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Someone Asks Lesbian Parents How They Decided Who Would Get Pregnant, 28 Give Honest Answers
One of the biggest, most important decisions you can make in your life is deciding whether or not to have a child. It’s a decision that changes your life in a lot of ways. Creating a family affects everything in small and large ways—from the emotional to the financial. So it’s never an easy decision.
However, in some families, this very same decision has an added layer of complexity. For instance, some lesbian couples need to decide who will carry the baby. It is exactly this dilemma that the lesbian parents of Reddit pondered in a viral thread on r/AskReddit.
They shared how they decided which partner would end up getting pregnant. The stories are as powerful as they are informative. Scroll down to have a read. And if you are an LGBTQ+ parent, tell us all about your parenting journey in the comments, dear Pandas.
Bored Panda had a chat about parenthood and the bond between a birthing parent and their child with Labor and Delivery Nurse Holly D. "Life is never the same after birth for either parent. The birthing parent deals with a physical change in combination with a new baby to learn and bond with," she told us. Read on for the full interview.
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#1
My wife and I are good friends with a lesbian couple who had one carry the baby while they used the other's egg. Since one carried and the other is genetically the mother they each have a special attachment to the baby. I thought it was really neat
L&D Nurse Holly explained to Bored Panda that the bond between a birthing parent and their child "starts to grow immensely" during pregnancy.
"Feeling baby kicks and movements for the first time tends to solidify the growth of a little person for some birthing persons and those movements can’t always be shared with the other parent because those movements are spontaneous," she shared.
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#2
My friends decided based on who had the best maternity leave package. Practical!
#3
My wife is 9y older and really wanted bio kids. Our plan was that she’d have one, then I’d have one a few years later w the same donor. BUT she had twins and we don’t want more than 2 kids so I got off easy* :p
except that now we have 3yo twins and exactly 0 things are easy
"In my experience in Labor and Delivery, most times in a delivery room you see the non-birthing parent have an 'aha!' moment, like a light bulb turning on when the baby starts to deliver. They are able to physically see and touch what they have been anticipating for weeks/months prior.
"I believe it is a significant moment when that bond between the parent grows significantly. It’s always such a beautiful moment to watch. It is filled with many tears, smiles, laughing, and just pure amazement between the two parents."
#4
A good friend from college is married with a kid on the way. I asked her and she said it came down to genetics - my friend's wife is BRCA positive (the breast cancer gene), so they agreed my friend should be the biological mother to prevent their kid from having to worry about it.
#5
My lesbian parents tell the story of how they were shopping one day and my birth mom broke down in tears at the sight of baby clothes. That's how they decided.
#6
We haven't had a kid yet, but we plan to in around 5-7 years. My fiancee is having the baby because I am terrified of giving birth and she wants the experience. Easy solution for us.
According to Medical News Today, lesbians have access to the same paths to parenthood as different-sex couples do. The best approach would be to have a talk with your GP or fertility doctor to talk about your options.
Some options include using a sperm donor, whether it’s from someone the couple knows or trusts, or via a sperm bank. The mom-to-be can use the donated sperm to inseminate herself or go to a fertility clinic for the procedure.
One option that makes both partners feel as included as possible (and something that a few redditors drew attention to in the thread) is using the egg of one partner and the uterus of another. Of course, this decision does require the assistance of doctors.
Unfortunately, some couples can have difficulty conceiving. Sometimes, they have to rely on techniques like in vitro fertilization (IVF) to get pregnant. Another option is embryo adoption.
#7
My wife is five years older than me so we agreed she'd go first in case it took a while or we had fertility issues (we didn't know if either of us would have issues as we'd never tried before). We always planned on taking turns though. She gave birth to our daughter last June, and I am 24 weeks pregnant with our son now. Same donor. We did DIY AI.
#8
We ultimately couldn’t decide, and after investigating the costs of IVF we decided to become foster parents. Which has been really rewarding
Lord Mysticlaw 2 years ago
Raising kids is already expensive, it's totally understandable that a lot of people are unwilling to start off by spending an insane amount of money on IVF. It's like spending so much on a wedding that you start a marriage by going into debt.
