So how about an update for those of you interested in any or all of the above.

Natalie happily tells me

we opened in April we hit 100 women pregnant on New Year’s Eve, I have set a target of 200 for next year as we have looked at opening a third centre in Manchester

Opening a new clinic is wonderful news for lesbian all over the UK and congrats to all involved for making it such a success story.  How amazing to think 100 women (and partners if applicable) have had their dream of parenthood come true.

On the Family Pride event she says

Family Pride Festival for this summer is also going well, we’ve already sold just over half of the tickets.

The team are working hard to drum ups sponsorship in the UK as well as promoting the event in America.  If you know of anyone interested in sponsoring this weekend, contact them on the site.

You can check out the site here.

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1. Gay Family Web
2. UK Gay Family Pride Festival
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Having exhausted every avenue of appeal within her homeland Ms Atala fought on and brought the case to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.  One of the things we gays can be most proud of is our ability to help each other out.  Thankfully Karen’s cause was taken up by various gay groups including, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, the International and Lesbian Human Rights Commission and the Legal Aid Society of New York, as well as several others.

The commission reviewed the case and early this year, issuing a decision in Atala’s favor, referring the case to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.  The Chilean government have previously said that they will abide by whatever judgment the court comes to.  Atala’s case was heard last week at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in Colombia

It is unthinkable that a mother would lose custody of her children souly on the basis of her sexual orientation, but that is exactly the situation that this court has a chance to rectify.  Referring to Karen’s loss at the Supreme Court of Chile Jessica Stern of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission said

What happened to Karen Atala represents discrimination of the crudest sort…For no reason other than her sexuality, a court separated a mother from her children. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights now has an opportunity to render a decision that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is wrong

It is gutting to now see that a mother is still separated from her children after so long, lets hope the court come to the right conclusion.  This woman is good enough to serve as a judge but is seen by that same government as not good enough to raise her own children.  How can that add up?  It is maddening.

Many thanks to the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission for sending us on a link to the Media Advisory they published about this case here.

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3. Lose weight and you’ll be happy

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.

But that would be a big, fat lie.  I decided to buy my son his own broom when he picked up the kitchen brush and swung it round above his head so it nearly plopped into the dinner I was cooking on the stove.  My little darling is a one-boy demolition crew and thought it was hilarious to stick the broom in the bin and then swing it up to the counters and table.  Bonus points for anything knocked off either surface!  So out I set on what seemed like a perfectly simply errand to purchase a toy broom and minimise the damage while encouraging a healthy interest in cleaning.  (I am pretending that encouraging his toddler love of cleaning will pay off when he is older.)

Who knew that in this medium-sized provincial town, home to several shops selling toys, my quest for a toddler-sized broom would be so frustrating?  I visited shop after shop, trawled through miles of toys, but never saw a single broom.  Heaven help the junior-infants class of 2013 and their precious little proprioceptive systems.  Finally, I stumbled into the news agent/ grocery/ toy shop that time forgot.  If it were not for the signs advertising mobile credit, it could be 1980.  And they had a broom…. a lone broom … a pink and purple broom.  I saw red.

In this day and age, how can society still be so backward as to colour/ gender code toys?  This was not my first brush with the insidious sexism of the world of toys.  Before my son arrived, I had decided that no way would I bring my child to a toy store that labelled the aisles by gender.  Yes, literally.  Big signs specifying ‘boy’s toys’ and ‘girl’s toys’.  Just typing that makes me want to lie down in a dark room.  I huffed out of the shop determined not to participate in such idiotic gender indoctrination.

Further searches confirmed that this pink and purple specimen was, in fact, the only toy broom in town.  Meanwhile, I was running out of places to hide the broom at home.  I debated.  I fumed.  Then it dawned on me.  I have a son.  A boy.  Getting a daughter this broom would be teaching her that cleaning was feminine, reinforcing ideas that would stunt her self-esteem.  But I wasn’t getting it for a daughter.  Heh, heh, heh.

My son is delighted with his pink broom.  He proudly pounds it on the floor next to me when I sweep.  He screams ‘no, no, no’ if the cat dares touch it.  I am quietly hoping that pushing his little pink broom will develop his ability to see through plain old sexism as much as it helps him develop his ability to follow and track abstract shapes, helping him to write and eventually become a renowned brain surgeon, and maybe even an anti-sexist daddy.  Today sweeping, tomorrow the laundry!

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I was working and I got that distinctive cramp in my side. I’d also had a tell-tale temperature drop that morning. 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.

It seems the consensus is that the egg, once released, will last 6 – 12 hours. Rhythm method people will warn you could still be fertile for 48 hours afterwards, but on the pregnancy trying end of things, the recommendation is to inseminate before ovulation or right when it happens. We were 24 hours later. So unless I have particularly long-living eggs or on the off chance my ovary released two, we’ll be at this again next month.

