By Jo Ford
REPRODUCTIVE MEDICINE HAS COME LEAPS AND BOUNDS. NOT LONG AGO, THE OPTIONS AVAILABLE TO SAME SEX COUPLES WERE LIMITED TO SAY THE LEAST. FAST FORWARD TO PRESENT DAY WHERE AMAZING BIOLOGICAL FEATS ARE NOW ACCOMPLISHED IN LABORATORIES ALL OVER THE WORLD. Jo Ford talks to Balnarring couple Cat Martin and Marissa Egan about their unique story and how they truly are mothers to each other’s babies!
At what stage in your relationship did you first start talking about having children? (Marissa) From memory, I think we used to throw the idea around quite early on, but we didn’t really start talking about it seriously until a couple of years ago. We knew we both wanted kids but we just never felt that we were financially ready. It was a big step in our relationship, so we wanted to be prepared.
Can you explain what the first steps in the process were? (Marissa) We started attending a group called PLP (Prospective Lesbian Parents) to find out about our different options. These meetings were fantastic, and we were able to gather so much information about the huge number of ways in which to go about falling pregnant. I know that sounds rather shifty, but there are a lot of options out there, all with their pros and cons. It was at one of these meetings that we found out about City Fertility in Melbourne and decided to go to a free information session. We intended to go to many other fertility clinic information sessions but once we met Dr David Wilkinson at City Fertility, we were sold! He has been fantastic for us; incredibly knowledgeable but also happy to have a laugh.
Mother’s
PRIDE 54
Peninsula Kids – Summer 2017/18
The next order of business was looking for a donor. We initially looked at the option of getting a friend to donate through the fertility clinic, but it became apparent that this option wasn’t going to work for us when we started having to send legal contracts back and forth. There are a lot of horror stories out there about donors claiming parental rights and where recipients take legal action against donors for finances to do with the child. We wanted everyone to be protected, but it just made the friendship messy. We decided to use an anonymous donor and were given a list of potentials! City Fertility had about 30 donors, which was a huge number compared to the 1 or 2 donors at most other clinics at the time. (Once legislation came in that donor identity could be revealed once the child reached 18-years-old, most donors chose to back out, so we were very thankful for the large number that chose not to.) continued next page.....