#9
I have friends who used one wife’s brother as the male donor, so obviously it had to be the other wife carrying.
There are also non-pregnancy options available to couples. For example, they can decide to adopt or foster a child.
Despite the fact that we’re living in a far more tolerant time than before, there are still challenges that same-sex couples face. Lesbian couples may find themselves discriminated against. This, in turn, can make parenthood more difficult for them.
There is also the financial cost to consider. Some fertility treatments can cost thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars.
#10
My wife carried both of our two children. Originally, the plan was to carry one each, and I started trying a year after she had our first child. I tried for 18 months and wasn't successful, and we really didn't want a big age gap between our kids, so she tried again - was pregnant on her second attempt.
Honestly, I'm a little disappointed, and a little regretful that we didn't try harder to figure out how to make it happen for me. That being said, we have two healthy, happy kids that I love more than anything, so I wouldn't change a thing.
We were also able to use the same donor for both kids, so they're fully biological siblings. We are also part of an online group of other families who used the donor, so we can share photos of the kids (and make sure no one brings a sibling home one day lol). There are almost 20 of them now, which is cool!
Jo Choto 2 years ago
I find it really disturbing that so many families are allowed to have the same donor and are all in the same region. If there's 20 you know about, how many are there that you don't know about, and how much greater is the likelihood that one of the kids will be attracted to a biological sibling without realizing it. (We are attracted, believe it or not, to what is familiar more than anything else, familiar deriving from the word family.)
#11
Not a parent but my wife and I are planning in that direction. My wife has no urge to carry a baby and doesn't want to pass her family's medical history on to another generation. I want to experience pregnancy and giving birth. The conversation was incredibly easy for us.
#12
I was a donor for a coworker and her wife. They went based on who had the better insurance/benefits. Our job had s*** benefits and her wife was a teacher with state benefits and such.
Lantana Howell 2 years ago
We are a sad society that had to make decisions solely based on reasons like this though.
#13
Since most of these comments are not from actual lesbians -- Hi, lesbian here. My wife and I have an 11 month old son. She carried the baby bc she has better genes (no cystic acne or severe mental illness for starters!) and is a few years younger than me.
Also, I've never wanted to be pregnant for like a gazillion reasons, so many that I could probably write a book, so it was her or no baby!
#15
My aunt's are Lesbian, and they couldn't decide so they both had a kid
#16
I work with a lot of lesbian families. Usually, one might have a stronger desire to bear children so that is the one who does. Sometimes both do, so they may each bear a child. Sometimes it's about genetics and someone with a condition or predisposition may ask the other to bear any children. Sometimes none want to bear children so they adopt, foster, surrogate. It's usually just an honest conversation about who may want to give birth if anyone.
#17
For us, my wife is a 1.5 year older so she went first.
But honestly after seeing her go through pregnancy and doing breastfeeding I really don’t wanna do it. So she’s carrying my bio baby for baby #2.
#18
My partner (we are both females) went through IUI treatment today! How did we pick? It was easy, there was not a bone in my body that wanted to experience carrying a child. She is 34, I am 32. So, pretty simple decision for us personally.
#19
My wife and I decided based on a few factors, but most importantly on who had the least fertility issues as those might increase the cost of treatments
#20
Me and my partner are starting the process at the back end of the year. She will carry as I absolutely do not want to carry and couldn’t think of anything worse than pushing out a baby but she really wants to experience pregnancy
#21
My wife is in the military and didn't want to mess up her body until her contract was close to over, so it fell to me. Plus, I have the desk job with 12 weeks paid maternity leave, while she works part-time in healthcare, standing all of the time, with no benefits. Really didn't feel like there was much of a decision to make with that in mind.