It’s not a big deal. We have enough friends who have tried for years that we’re certainly not surprised by the learning curve and won’t be surprised (but will be disappointed) if we get a Big Fat Negative in a couple of weeks. It’s all trial and error. And when you find yourself syringing a bit of pre-seed into a specimen jar and handing it to a friend, you can be forgiven for not knowing exactly what you’re doing. They didn’t teach this in school.

We did, however, take a bit of time to ourselves just after it all, and I can’t tell you how much that helps. Sometimes it feels like I’m doing this myself and maybe she feels like I’m going it alone too. I tend to live in my head a little bit. But just taking some time out to be together is just what the doctor ordered. After all, if this all goes to plan, we’ll have a little one in our family. And that little one will need us to be as happy and sane as we can be.

Since we’d timed it all wrong, we had a hotel room booked for the wrong night. So we enjoyed a night in a hotel, ordered room service, watched telly and just relaxed together without any of the distractions of home. We’d planned to be so civilised about it. Hotel room, some relaxing, the lot. I won’t go into how the whole thing actually went down, but if a child has been conceived, it will make for a great (and mortifying story) many years from now.

Anyway, that night, Friends was on the hotel telly. It was the episode where Rachel has her baby and Joey doesn’t really propose, you know that one. Well it’s also the episode where Monica and Chandler decide to start trying for a baby. They sneak into a hospital room and as they start things up, Monica stops and says, “Oh, wait, do we have a condom?”.  It’s funny ‘cos it’s true.

One of the strange things I’ve found is trying to get my head around trying to get pregnant. One of the impressions teenaged girls (and it’s not like that was yesterday) are given is that it’s very easy to get pregnant. Too easy. I think we are very well programmed as teenagers (well, some of us are) that pregnancy is the worst thing that can happen to you. Pregnancy will ruin your life. Whatever you do, don’t get pregnant. And it can happen really easily.

And, well, some of that programming remains. I expect it will stop as I realise just how hard it is to get pregnant. It just might take a while.

Oh, and we ended up using the Soft Cup method after all. Dead easy. When I practiced with water I used way too much. I’m in the middle of the 2 week wait right now so we’ll know soon if we got lucky this first time. I’m not optimistic, but next month I should be able to anticipate ovulation better than I did this time around.

No related posts.

Lesbian couples are better parents.

According to the National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study in the US:

The 17-year-old daughters and sons of lesbian mothers were rated significantly higher in social, school/academic, and total competence and significantly lower in social problems, rule-breaking, aggressive, and externalizing problem behavior than their age-matched counterparts in Achenbach’s normative sample of American youth.

This is a hugely significant step forward in the equal treatment of gay parents. It also reaches further, into the realms of marriage equality. As part of the Zappone and Gilligan case, they had argued that children raised in same-sex households are no different to, and therefore deserve the same protections as, children in heterosexual households. Judge Dunne stated:

The phenomenon of parenting by same sex couples is one of relatively recent history. The studies that have taken place are consequently of recent origin. Most of the studies have been cross sectional studies involving small samples and frequently quite young children. I have to say that based on all of the evidence I heard on this topic that I am not convinced that such firm conclusions can be drawn as to the welfare of children at this point in time. It seems to me that further studies will be necessary before a firm conclusion can be reached.

Here you go, your honour. Here is a study which has taken place since 1986.

Back in 1970′s America, lesbians and bi women were offered a new opportunity to have children with the advent of donor insemination clinics popping up around the country. Until then any academic studies on same-sex parents had involved women who had conceived in heterosexual marriage and had divorced. In 1986, the National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study (NLLFS) began. The basic objective of the study was to see how children raised in female-only couples compare to those raised by straight couples. One hundred and fifty four couples volunteered, agreeing to be monitored from year to year to see how things went.

The NLLFS adolescents demonstrated higher levels of social, school/academic, and total competence than gender-matched normative samples of American teenagers.

These findings may be explained in part by the NLLFS mothers’ commitment even before their offspring were born to be fully engaged in the process of parenting. During pregnancy, the prospective mothers took classes and formed support groups to learn about child rearing. They were actively involved in the education of their children and aspired to remain close to them, however unique their interests, orientations, and preferences may be.

To the extent that the NLLFS mothers may have achieved this goal, numerous studies showed that having a satisfying relationship with one’s parents is associated with a more favorable adolescent adjustment.

This is what same-sex parents have been saying for years; “we want to be parents so much that no child will be unwanted or unloved”.

Infants – “In young children, adjustment is largely determined by family functioning: regardless of their parents’ gender or sexual orientation, children fare better when their parents are compatible, share responsibilities, provide financial stability, and have healthy interpersonal connections”.

Adolescents – “The NLLFS adolescents demonstrated higher levels of social, school/academic, and total competence than gender-matched normative samples of American teenagers”.

