PATH TO PARENTHOOD: OPTIONS FOR LGBTQ FAMILY BUILDING
Families come in all shapes and sizes. I bet you have heard that phrase a million times. I’m so glad I am raising my kids during a time when that phrase is repeated frequently. It wasn’t that long ago that it was illegal for couples to be same-sex. Just 3 years ago in 2015, U.S. Supreme Court struck down all state bans on same-sex marriage, legalized it in all fifty states, and required states to honor out-of-state same-sex marriage licenses in the case Obergefell v. Hodges. Some counties still do not comply with this Supreme Court ruling and LGBTQ couples continue to fight for their rights. You can trust that at Southwest Surrogacy we won’t discriminate. We want to help you grow your family through surrogacy if that is the route you have chosen. Below are routes that LGBTQ families can take to grow their families.
Surrogacy is a way for same-sex couples to have a child that is biologically related to one of them if that is what they desire. If you are using a traditional surrogate, she will either have artificial insemination with the intended father’s sperm or a sperm donor or she will have an embryo transfer after IVF using her egg and either the intended father’s sperm or a sperm donor. If you are using a gestational surrogate, eggs from an intended mother or an egg donor and sperm from the intended father or a sperm donor will be needed. Embryos will then be fertilized via IVF and put into the surrogate via embryo transfer. Donor embryos can also be used.
Some male same-sex couples will create embryos from both of their sperm samples using the same egg donor so they can have more than one child, each father biologically related to one of the children. Some female same-sex couples will use the same sperm donor to fertilize eggs from both of them. Female same-sex couples use surrogacy, it’s just less common since it’s less likely that both women will not be able to or will not want to carry their child.
Female same-sex couples can also grow their family through artificial insemination. They can either use sperm of someone they know that’s willing to donate to them or they can contact a sperm donation center to pick a donor that they feel is a good fit for their family. Another option to grow their family is through IVF. Some couples decide for various reasons to extract eggs from one of the intended mothers, fertilize it by a donor through IVF and transfer that embryo into the other intended mother or back into the intended mother that the eggs were extracted from. This could be done for medical reasons or just because one is a better choice to carry and one is a better choice for eggs.
Same-sex couples can also grow their family through adoption. There are LGBTQ-friendly adoption agencies that can answer your questions and help you through the process. Everyone deserves to grow their family however they choose.