#22
My wife and I are just starting the process. I am hopefully (keep your fingers crossed) going to carry first. I’m older than her so I’m going first in hopes to catch my eggs before they turn to mush. I had a major blood clot a few years ago so I have to be on blood thinner injections during pregnancy which has made me go from wanting to carry twice to only wanting to carry once (9 months of daily self-injections is a real bummer). We are hopefully both going to carry eventually using the same donor.
Joan Zatorski 2 years ago
I hope all goes well for your family and that you are totally safe. Blessings to all of you.
#23
My sister and her wife are in the process of getting pregnant.
My sister in law has always wanted to get pregnant and my sister honestly has no desire to be pregnant so I guess it was an easy choice for them.
#24
My moms are gay. One was a bit older and just never wanted to be pregnant, and the other wanted to be pregnant. It worked out really well that way.
#25
We both decided to carry a baby (at separate times). They are biologically related since we used the same donor.
I think the deciding factors were age, genetics and "desire" to go through a pregnancy. My wife had a harder time getting pregnant and sadly lost two babies during pregnancy. During those hard times we had discussed on several occasions that adoption was also an equally desirable option for our family.
#26
For my wife and I it was an easy choice. I wanted to carry a baby, and she was indifferent to that aspect of being a mother. She was willing to carry if I for some reason couldn’t, but luckily we didn’t have to cross that bridge!
We also used an anonymous donor, so there was no genetic aspect to worry about.
#27
My son is from a donor that others used too. One set of mommies each had one. I think it’s totally cool. They each have a mini.
#28
Hi, I'm an aspiring lesbian parent. My partner and I have discussed that I will carry first, as I don't have any underlying health conditions. She will attempt to carry second (we're hopefull), but she has pcos, so we will reasses when we're going through it.
Marco Hub-Dub 2 years ago (edited)
I’m a donor “uncle” to two amazing friends, with a wonderful 21yo nephew and absolutely adorable 19yo twin niece and nephew. Both women had no real desire to carry & one may not have been able. They used a surrogate for both pregnancies. All three children progressively learned of my role in the process of helping their mommies.
What do you think ?
marianne eliza 2 years ago (edited)
If only all couples were so thoughtful about the health and welfare of their children before they get pregnant. Especially the ones who have some sort of inheritable issue. My best friend of 45 years decided to combine her family's physical and mental health issues with her husband's litany of familial mental and physical ailments. Not a great outcome, mentally and physically.
KimB 2 years ago
My husband and I tried for over 10 years to have children with no success. We were looking into IVF when I was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis. That was a hard stop for me. I was in so much pain until my doctors could find the right medications for me , and I remember thinking that I would NEVER want my children to inherit this from me and feel this pain. Or worse my Paternal grandmother needed heart valve surgery because of it.
Load More Replies...
Marco Conti 2 years ago
Remember when gay marriage was such a big issue and civilization was going to end because of it? I do. Hopefully one day more people will know this as "normal" and we old farts will fade away. However, the lesson is this: all those other battleground issues that same people make a big deal out of, are just about as innocuous as gay marriage is today. Don't let them fool you. What they want is to control you.
marianne eliza 2 years ago (edited)
If only all couples were so thoughtful about the health and welfare of their children before they get pregnant. Especially the ones who have some sort of inheritable issue. My best friend of 45 years decided to combine her family's physical and mental health issues with her husband's litany of familial mental and physical ailments. Not a great outcome, mentally and physically.
KimB 2 years ago
My husband and I tried for over 10 years to have children with no success. We were looking into IVF when I was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis. That was a hard stop for me. I was in so much pain until my doctors could find the right medications for me , and I remember thinking that I would NEVER want my children to inherit this from me and feel this pain. Or worse my Paternal grandmother needed heart valve surgery because of it.
Load More Replies... Marco Conti 2 years ago
Remember when gay marriage was such a big issue and civilization was going to end because of it? I do. Hopefully one day more people will know this as "normal" and we old farts will fade away. However, the lesson is this: all those other battleground issues that same people make a big deal out of, are just about as innocuous as gay marriage is today. Don't let them fool you. What they want is to control you.
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