The results may seem like common sense to you and I, but the study is revolutionary. This fact is pointed out in the study which  states

This study has implications for the clinical care of lesbian families, for the expert testimony provided by pediatricians on lesbian mother custody, and for public policies concerning same-sex parenting.

Will anyone be listening? Won’t someone think of the children?

NLLFS website including full report

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So, you have your donor, you’re doing your thing and bam! you’re preggers. Woohoo! Off to the doc with you and may you be the happiest of mammies.

However, what about month after month nothing. Zero. Nada. That damned line is looking mockingly at you. What have you done wrong? What could you do better? Is there something wrong with you/your partner/your donor?

First of all, woah! Stop the brain from over-doing it. This is the most erratic of roller-coasters you’re on. Your emotions will be all over the place. No matter how many times you say you won’t do it, you’ll be convinced each month that this is the month. You’re only human.

Not to undermine the role of the non-biological mother-in-waiting, but as difficult as it is for us, it is so much harder for your partner. Should you have problems getting pregnant, she will blame herself and her body. Ignore her if she says she isn’t; she is

There is one reason for your difficulties that so simple you’ll overlook it. If your straight friends/family are trying to get pregnant, they have as much sex as they can when the woman is fertile. We get one shot (if you’ll excuse the use of the word), maybe two if your donor is available, every month. We’re searching for a pub on Good Friday, but they have it on tap at home.

There are things you can do, though. You can take one or two months out to chart your fertility, using the indicators you can pick up in any chemist. If you decide to do this I strongly recommend doing it for more than one month as you get a better average. After a few disappointing months, my partner and I  decided to chart her fertility scientifically, to check that we were on the right track. It turned out that, for months, we were on the wrong day. Also be aware that, just because she has been fertile on day-11 for months, she may not be fertile until day-12 one month. The body is kookie that way. Just to keep you on your toes.

You can also reassess your donor; maybe he’s not as fertile as you need. If you have the luxury, you can look for another donor. Or think about using a clinic and an unknown donor (mail me for details).

Take breaks from inseminations. It’s exhausting and uses up so much of your reserves that I can’t over-estimate how important it is to just stop for a month or two. When my partner and I would stop for a month we’d always comment on just how relaxed we felt. It’s not that we were feeling hugely stressed-out but it’s internal, you are keeping so much inside that sometimes you just need to give yourself a break.

After two years (count them) of that bloody pregnancy test tutting at us, my partner and I stopped. It was just too much, so we said goodbye and thank you (so, so much) to our wonderful donor.

He had been a great friend before our adventure and I’m happy to say he still is. Donors are amazing; whether they be donating blood, organs or sperm, they are giving of themselves quite literally. To be a sperm donor to a lesbian couple, especially for a journey as long as ours, takes a special person. Each month, he arrived when summoned and did his thing. He never pressured us about the monthly results, never pushed. We wanted him to be anonymous so he never spoke about it when we’d be out with mutual friends. When either he or we were worried, or needed to talk, we were there for each other. It was the perfect blend. Just a pity the egg and sperm didn’t think so. I can’t think of anyone else I know who’d I’d have liked to be the father of my baby’s baby.

Next step, after a few months off and a fabulous holiday; IUI in a treatment clinic.

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In 2006, a child was born and A changed his mind. He went to the High Court seeking guardianship and access rights and was refused. At that time the Court stated that the lesbian couple and the child were a “de facto family”.

Today, however, the Supreme Court has ruled that there is no such thing in Ireland as a de facto family. In a unanimous decision the Court upheld the High Court’s order that he not be given guardianship of the child but overruled the decision on access. So, the lesbian couple and the man in question are to sort out access rights between them.

This is a scary precedent for lesbians and gay men who have, or wish to have, children. It’s also worrying and confusing for the children involved. You would always hope that adults can sort things out in the best interests of the child, without heading off to court, but sometimes an impartial judgment is necessary.

Except we can’t, legally, get an fair judgement as we aren’t afforded the same rights as our straight counterparts. Both of these mothers obviously went in with their eyes open as they got their gay male friend to sign an agreement.

You can’t blame the man for having a change of heart, as unfair as it is to the mothers. Undoubtedly, the John Waters of the world will herald this as a bright new day, a just decision giving more rights to fathers and about time too as fathers aren’t just for Christmas and so on ad nauseum. However, this man didn’t want to be a father. He didn’t go into this hoping to have a baby, he went in hoping to help his friends.

And what about the other mother? She is actually raising the child with her partner. She has no rights here. Zero. Legally, she just happens to live with the baby’s mother.

We need legislation in this area. We need the child to be protected and all three parents’ rights to be respected. This is a family unit and should be seen as one. One of, if not the, greatest negative of the Civil Partnership Bill is that there are no adoption rights for non-biological parents. So cases like this will continue to occur.

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To the news and its mostly good news for a change. I say “mostly” because if I say its all good, I just know somewhere someone will do something and it will end the good newsweek or 2 for lesbians. Lets start with babies.

