A U.K. couple has shared gestational duties in creating their child—the latest in a small but growing number of two-mom couples taking advantage of new technologies to do so. What does this mean for the future of queer family building?
Donna Francis-Smith, who serves in the British Army, contributed the egg, which was fertilized and placed back into her womb in a special device developed by Anecova, a Swiss medical device company. After an incubation period, it was removed and placed in the womb of Donna’s spouse, dental nurse Jasmine Francis-Smith, who gave birth to their son Otis two months ago. The treatment was offered by the London Women’s Clinic as part of their services for two-womb couples.
The procedure is very similar to that used by two couples in Texas last year and developed by INVO Bioscience of Massachusetts. The main difference (in my non-expert assessment) is that the INVOcell device is placed into the first person’s vagina, whereas the Anevivo device is placed into the uterus. Both companies say that the environment within a person’s body is a better place for embryo development than the traditional laboratory dish used in in vitro fertilisation (IVF).
The benefit isn’t just medical. Donna told the Telegraph newspaper, “You get a lot of same-sex couples where one person is doing the whole thing, and the one person is getting pregnant and giving birth, whereas with this we’re both involved in a massive way. It’s definitely brought us closer together emotionally.”
I know what she means—my spouse and I did reciprocal IVF, using my egg and her womb. Although I never incubated the embryo, I was certainly “involved in massive way” through the hormones I needed to take and the egg retrieval procedure. (Fun fact: The only time in my life I was on birth control was when my spouse and I were trying to have a child. See here for more details.) We definitely bonded over our injections and ultrasounds, and it felt like a very mutual project (sort of like when we assembled IKEA furniture).
Having said that, however, I don’t believe both members of a couple have to be physically or genetically involved in order for both to feel like important parts of the baby-creating process. There are certainly enough tasks to go around in planning and preparing for a family. No two-womb couple should feel they must have their child through shared gestation or reciprocal IVF in order for both to participate. Yes, physical participation may have a special significance because human physical connections, broadly speaking, are powerful things. If there’s one thing I know from years of being in the LGBTQ parenting community, though, it’s that biology and physical participation are not the only markers of parenthood. If you want to do reciprocal IVF or one of these newer methods of two-person gestation, by all means, go for it. It can be a meaningful shared experience. It’s just not the only one–and you shouldn’t feel like you have to do it this way in order to both be “real” parents.
Additionally, because it still bears repeating: LGBTQ legal experts still advise doing a second-parent adoption or getting a court order of parentage even if you are married, both your names are on the birth certificate, and you provided the child’s genetic material, if you were not the gestational parent. The Anevivo and INVOcell methods are new enough not to have been involved in any litigation, as far as I know, but I presume that the courts would consider the parent who was carrying the child at the time of its birth to be the gestational parent, even if the other parent incubated the embryo. (Check with your own lawyer on this if you have questions about your personal situation.)
Also worth repeating: Ultimately, the way we form our families is less important than the way we raise our children. Still, it’s great to see technology evolving to provide a variety of family-creation alternatives that allow parents to participate in new ways (and, if you believe the companies, to increase the chance of a successful pregnancy). It’s also great to see the companies behind the technologies actively acknowledging their queer clients and potential clients. Progress both technological and social—that’s something to celebrate!