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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Another married lesbian with kids here. DW and I spent literally years discussing how we would have children before we got started. We chose to use a known donor - a friend - but we had very specific expectations of his involvement. We are not comfortable with our DS referring to him as "dad" because we are his parents. He is known to DS as "uncle _____" but interestingly, his parents are known to DS as grandma and papa. DS has just turned 4 and hasn't yet put together why he has three sets of grandparents, but this is a conversation we will have before he starts K.

There were a lot of reasons we decided to use a known donor. We didn't want our child to think his biological father was some all powerful, life-giving source that he would never meet. I didn't want that to lead to hard feelings for myself as the non-bio mom. We wanted full access to his health and family history - though many cryobanks do a great job vetting their donors, sometimes there are weird, recessive gene type things that are overlooked. And we did want our child to eventually know his bio father (see reason one listed above).

Additionally, we decided that DW would be the only one to carry. Lots of thought went into this. We also really liked the idea of our children being full bio siblings. We did AI at home while our donor went through the whole process of giving over his sperm to a cryobank. We'd hoped that we wouldn't need any frozen sperm, but trying at home didn't work, so we moved on to IUI. Six IUIs later, nothing. Then we moved into IVF. First IVF cycle gave us our son. Since then DW has had three losses and has been through 9 IVFs. She's currently about 10 weeks with #2. This is all to say - you just never know what's going to happen, even if you make meticulous plans. We never intended to spend as much money as we did, but we have, and we're certainly not wealthy people.

In terms of securing parental rights as the non-bio parent, you'll want to do a second parent adoption which means you'll need a lawyer. We were able to get all of our adoption money back through the adoption tax credit. Our son was born in DC so my name immediately went on his birth certificate. Not sure how that will work in MD (where we live now) but hopefully it'll be the same.

We actively started this process when we were both 28. We're not approaching 35 and the whole thing has been a roller coaster. I would strongly recommend that you start NOW, meaning figure out exactly how you want to do this and start doing your research and saving. We have other lesbian friends who were very lucky - tried at home, got pregnant, easy peazey. We weren't so lucky.

Good luck with whatever you decide![/quote]

Interesting.

So what will you say when your kid realizes Uncle Dave is actually his bio father? "If Dave is my father, then why do you make me call him uncle? Why can't I call him dad?" The fact that Dave's parents are grandma and grandpa make it even more complicated.

How much of a role does the uncle play in the kid's life? If there's a father's event at school, do you send the uncle?

I understand that you and your wife are the FT parents, but why relegate the father to uncle status? I understand why you might do that if he had no interest in playing a role in the kid's life, but I think it's an odd choice if he's at family and school functions, etc. Why not let the kid have a father? [/quote][/quote]

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