Nowadays the growing number of gay and lesbian couples is becoming parents. That’s why lesbian couples seek for sperm donors and gays offer to father a child. The decision of gay couples to have a baby is often condemned so it has to be deliberate. Before making any choices every gay or lesbian has to take into consideration all aspects of the issue. Here are the tips that will help you make a rational conclusion:
- Find out everything about the concerning issue by meeting lesbian mothers, gay fathers, their children and by reading books and articles;
- Discuss your wish with close people. If you have a partner, try to reach an agreement and joint commitment.
- Consider if you can afford having a baby and the procedure of conceiving it and giving birth to it and whether your home, job, and welfare can stand the strain;
- It is important to have support from your close people. This may be your family, other lesbian or gay parents and your friends;
- Lesbians need to mind their age. Fertility decreases dramatically after 40 and donor insemination, mainly in clinics, make it very doubtful that women over 40 will have children this way.
Gay and lesbian couples have some options if they want to start a family:
1) self-insemination
2) donor Insemination through a clinic
3) surrogacy
Advantages of surrogacy for gay/lesbian couples
 If a gay male couple wants to have a baby, the surrogacy allows them to father a child without any involvement of women in the process of upbringing.
Just as in any other case both gestational and traditional ways of surrogacy are available. If the “traditional” method is applied, the egg of a woman volunteering to be the surrogate mother is inseminated with the sperm of the father. On condition the couple chooses the second option – gestational way, again there will be two women, one serving as egg donor and the other one as the carrier. The eggs will be fertilized with the father’s or donor’s sperm and the embryos will be transferred to the gestational surrogate mother who will carry the child until birth. If lesbians are unable to conceive or to carry the fetus, they also can have a child with the help of surrogacy. In the situation if they can’t carry but can produce healthy eggs, the surrogate mother will carry the embryo made of mother’s egg and donor’s sperm to provide a genetical relation between the baby and one of the mothers. In any case a sperm donor is needed.
As for the disadvantages of gay surrogacy, again this is generally a very expensive as the procedure has to be carried out privately. There can also be some legal difficulties so it’s very important to know your rights before you think about this choice.
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