It’s National Infertility Awareness Week here in the U.S. For some LGBTQ people, “infertility” is simply the inability to reproduce by ourselves or with a partner without medical intervention—sometimes called “social infertility.” For others, infertility is a medical diagnosis indicating that even with assistance, conception will be hard. Here are some resources to help no matter how you’re defining it.
Three new books variously offer insight, inspiration, and social science rigor as they chart the contours of queer parents’ lives.
When the first same-sex couple to marry legally in the United States, Hillary and Julie Goodridge, was feeling stressed from public attention, they didn’t want to seek couples’ counseling. Julie told NPR this past May, “It felt like too much of a risk.” They divorced a few years later. Their daughter Annie, who was 10 at the time, said in retrospect, “I felt like our family let everyone down.” Their situation highlights a long-time problem for the LGBTQ community and other marginalized groups: the pressure to be perfect. Two new books, however, each look at topics often associated with failure—relationship break-ups and reproductive losses—in order to help LGBTQ people and our children better navigate them.
Sarah and Yessie Williams, spouses from Brooklyn, New York, are featured in a new documentary airing today about four different couples and their journeys to create families through in vitro fertilization (IVF). Watch it here!
Lots of moving family stories in this roundup, including a family living full time in their RV; a couple who induced lactation so they could both nurse; a trans dad and his spouse who started their family with two known donors, also spouses; stories of infertility and miscarriage, and more–including penguins!
Parenting magazine Romper has just launched a special digital issue titled “Trying,” which follows five women trying to conceive. One of them is a queer woman who has been trying to get pregnant along with her wife.
What does it cost for an LGBTQ person to become a parent and raise a child in the U.S. today? What are the particular challenges we face? I investigate those questions in a new article for the Advocate.
Thanks to Sarah Toce, founder and publisher of The Seattle Lesbian, for this guest post about becoming pregnant after fertility struggles and still feeling anxiety and guilt despite the good news.
Aleia Mims’ “Lessons from Infertility,” part of her “Authentically Me” series at her blog l.i.b.e.r.a.t.i.o.n. theory, is this week’s Post of the Week. She writes about her journey from comfort with not being a bio mom, to wanting to conceive with her wife, to her disappointment at not being able to do so.
Here is the seventh in my series of quotes from Who’s Your Daddy? And Other Writings on Queer Parenting. I’ll be running them for a couple of weeks courtesy of the book’s editor, Rachel Epstein. I’m choosing the quotes I feel are most intriguing and thought provoking; I don’t always agree with the sentiments, but