“But webmaster I hardly know you!” I hear you cry. Not us having babies ya eejit, but lesbians in general and more specifically in the UK. Lesbians given equal birth rights and no we’re not talking about how both lesbians are allowed to give birth. I do believe that right already exists.

Women in same-sex relationships can now register both their names on the birth certificate of a child conceived as a result of fertility treatment.

Can I get a wahoo! Now that’s progress!

However critics say the change would be detrimental to family values.

Yup, it would be as detrimental as a child being brought up in a loving family environment with two parents stands no chance.
* rolls eyes * Back to wahooing. From lesbians and babies to the highlands of Scotland where we heard from the news that the BBC3 commissions lesbian drama

Six-part BBC3 series to offer ‘sexy, funny and irreverent’ take on sex lives of young gay women in Glasgow

Let me just break this down for you. ‘Sexy, funny and irreverent’, yip am all for that and thanks be to jeebus no mention of terminal illness.

But wait there’s more. ‘Young gay women in Glasgow’. Now, I don’t know about you gals but there is something about a Scottish accent which makes one all weak of knee. Throw in the fact that they are lesbians, and, well, I may just have to sit down. Keep watching this space whilst we await the cast. Can I make some suggestions on the off chance BBC3 needs a hand picking actresses for the role?

Okay I need to calm down, hyperventilating in work when I am supposed to be debugging code looks like I enjoying myself waaaaay too much. You get the idea.

Staying with lesbians on the small box, * snigger *, word is filtering through from the US that

SHOWTIME is gearing up to do a real-life version of “The L Word.” “The Real L Word: Los Angeles” will follow six honest-to-goodness lesbians leading their everyday lives, according to Variety.

What on earth is an honest-to-goodness lesbian? She makes brown bread and volunteers for the local children’s charity? Answers on a postcard please

Whilst we are in the US we might as well pop over to Vermont where we heard that Vermont’s gay and lesbian couples exchange vows as state begins recognition of same-sex marriage Here’s a lovely post on one such wedding over at lezgetreal

It is 1 September and across Vermont couples are getting married on the first day that many of them have the right to get married. For A and J, this was a day of hope.

I love straying into the entertainment websites and tabloids just for some of the headlines, they really are hilarious. Here is a  brief summary of some of the ‘lesbian’ stories doing the rounds at the moment.  It has to be a talent how they can build a story around one sentence:

Kourtney Kardashian: Is She Bisexual?
I’M SHOCKED BY HER LESBIAN LUST

Note: If the headline is in block capitals – avoid.

Megan Fox Chats Up her On-Screen Lesbian Kiss in ‘Jennifer’s Body’
Famously Out Lesbian Rachel Maddow Battled Swine Flu!

and my personal favourite:
Jessica Simpson’s pet dog is lesbian

She posted on Twitter about her maltipoo: “Daisy and her best friend Bella back together again.”

Here’s to Jessica’s bitch doing her thing for lesbian visibility.

No related posts.

In the last entry I posed some of the questions myself and my partner had to answer to go forward on the road to parenthood. Here are the answers we came up with.

1. Is “assisted conception” possible in Ireland for lesbians? Do fertility clinics provide us with their services?

At the time (8 years ago) the answer was no. We wrote to all of the clinics we could find and none of them would take us. One even went as far as to say that they “only treat people in longterm heterosexual relationships”. Since then things have changed considerably. There are some clinics which will happily treat lesbian couples and provide anonymous sperm donations (usually Danish). None of them advertise their services as they don’t want to endure the wrath of the looney rent-a-mob so-called Christian groups which unfortunately proliferate in Ireland. Unfortunately you have to know someone who knows (mail me) or simply ask them.

2. If not, should we use a known donor?

This is a huge decision and will effect you and, more importantly your child, for the rest of their life. You must discuss all of the things which come up in the next flurry of questions which I discussed last time.

2.1 If he’s known, how much access/interest will he have? How important would it be for the child to have him in his/her life? How comfortable would we be with this?

2.2 What rights does he have in relation to the child? What rights would the child have in relation to him?

2.3 How on earth do you approach friends to ask them if they’d be interested?

The answer to this is just do it. Seriously, if the guy isn’t the type you can ask, is he really the man for the job? What else is there you can’t ask him? Again, I have to say the using a known donor is a potential mine-field of emotional outcomes. He has all the rights and you have none. Even if everything is sorted and you discuss and decide what access right he can have, if any, he can change is mind at any time in the next 18 years.

However, on the positive side, if you and the donor work it out, this is fantastic for the child. If the donor wants no access and adheres to this you have all of the medical and social history you don’t get with anonymous donations. If he wants to be in the child’s life and you’re good with that, then the child has someone else who loves them, a larger family and support network.

