In case you’re jumping in at this point: A* and I are a lesbian couple starting a family, therefore getting pregnant is going to take just a bit of extra planning. Initially, we were overwhelmed at the many options and not entirely agreeing on which one to choose. Do we go the way of Bette and Tina and try to find some unsuspecting man at the bar to bring home? Okay, we both agreed that one was a “no”. We looked into adoption years ago, but because of the provincial rules around Caucasians adopting (and some personal circumstances), this isn’t a good fit for us. We have a few wonderful male friends who offered to donate their specimen to help make this magical little creature, and we seriously considered this option for a long time. We talked over the various aspects like the extended family and the “male figure” that the donor could play in the child’s life. In the end, we opted for an unknown donor. Ultimately, the decision came down to the birth certificate and legalities: two females may be named on the birth certificate as parents where we live, but only if the donor is unknown. Any known donor must be listed as the “father”, and whole host of legal issues around custody and child support can arise if the relationship with the donor breaks down. So that settled it: we decided to go through a sperm bank to get the goods, but then what? Was the “turkey baster method” an actual thing? Would we have to touch it?

As each province has their own health care system in Canada, fertility treatments are covered in some provinces but not ours. (It is tax deductible Canada-wide now, however!) Our benefits plan through work is also very good, but does not cover fertility issues either. When we discussed using a known donor, we considered doing IUI treatments (getting a doctor to stick the stuff up there in just the right place on just the right day). Now that we would instead be purchasing each little vial of sperm individually, the prospect of many attempted IUIs to achieve pregnancy loomed large. We read many accounts of other couples trying up to six times with no successes, before ultimately moving on to more expensive IVF treatment anyway. IVF seemed like a more and more solid choice for us. A*’s not exactly a spring chicken (sorry babe), so harvesting a bunch of eggs and fertilizing all of those eggs at once is appealing. Hopefully, we are left with multiple embryos to freeze after the initial transfer. This is really the only viable option for our lifestyle and for our pocket book, especially given that A wants to initiate a re-boot of The Partridge Family.

On the East Coast of Canada there are precisely two fertility clinics. We dove into our research of the two. One is significantly cheaper than the other, although both were said to have long wait times. Neither enjoy a particularly good reputation for keeping their patients in the loop. We placed calls and drafted emails to both of them. We also emailed PrideHealth to see if they had any LGBTQ specific information on family planning or fertility that would be helpful. (PrideHealth is a governmental organization that helps local LGBTQ community members navigate their unique health care needs within the provincial system.) We didn’t get any answers from any of them. A second round of emails landed us a reply from one clinic: the wait list is 8-12 months for an initial appointment (to begin thinking about starting the process). We read about other couples that were on the waiting list/patients at this clinic for over two years without yet completing an IVF cycle.

Worrying ourselves over A*’s age, we decided to look elsewhere still. We read plenty of blogs and listened to podcasts of lesbian couples doing IUI or IVF in the States and had never heard of wait lists nearly that long in any of those cases. Since we’re paying out of pocket anyway, it wouldn’t hurt to check it out. We already determined that we would be taking the entire three weeks off of work for the process. Since we travel for work, we simply cannot do our jobs and be available for multiple clinic appointments at the right time of the cycle.

The costs seemed slightly higher than in Canada, but the excruciatingly painful price tag was on the drugs needed. The drug costs in the USA often exceed the cost of the entire IVF cycle, and may not be covered by your employer’s benefits plan. We decided to broaden our search to clinics outside of the USA, and turned up some very interesting (and affordable) options. We found several options in Europe, only to be shocked that single women and lesbians are prohibited by law from receiving IVF treatment in many parts of the EU (the affordable parts, at least). So we kept searching, and stumbled across some really appealing clinics in Mexico. Not only were the prices right, but the beach sounded like a pretty relaxing way to spend our downtime. I don’t mean to make this sound like a willy-nilly decision that all came down to cost: we did exhaustive research on the procedures offered there; read reviews about the clinics; and joined online forums to ask others about their experiences. Ultimately, we’re confident with the decision to travel for IVF.

We set up the laptop again and emailed a few different clinics that were recommended in different areas of Mexico to get some more information. We gave them the low-down: lesbian couple, IVF using donor sperm, blah, blah, blah,… This time every clinic responded, answering all of our questions and offering to schedule a skype meeting to discuss the choice. Wow! What a difference from the lackadaisical response here at home. Every patient coordinator we encountered was nice and very helpful, but we were sold when the forms from one of the clinics had boxes for “Patient/Partner” instead of the “Mother/Father” boxes we were so used to seeing, and didn’t insist that I fill out forms clearly designed for “the man.” We saw lots of great reviews of this clinic and it seems like a great fit! Even parsing the not-as-positive reviews becomes an exercise in deciding what we can tolerate, what sounds overblown, and what may actually pose a problem. For instance, the clinic of our choice has limited parking available certain times of the day. We live in a congested downtown area and are accustomed to parking several blocks from our intended destination, taking a cab at peak times, or just walking. For someone who lives in a rural area or suburbia this may be unforgivable, but it’s just part of life for us.

I’m sure time will tell what (if any) of the other criticisms are also true, but for now we are on cloud 9 about our choice! T-16 days!!