The folks over at gay family web have been kind enough to give us an update on their sperm donor clinic and their upcoming family pride events. Well done to them on their wonderful success

An Australian couple have decided that an egg-for-sperm swap is a good way for them to meet a suitable donor and ultimately lead them to having the family they really want. They call the swap an “altruistic, reciprocal gift of life” and hats off to them for having such a well thought out and novel way of empowering themselves.

Natalie Drew and Ashling Phillips are parents to two lovely children and they have decided to use their experiences with sperm donation to open up a new sperm donor clinic in Birmingham England. The clinic is for gay women only and Ms Drew was kind enough to chat with me about the company that started on line in 2007.

Because you will discover that you are completely and utterly bonkers.Try this on for size. Every month we try and time it correctly, I have “symptoms”. From the first day.

Glenn Cunningham and his Brazilian husband, Adriano Vilar, have lived with uncertainty for over two years.

Vilar was on a student visa and had to have it renewed often. Each time they applied to have it renewed, they risked it being declined, and Vilar would have been required to leave the country.

From Gaelick contributor Zemama I recently caught up with a relative I haven’t talked to in several months. My big news was that I’d been made redundant. “Oh,” she replied, “So you’re a full time mammy now.” I breathed deeply and didn’t get into it. But I’ve been a full time mammy since I first [...]

Family’s come in all shapes and sizes but if we are lucky they are a place we can have support throughout our lives. One nephew took this to heart and donated sperm to his aunt and her partner leaving what his mother calls “a legacy”. The families acceptance of his gift is something we can all learn from.

I’m making a list and checking it twice. It will include toys that are not naughty but nice for my son. I’ve consulted with Santa, and we agree he would enjoy a play kitchen. I have been forced to point out to Santa that the offerings in the shops are largely unacceptable. As ever, my eyes sting from being accosted by so much pink.

Time to take to the streets. Hang on though. Could I bring a toddler to a demo? Would it be scary or would it ground him in a family tradition of speaking up, really participating in democracy, which will serve him well growing up in a very non-traditional family?

Crowdsourcing: delegating a task to a large diffuse group, usually without monetary compensation This is getting pretty tedious. I mean at first, it was a little bit interesting. There was stuff to learn, cycles to track, temperatures to take. Now, it’s getting annoying. Trying to co-ordinate my body’s schedule with the schedule of our sperm-donor [...]

In the early months of motherhood, most mammies – gay, straight, partnered or solo – are too exhausted to enjoy a night out or even a night in. But once baby is sleeping through the night and you’ve adjusted to living in a house that looks like a toy store after an earthquake with piles of laundry towering over you, it starts to feel different.

A lesbian couple in Australia beat one in 60 million odds to learn that they’re expecting quintuplets. Wowza.

If I wanted to impress people, I could tell them I decided to buy my son a toy broom to help develop his proprioceptive system, which as we all know (cough, cough) is critical for the ability to memorize abstract shapes required to learn to write.

I’m getting used to it, but there is a fine line between acknowledging that single parenthood is bloody hard work and acting like raising my son, the greatest joy in my life, is some sort of tragedy.

For most women, the choice to have children is not a choice but the non-choice. If you’re straight and not celibate, chances are that you will end up pregnant. And since Irish women don’t have abortions (*cough*), pregnancy inevitably leads to a child, wanted or not.

Charting and ovulation predictor kits and checking cervical mucus be damned. I think we missed ovulation. I rang our donor but he was busy that evening. We made plans to go ahead a bit early and go the next morning. However, if I actually ovulated when I felt that pain, the next day was far too late.

If you’re thinking of starting a family, you’ve probably had a look at websites aimed at people who are trying to conceive. For women who don’t routinely have sex with men, getting pregnant requires some planning, so we have a lot to learn from women who’ve had trouble conceiving, despite their sperm-on-tap existence. When you [...]