3. Should we use an unknown donor?

An unknown donor is usually the preferred way to go for lesbian couples as it writes off all of the legal uncertainties you have with a known donor. One thing people have asked a lot is “how many times can a man donate? The child could have brothers and sisters out there and not know.” As I’ve already said, in Ireland, most of the donations come from different clinics in Denmark, so the donor won’t be anyone you know. Also, donors are ‘retired’ after 10 successful donations, so the possibilities of your child meeting and marrying a sibling is minimal.

3.1 How in the world would we get the sperm? Online?

I would say that you are better to avoid getting sperm online. It is a completely personal choice of course, but if you go through a clinic, you are sure that the sperm has been cleaned, and you get all of the care and aftercare you need.

So 8 years ago, after pouring over all of this and after being rejected by the clinics, my partner and I decided to go with a known donor. We had been discussing this with friends as we were both sick of what seemed to the secrecy around same sex parents. We would see same sex families but have no idea how they did it. It was none of our business of course and god knows we weren’t going to go up to a complete stranger and ask where their baby came from!

So, when friends would ask, we would be as open as possible and chat about how things were going with the clinics (badly) and how we were handling the stress (no too bad thanks). As a result, one of our good friends told us that he would be willing to be a donor.

He is such great bloke and good mate that this seemed perfect. We did, however, want to make sure that he knew what he wanted and would want from his relationship with his child. We discussed it at length. And I mean at length. For a whole year we talked, laughed, read books, talked some more and answered each others questions.

After 12 months we decided to go forth and multiply.
I’ll be updating this blog as much as I can so keep checking up on me

No related posts.

After running over and over the concept (excuse the pun) of having a child, we came to the conclusion that donor insemination was for us. With it, this decision brought more questions:

1. Is “assisted conception” possible in Ireland for lesbians? Do fertility clinics provide us with their services?

2. If not, should we use a known donor?

2.1 If he’s known, how much access/interest will he have? How important would it be for the child to have him in his/her life? How comfortable would we be with this?

2.2 What rights does he have in relation to the child? What rights would the child have in relation to him?

2.3 How on earth do you approach friends to ask them if they’d be interested?

3. Should we use an unknown donor?

3.1 How in the world would we get the sperm? Online?

As you can see, each question leads to another, each decision to more assessment.

There are no right and wrong answers here. It is completely up to the person or people involved. Just keep asking yourself “what is best for the child?” and you’ll go a long way. Also, prepare for the fact that, as soon as you tell people you and your partner are looking into this, they will ask you all of the above, ad nauseum. People mean well but they honestly think you haven’t stayed awake at night worrying about how whether your sexuality will mean that your child is bullied in school?

The kicker for me was my discovery that I have no rights. None. As far as the government is concerned, I’m the ‘real’ mother’s live-in babysitter. Handy but invisible. We looked into the possibility that, should we use a known donor, we could get something legally written-up which would make me the second parent and not him. You can but it’s not worth it’s legal weight in ink.

Nightmare scenario – my partner dies (touch wood), I have zero right to care for our child who ends up in care. You may say that my partner’s family would take the child but neither parent is around and anyway, I’m the child’s mother, wouldn’t he/she be better off at home?

Worst case scenario – my partner is kicking the bucket again (sorry sweetheart) and the sperm donor decides he wants custody. In he can legally swoop. This could even be the case if his parents/siblings fought for custody. They are legally the baby’s family and who am I ? The babysitter.

The bottom line for custody is, as it should be, what’s best for the child? If you are the non-biological parent you aren’t even assessed as a possibility.

OK, let’s not get overly down here. Lesbians and gay men are having and raising children all over Ireland without the shadow of custody battles looming on their front step. But these are things you must think about, you must be aware of and you must discuss with your partner.

This brings me to something which is good practice in any relationship, but especially if you are considering something as life-changing as having a child. I really can’t over-state how important it is to talk, talk, talk with you partner. Hold nothing back.

Seriously, you’ll end up laughing with her about some of the things that pop into your head. If you’re worried, excited, maternal, scared tell her, joke about it. You’ll be amazed at how much deeper your relation ship can become. You’ll see the deep caverns of your partner’s personality, the courage she has and the weaknesses she feels. You’ll feel you can be strong when she needs you, and she’ll step in when you needs her.

If nothing else, it’ll turn you into an adult and prepare you for the craziness that’s to come.
I’ll be updating this blog as much as I can so keep checking up on me

No related posts.

Through this law the “second parent” is given all the same rights and obligations as any other parent.  Of course this move has it’s critics,

Baroness Ruth Deech, a former chair of the HFEA, is quoted as saying “What I object to is the falsification of the birth certificate. It is supposed to be a true record of the genetic origins of birth.”

No surprises that there are people like that out there but I for one think this is a great move forward for parenting in general.  Hopefully, in time, people will see parenting for what it is, and always has been, one or more people caring for a child throughout it’s life, rather than a mere blood link.

No related posts.

