What Are Gay Coupl’ Optns for Havg Babi?

Contents:

• FOR GAY MEN, HAVG A BLOGIL CHILD N BE PLITED
• GAY PARENTS RAISG KIDS: HOW WILL THEY FARE?
• SCIENTISTS MAY HAVE FALLY UNLOCKED PUZZLE OF WHY PEOPLE ARE GAY
• MORE GAY MEN CHOOSE SURROGACY TO HAVE CHILDREN
• IS YOUR CHILD GAY?

FOR GAY MEN, HAVG A BLOGIL CHILD N BE PLITED

The procs tak about two years and sts around $200, 000 per child - and prospective gay fathers don't meet eligibily creria for most health surance plans' fertily benefs, although this is begng to change. Brent Monsr, MD, recently helped lead a study to document tails of how gay men e assisted reproductive technology to build their fai, cludg qutns such as how many children they wish to have and how often their efforts succeed. As a gay person growg up a nservative environment, this was a challenge I thought about.

Your paper giv historil ntext for how shiftg attus toward LGBTQ fai have changed the climate for gay men who want to bee fathers. There has been a lot of foc the scientific lerature on whether children turn out OK if they have gay parents.

Why is important for the experienc of gay men seekg fertily re to be reflected the scientific lerature? Cisgenr gay men are almost never clud this rearch, so as physicians we don't know anythg about their characteristics as reproductive health patients, even basic rmatn such as their mographics, clil cisn-makg patterns or out. Our paper ed data om one of the very few fertily benef pani that do offer fertily verage to gay men.

GAY PARENTS RAISG KIDS: HOW WILL THEY FARE?

That gave a wdow to a natnal group of 119 cisgenr men, cludg five sgle men and 57 gay upl, who uniquely had fertily benefs. It's important to keep md that our data reflect the experienc of dividuals who n afford reproductive medil re bee their employer-sponsored fertily benefs ver , and that is still an unual suatn for gay men. This data served as the foundatn for a grant applitn we've jt had approved to nduct a much larger populatn study that will give accs to rmatn on about 2, 000 embryo transfers annually gay men.

A lot of people see a fertily doctor bee they have an unrlyg medil issue, whereas gay male upl ually have two possible sperm sourc, a young egg donor and a gtatnal rrier who has already had succsful pregnanci. I thk that, bee of the medil factors, birth rat for gay upl uld serve as a morn standard for evaluatg the succs of IVF labs.

SCIENTISTS MAY HAVE FALLY UNLOCKED PUZZLE OF WHY PEOPLE ARE GAY

We regnize that this may be bee a lot of gay men requt tws or may ultimately want two children, and fertily doctors may be transferrg two embryos to try to save their patients money so they only have to go through the fertily treatment procs once.

But we need to ask: Are we puttg gtatnal rriers at unnecsary risk om tw pregnanci, and puttg gay upl at unnecsary risk of havg babi the NICU? Before I was an OB/GYN, I thought, "This is a health accs issue, and if gay men want tws we should rpect their tonomy. What do add to have physician-scientists like you, who are gay, answerg rearch qutns about this populatn of prospective parents?

MORE GAY MEN CHOOSE SURROGACY TO HAVE CHILDREN

I'm currently a fellow, and I have patients g specifilly to see me, not bee I'm the most amazg doctor but bee I'm gay, and they want a gay doctor. Others may be ncerned that sgle men or gay male upl would have a harr time adoptg jt bee they are men, but this may not be te. “For gay male sgl/upl, we have particularly easier the matchg procs, as there is no other mom 'replacg' the child’s birth mother and often get chosen quicker.

And growg numbers of gay and lbian upl are dog what typil married upl do: settlg down and startg a fay. Gay upl often leave the baby’s geic fatherhood up to chance by mixg their sperm, though some be an egg om one man’s sister and the other man’s sperm for a baby geilly related to both what is volved such reproductn is often illegal or tricky to get hold of. As a rult, some newborns have got stuck as cizens of once all the hurdl have been cleared, homosexual upl may still not atta jot parental rights.

But anywhere else, gays and lbians wh youngsters navigate child-rearg wh only half the rights of their heterosexual neighbours.

IS YOUR CHILD GAY?

But for gay upl who want kids, surrogacy is one of only two optns (the other beg adoptn).

Weltman: Like anyone selectg an egg donor, gay sgl and upl review egg donor databas and look for a young woman who meets certa crieria. Many gay upl sire two children, which se they will create embryos g the same egg donor and the blogy om each of the dads. The days, gay parents are no novelty: We see them strollg through our neighborhoods, participatg our PTA meetgs, and, perhaps most notably, appearg on our TV screens: Mchell and Cam, fathers to Lily, on the ratgs smash Morn Fay; Glee’s Sue Sylvter, expectant mom to a baby nceived wh an as-yet-unrevealed sperm donor, and Rachel’s dads, played wh humor and grace by Jeff Goldblum and Brian Stok.

The Hollywood exampl are important that they’ve helped prent gay parentg as not unlike straight parentg: challengg, joyful, plited, and most of all, entirely normal. Though this media mastreamifitn of gay parentg is a relatively new phenomenon, for s, gay parents have had children all sorts of fay nfiguratns—whether through adoptn, prev heterosexual relatnships, or, creasgly, by choosg to have blogil offsprg g vro, surrogate, and other methods.