My wife and I know we want to have a family.
Huge chunks of 2025 (and 2024 and 2023) have been about trying to get there.
And one of the things which has struck me as we navigate (or muddle) our way through this minefield is the burden of information you’re faced with.
Before I get into it, I want to acknowledge that this isn’t a special challenge only experienced by same-sex couples, nor is it an attempt to diminish the experience of a natural conception journey. It’s just an attempt to tell our story in the hope it helps someone.
So. This burden of information thing.
It began with a fertility assessment called ‘The Female One Stop’, which sounds kind of fun right? Certainly efficient. Vaguely recognisable – isn't that the name of my local corner shop?
In fact, it’s a ‘one-stop-shop' to get answers to lots and lots (and LOTS) of questions you’ve probably never considered about your own body.
Things like: How high are my hormone levels? Are my fallopian tubes blocked? Is my womb as it should be? How many eggs do I have left?
Then there was the question of sperm.
There are several sperm banks you can use, all with varying levels of information about the donor.
For me, it was more or less bad news on all counts. The clinic staff were – of course – diplomatic in how they relayed the information but my mind short-circuited what they said to:
“Sorry luv, but you’re a barren old hag. End of.”
Which left me with a lot to process, not least a sort of low-level grief as I realised there was a part of motherhood I’d probably never get to experience – being pregnant.
Then there was the question of sperm.
There are several sperm banks you can use, all with varying levels of information about the donor.
At one end of the spectrum, you’ve got the bare minimum - basically hair colour, eye colour, ethnicity, height and relevant medical history
At the other end, you’ve got a full profile - childhood photos, sketches of them as an adult, personality tests, written impressions from sperm bank staff, and even audio clips of them being interviewed. It's WILD.
We had to navigate feeling judgemental as we read through family medical histories and decided not to go with one donor who had a lot of poor mental health in his family, leading to multiple suicides.
It was so difficult to know where to start with all this information. What were we trying to achieve with this donor? Is he a proxy for me (brown hair, brown eyes, short-sighted, silly, emotional, funny?) or someone with their own unique traits? And how would we avoid the trap of viewing him as ‘the other parent’?
Then we had to navigate feeling judgemental as we read through family medical histories and decided not to go with one donor who had a lot of poor mental health in his family, leading to multiple suicides.
In some parallel universe, was a straight couple discussing whether or not to have kids because of a history of suicide in their family?
“Darling, I don’t think we should you-know-what tonight, because I haven’t got any condoms, plus there’s all that history of suicide in your family so, y’know... Best leave it, eh?’
We kept flip flopping between the question of whether we were awful for discounting someone versus whether we were just trying to give any child created the best chance of having a happy life.
Every decision felt massive and came with a huge price tag attached. Every decision affected my wife’s body but not mine. Every decision came with some evidence but no real guarantees.
Next up was considering our treatment route and how many extras to go for – should we pay more for ICSI (Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection – where a single sperm is injected into the centre of an egg)? Or embryo glue? Which – if any – of the multiple genetic tests should we go for? Should we freeze any embryos? The list goes on and on.
Every decision felt massive and came with a huge price tag attached. Every decision affected my wife’s body but not mine. Every decision came with some evidence but no real guarantees. It was ambiguity-central.
When the first round didn’t work, we decided we could afford to pay for one more round. (LGBTQIA+ people don't currently get equitable access to NHS funding for IVF so everything has to be self-funded).
So it was back to the drawing board. A drawing board already covered in doodles, graphs, testimonials and data, all of which needed re-assessing.
We tried again.
And this time we got a little further. We had an embryo.
All of a sudden the noise seemed to quieten down. The decision-making stopped. Now it was just about preparing for the embryo to be transferred.
But then the pregnancy test came back and…no pregnancy. Second, third and fourth pregnancy tests all told the same story. It hadn’t worked.
And overnight all of this information we’d been holding in our heads – all the questions and deliberations and mental gymnastics we’d done trying to balance hope with pragmatism about what would be best for a baby – simply weren’t necessary anymore.
It was like driving a tanker truck and then having to turn off at the last minute, abruptly swerving onto a completely new route, adrenaline pumping and with no sat-nav in sight.
That new route we’re heading down is adoption, something we’re gearing up to explore in the new year. And although it will come with a mountain of new information, of new considerations and conversations, we both still think it's worth it because of what we hope we can bring to a child.
So maybe this piece is the first in a series.
In 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026 I thought a lot about…becoming a queer parent.