We both agreed on the important things; we don’t mind where we live once we’re happy, travel is holiday-based, we’d love to be able to marry and yes, we both want kids. Two of these things are exceedingly difficult in our small country. I’m going to concentrate on just one.

We’d been together just over three years, had been living together for two, when we started to talk more intently about having children. We are both very, very close to our own families and each other’s and, as such, it seemed a natural things to do.

Straight people tend to forget that gay, lesbians, bisexuals and trans people grow up in a straight world, surrounded by straight people, educated and influenced by a straight society. We grow up with the same expectations as our straight peers whether that be getting a job and paying the bills or marrying and have children. We see the white picket fence, read the ‘and they lived happily ever after’ just as straight people do and have the same cloud-nine dreams. The problem for us is that we face a different reality; an unfair reality.

So, when my partner and I decided that we were ready emotionally, financially and physically, to have children we, naturally, had all of the doubts and fears as a straight couple, plus some extra doozies. Is it unfair, selfish, cruel even for us to have a child? To bring a child into a relationship that is tolerated yet treated unequally at best and hated at worst? It’s something I examine my concious about a lot. However, if you bring a child in to the world, it should come from love. Nothing which comes from love, unselfish, pure love can be wrong.

So, years ago, we went searching on the net to see if/how we could have a child. We met with wonderful people, amazing Irish gay men and women who are parents. Some were going through the gruelling adoption process, others were in extended-family relationships with gay male partners and lesbian partners living as a large, loving family unit. Something which, despite my cynicism, worked extremely well.

After spending over a year meeting people, talking and questioning, we decided we were going to try donor insemination. And herein lay more soul-searching.

I’ll be updating this blogg as much as I can so keep checking up on me

No related posts.

John is a gorgeous, energetic three-year-old who loves cars and going to the zoo. He had been in an emergency placement awaiting long-term fostering.

Marie explains; “John had been in emergency care when we met him. In total, I think, it was about 10 days between us meeting him and him moving in. Usually you have a longer space of time so it was quite compressed.”

“We met him and the next day we had him for an hour, the next day two hours and on like that,” continues Jane. “Then we had him for an afternoon and gave him his bath and his dinner. The woman who was looking after him said that if he was comfortable he could stay over. He was great, he settled with us right away.”

Part of being fostered means an extended family, many carers and lots of ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’, this is something John treats as perfectly normal.

“He sees his family regularly”.

When he came to live with Marie and Jane, John was slightly behind developmentally. He caught up quickly. “When he arrived in some ways he was ahead and in others he was a bit behind,” says Jane.

“When we got him he was obviously still in nappies, his talking was fairly limited, and his eating wasn’t great, so he was fairly challenging in the beginning. He’s great now; he’s brilliant so he hasn’t been delayed by any of that.

Getting a child to eat more healthy food is a challenge for most parents however, the fact that John was taken into care at such a young age ensured that he was less emotionally scarred than his older siblings “A lot of people who foster want cuddly babies,” says Jane. “We said from the beginning that we’re not fussy.”

It is possible to specify the age you would like to foster. Jane and Marie say that the HSE tell you everything up front and want foster carers to be as happy with the placement as possible.

“From the beginning they told us John was in long term care and that he’s never going home,” says Marie. “They tell you from the start whether it’s short or long term although it can change at any time. Sometimes, they might say short-to-medium or medium-to-long. Medium is six months to two years and long is till they’re 18. So they tell you from the beginning, we have this child… age, name, ethnic descent usually, where they came from, a little bit about their history and then if it’s long or short term. They don’t take kids into care lightly.”

“I know people who only foster babies, newborns,” adds Jane “and others who will only foster teenagers, the biggest difficulty the HSE have is with kids eight-plus, because kids under eight may not have as many problems and they’re still young so they’ll bond with you. Eight and above can be a lot more challenging.”

Not that that has stopped Jane and Marie from fostering older children. As well as John, they short-term fostered teenage sisters, and recently a 14 year old girl on medium term.

“People ask if it’s hard to give the children back after caring for them for so long,” says Marie. “But if you know from the start that that’s the case so you can prepare yourself from day one. John is long term, whereas the girls, we knew they’d be going, so we did keep that little bit back.”

The couple are, however, cautious about fostering short-term again, because it’s not just about them anymore, they’re a family now.

“It’s not just our home now it’s John’s, and you can see the effect it had on him when they left. They were here for seven months and suddenly they’re gone. We’re very aware of his feelings.”

The social workers arrange all access,” says Marie. “In some cases, the social workers have to supervise access but with the girls we organised access ourselves. You get sucked into this whole thing where, instead of the kids seeing each other for an hour once every two weeks or whatever, they get used to seeing each other for a whole day once a week. They start taking advantage of that then as well. They might ask one week why they only saw their sister for half a day and you’d have to pull them back a bit and say ‘well hang on a minute, if we left it up to the social workers you’d only see each other for an hour once a fortnight’!”

