Cristina and Sabdha
We are a lesbian couple who have been together for over four years, living in our very own house. Cristina works as a midwife, and Sabdha is a public servant. We also have a handsome ginger cat called Calvin, and a slightly water-starved vegetable garden.
Our journey towards starting a family started in different places for each of us. Cristina has wanted to have children for as long as she can remember. Sabdha had always thought that because she was a lesbian she would never have the chance to have children, and so meeting Cristina was a bit of a revelation! It didn’t take long for her to feel as excited and enthusiastic about the idea as Cristina did.
At this stage we plan to have at least two children, but unlike most lesbian couples, we wanted to get pregnant very close together. We’ve received a lot of flak for this, but that’s been good, because it means we have thought about it in every possible permutation, and we still want to do it this way. Of course, fertility can be a tricky thing, and for a long time it looked like this would not be possible.
We decided to use a known donor, an old friend of Sabdha’s who very generously agreed to help us out. It took a while to come to this solution – we went through months of agonising about whether we should use a known donor, or try to access IVF. Neither of us know very many men who we could ask to donate, and so the asking was terrifying – if he’d said no, we would have been pretty stuck.
We started off using the “take-home frozen sperm (known donor) DIY insemination” (phew) option from the Royal Women's Hospital Reproductive Services. We decided to do this so that our donor would be legally registered as a donor, and also so that he and his partner would have the benefit of counselling. We did a lot of talking even before we went to the counselling, so it turned out to be a pretty smooth process. We drew up a comprehensive parenting agreement, and reviewed it at stages along the way – the intention is to keep reviewing it.
The only problem with going through the clinic (apart from the six month sperm quarantine), is that it is a bit expensive, but of course, it is nowhere near as expensive as IVF treatment proper. Cristina started off first, and it was initially an exciting and hopeful time. Month after month went by with no luck and we started to feel very disappointed. At the end of that year, we realized we would probably need higher level, (and much more expensive) medical assistance.
We had already met a lovely doctor through the IVF company and decided that Cristina would go ahead with treatment. Like most people who commence IVF, we hoped that this would be the quick fix we’d been waiting for. Alarmingly, month after month went by with no luck. Physically, the demands of the treatment were not too bad, but emotionally, it was horrific. Friends all around us were getting pregnant so easily and nearly every colleague at work seemed to be pregnant too! The bills were enormous as we started throwing everything we had into making it work. We tried herbs, acupuncture, naturopathy, yoga, massage, vitamins and other potions and finally, towards the end of that horrible year, the lucky 10th embryo decided to stick. It took a quite a while for the distress to settle and to be able to look forward to having a baby, but now we are thrilled.
We had started trying to get Sabdha pregnant concurrently, and although we had to turn to IVF there as well, we were extremely fortunate that she got pregnant on her first IVF cycle. We are now in the very happy position of expecting two babies this year, due four months apart. It is exciting and scary and we know it’ll be hard but we feel so very blessed.
We’ve really only just started the journey to parenthood. It’s a big life change, and the discrimination we face can be disheartening at times. Despite all this, we are excited and enthusiastic about this next big adventure.
