Fertility for Lesbian Women Becoming Moms
Becoming Mothers and Parents
Video Lesson
Written Lesson
Different Options
This is a course for those with a uterus who may identify as queer, lesbian, bisexual, or otherwise partnered with someone of the same sex. We’ll discuss the tradeoffs of different medical approaches from at-home insemination (with intravaginal insemination) to IUI, IVF, to “co-maternity” or “reciprocal IVF.”
Almost invariably, this process will require people to think through the process of selecting a sperm donor, and we’ll outline some of the tradeoffs for each approach.
Risks of Multiples
Throughout this guide, we’ll continually refer to “multiple gestation pregnancies” (like twins, triplets, or more), as a risk of certain fertility treatments, especially in the case of at-home insemination and IUI.
Even though there are many healthy babies born from multiple gestation pregnancies, the risks to both mothers and offspring are significantly elevated.
For example, as you can see, there’s a much higher risk of infant mortality and cerebral palsy in multiple gestation pregnancies, not to mention greater risks to the delivering mother.
For this reason, we’ll continually discuss ways to minimize the risk of becoming pregnant with a multiple gestation pregnancy when laying out options.