“You have to be careful of that because the social workers may take advantage of you and let you facilitate,” continues Jane. “They don’t have the resources, that’s a larger issue as well but you have to think of yourself. After seven months of weekend access, the first question I asked when they rang up about the next teenager was ‘what’s the access?’ because I can’t take that anymore.”

“John’s access is right in the middle of the day, so you can’t do anything before because you’re afraid you’ll be late and you can’t do anything after because it’s too late. You also have to facilitate people who aren’t very reliable.

“When he was first taken into care, he didn’t see his mother for a long time and then, all of a sudden, he’s expected to go into a room with just her and a social worker.

At that stage the access worker was picking him up, bringing him to access and then bringing him home again –he actually thought the access worker was his mother! He didn’t know who his mother was anymore.”

When lesbians have children, or talk about having children, one of the issues that arises is “what will the child call you?” for John this resonates more than usual.

“There are huge issues around who he associates as mammy,” says Jane. “He’s more confused now by the fact that he has three. We were fortunate, actually, that our last social worker had worked in adoption, so she was great in terms of things like that. She said to just say the words ‘foster mammy” you know, ‘foster mammy Jane’, ‘foster mammy Marie’. She said we could put whatever words we wanted onto it, just to emphasise to him that he’s with us. She basically said to get him used to hearing the word “fostered”, fostered this and fostered that. That was OK, he accepted that.

“I know someone who fostered a child when she was two, she’s now six or seven, and she calls her foster mother ‘mammy’. Apparently she called her by her name till she went to school and then she started calling her mammy because it was easier than explaining to all her new friends why she called her by her first name.”

“One day,” says Marie. “John was playing down the road and there were other kids out playing with him. They must have been talking about their mammies because he pointed out to Jane and said ‘that’s my mammy there’. They fit in with whatever’s going on around them, they have to – they’re like chameleons, they just fit in.”

Children are fantastic social passports for adults. If you have kids, other parents immediately strike up conversations with you, it’s no different here.

“The neighbours think it’s hilarious. I mean obviously the two ladies up the road aren’t going to have children and suddenly we have two or three. They all think it’s gas, they’re all full of questions. This estate is generally very young with children under 10 or 15 and they’re all very interested. There are a few kids on the road the same age as John, we get invited to everything, we’re very included. Before they wouldn’t even sneeze at us but since we got John and the girls they’re very inclusive. The woman next door used to be very homophobic and now she’s like my new best friend. It’s bizarre, it’s like “you have children, you fit in now”, like she has something in common with me now.”

Becoming a parent is arguably the most challenging and rewarding experience a person can have. When asked what advice they would give to any other gay potential foster carers, Jane and Marie say that you need to think it through, thoroughly.

“I’d say be prepared,” says Jane. “Social workers are initially a bit suspicious of you and your motives – at least that was our experience. They’ll put you through the ringer more than they put straight people through it but, if you’re willing to go through it and go with it, it’s worth it.

The whole course, I found, was about telling us how hard it would be and they were right to do that. It is very hard; your life is ruled by social workers.”

“In the course they do put a lot of emphasis on how frustrating dealing with social services is and you kind of think to yourself sure how hard can it be?” Marie goes on. “You kind of think ‘sure what of it that they have to go visit their parents once a week’ but then it’s so time consuming, it affects everything right down to the grocery shopping. It’s nearly a full time job, especially during the summer; they had summer projects and the like.”

“We wouldn’t change any of it though, the whole experience has made us value what we had as children and see how lucky we were. Things that used to bother us would be considered minor now, there’s so much more out there to think about and it has made us better people I think. Life is for living – go for it.”

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When we met with Jane and Marie in their home recently, the fact that they live a life full of love and warmth was clear. As we talked over a lovely dinner, their three-year-old son, John, wanted full attention and to be honest, he’s so cute and well mannered it’s hard not to give it. We wanted to talk about their ‘different’ family but it was obvious that here was a completely ‘normal’ family – one parent chatting and making tea while the other wrestled to get the child to eat his greens.

Jane and Marie have been together for almost nine years. When they bought their home the biological clock started beeping and, like many couples, they talked about having children. After trying to conceive themselves, they talked about other options.

“Jane’s mother was fostered,” Marie told us “we had thought about it a few times over the years but then saw a poster in the shop down the road one day for an information evening on fostering and we said – well let’s go get a free cup of tea!”

“So we went to that and they told us all about the application process. The team leader, another social worker and a foster carer that had been fostering for years talked to us. They went through everything, told us we had to be Garda cleared, that we would have to be assessed, allowances available and so on.”

They decided to give it a go and started to fill in the copious amounts of forms required by the HSE.

“You need three referees, all they say is that thay have to be someone who knows you, but isn’t family. They don’t have to be professional people so we had my best friend, a friend of Marie’s and someone who knew both of us. Anyone who would have access to the child would have to be Garda cleared. You also have to fill in where you have ever lived in your life, what schools you went to, what colleges, if any; – the whole lot.”

