely unfounded, according to the first study into how children and parents in non-traditional families fare compared with heterosexual households.

The findings, from the University of Cambridge's Centre for Family Research, will be published in a report by the British Association of Adoption and Fostering tomorrow. Researchers found that gay and lesbian parents are at least as good at coping with the demands of parenting. Children do not suffer any disadvantage, and the vast majority are not bullied at school, but the report warns: "Bullying and teasing are much more of a problem in secondary schools than primary schools; thus, only follow-up will reveal how things turn out in the future."

The experiences of 130 gay, lesbian and heterosexual adoptive families in Britain, with children aged four to eight, were examined – focusing on the quality of family relationships, how parents cope and how children adjust. The study concludes "there was no evidence" to support speculation that children's masculine or feminine tendencies are affected by having gay or lesbian parents. Family life and the quality of relationships are very similar for children regardless of their parents' sexual orientation, it says.

Professor Susan Golombok, director of the Cambridge centre and report co-author, said: "What I don't like is when people make assumptions that a certain type of family, such as gay fathers, will be bad for children. The anxieties about the potentially negative effects for children of being placed with gay fathers seem to be, from our study, unfounded."

Gay men are less likely to have depression, anxiety, stress and relationship problems while coping with parenthood. One reason cited is that "same-sex couples were much less likely to have experienced infertility on their route to parenthood and were more likely to come to adoption as their first choice". In addition, "gay fathers, in particular, are extremely committed to parenting".

The former TV presenter Phil Reay-Smith, who has an adopted son, said: "I'm not at all surprised that gay couples have been found to be just as good adopters as straight adopters are. I look at my own family, which is me, my husband, Michael, and our son, Scott, who is six, and we just have a very boring family life. We haven't had any problems in the playground yet. My main concern is perhaps what happens at secondary school, but my belief is that if we educate him to have the confidence in himself about his family situation, he'll be able to deal with anything that does crop up."

The issue of children being brought up by same-sex parents divides opinion. Welsh Secretary David Jones was condemned last month after claiming that gay couples "clearly" could not provide a "warm and safe environment for the upbringing of children". He has since said he is not opposed to same-sex adopters.

More lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people should come forward, said Sir Martin Narey, the Government's adoption adviser. Speaking on the eve of LGBT adoption and fostering week, he said: "I have seen how LGBT people, who tend to come to adoption as their first choice for becoming parents, bring determination and enthusiasm to it. Many more gay adopters need to be encouraged to come forward."

Article: 3rd March 2013 www.independent.co.uk

Read more about adoption and gay parenting at www.prideangel.com