Coming from England, Jane also had to get on to the police across the water. “The fact that I’m English didn’t affect us except I had to get police clearance from the UK. Also, Marie lived in Australia for a year and I lived in Holland for a year so we had to get clearance for the Australian police and the Dutch police. The Australian police were fine, but I don’t speak Dutch so that was kind of hard.”

Once they’d gotten all of that sorted out, all of the t’s crossed and the i’s dotted, the social worker came to visit them.“Then the social worker arranges a first visit and clarifies what they are going to do,” explains Marie. “When we had that talk with her she told us that we were not under an obligation at any time. That at any point in the process we could turn around and say we’ve changed our minds.

“Even when you have children, if your personal circumstances change, you can say, ‘we can’t do this anymore’. Let’s just say your mother becomes infirm and you have to have her come live with you, there’s no obligation on you at any time to carry on doing it.

“So you fill in all the forms and then she comes back to get them and makes sure you’ve filled all the appropriate blanks in and all that and then they do a private interview with each partner separately and then a joint one. Each joint one is on different things like, ‘how would you cope with disabled children?’, ‘how would you cope with behaviourally challenged children?’”

“Most of it is to see if you need support with a child, whom you might get,” adds Jane. “Like if you get a child who has been sexually abused and if you were abused yourself then that’ll effect how you deal with that child. If you have children they interview the children separately to see how they feel about it. We know of people who have been thrown back because their kids didn’t want to do it.”

The HSE is, of course, there to help. They need to ensure that foster carers are prepared for all eventualities, as much as any parent can be. So, Jane and Marie went along with other potential fosterers to complete a course.

“Four evenings and two full days,” describes Marie. “It was all about how to deal with the various kinds of kids that you might get. You know, be it from different ethnic backgrounds, social backgrounds, whatever. Just to try to prepare you”.

“It was very good,” says Jane. “They tell you things like how to protect yourself from allegations of abuse, which is very important”.

Although they were the only gay people on the course, Jane and Marie were treated no differently. Indeed, at no stage in the process did they feel they were marginalised.

“Except by our team leader who sometimes appeared a little prejudiced,” Marie points out. “Like when she first came here, she couldn’t even say the word gay. It was like she’d never come across gay people in her life. Also, the first social worker we had seemed to have a problem at the start, but once she got to know us she was fine. At first though she wouldn’t even drink a glass of water in the house, she sat in the chair like she was ready to bolt” laughs Marie.

There were other subtle differences too. “When you give your application you have to give three referees, theoretically they only talk to one of them,” explained Jane, but two of Marie and Jane’s were spoken to. They also had to ensure any prospective children would have a male role model.

Overall though Jane insists that the social workers were not prejudiced. “They were just trying to cover their backs and ours at the same time. Our social worker always said that she didn’t want us being rejected at the last minute, she wanted everything covered and in the end we were glad because the committee can be quite pedantic and our social worker had done a good job on our application.

After going through the drawn-out process of applying to foster, Jane and Marie were worn out by the bureaucratic nature of the whole thing. It would prove to be more than worth it as there was a young boy who had just celebrated his second birthday in care, and was looking for a loving home.

“Theoretically it can take a few months,” explains Marie.” In our case it took nearly a year. Then you go in front of this Placement Committee who put everything together; you have to give them birth certificates, letters from work, bank statements and lots more. They send all of that off to the placement committee and they have to pass you. Our social worker wanted this to go smoothly because she had John in mind for us, although we didn’t know that at the time.”

The Placement Committee focused on an issue in Jane’s personal assessment which seemed unimportant, thus slowing things down all the more.

“According to mine I was an alcoholic, drug-taking housewife and Marie did the hoovering! I said to them, ‘you have me down as a drug-taking alcoholic’. It was crazy! So the first time the Placement Committee came back they said they had concerns over my drug taking. I explained I hadn’t taken drugs since a spliff six years ago. The second time we passed, because they realised I didn’t actually inject heroin on a daily basis. Then John came to live with us”.

“They did say to John’s mother before he was sent here that we’re gay but they didn’t make a big deal of it and she didn’t have a problem with it. They tried to make an issue of it in court, that John was with a same sex couple, and the judge was an older judge and tried to pick up on it. “He said, “how come I wasn’t told that the child was going to a non-constitutional family?” and all that stuff. But the lawyers of the HSE said that the judge only gets to say if the child is in care or not, it’s the HSE who says who he’s in care with. The judge wanted to see our file and all the rest but they said ‘no way’, that that would set a huge precedent.

“They told us all this because there was a review coming up and they didn’t want us walking into the review not knowing that it had happened. They said they’d go to the high court to fight the judge if they had to. It would’ve had a huge precedence in terms of single parents, sibling fostering, and so on. They were very very supportive, in fairness to them they have been supportive throughout”.

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The second half of this interview will be published shortly

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