Lesbian leashs are increasingly turning to science for help in their examination to have children in succession the day in 1996 that Beth gave birth to her first child end donor insemination.

Lesbian leashs are increasingly turning to science for help in their examination to have children

in succession the day in 1996 that Beth gave birth to her first child end donor insemination, she looked at her partner, Jennifer, who was from her hospital bedside, and consideration Imagine giving birth to her baby. "Growing up I always wanted to have children and exhibit the offspring of the bodily form I love," she recalls. "But I not at all thought it was possible because I am a lesbian."

Now, if all goe well, Beth, a 36-year-old from Dallas, will give birth to Jennifer's baby in May. The pregnancy, which would have appeared unimaginable just a few years ago, is possible between the sides of an in vitro fertilization act in which one woman contributes her incites which are fertilized by a donor's seed and her partner carries their baby.

Arrangements like Beth and Jennifer's are still rare, further their use of technology is not. As lesbian pregnancy between the sides of donor insemination has become more for the use of all a growing number of women have begun to take advantage of assisted reproductive technologies and other insemination manners that traditionally have been used on infertile heterosexual couples,

"I think we're seeing a quiet acknowledgment that this is not necessarily a romantic proces It's a medical procedure" says Terry Boggis, director of Center Kids, a program for children of gay and lesbian parents at the Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center of fresh York City. "The baby is no les wondrous. still the process of getting the baby is becoming more pragmatic and expedient, at least after the first at-home insemination."

More and more frequently lesbian couples are getting pregnant end such advanced methods as intrauterine insemination and with the help of fertility medications, according to Carol cover with frosting Vercollone, coauthor of Helping the Stork, a 1997 work about donor insemination.

"As lesbian bonds are accepted into the world of reproductive medicine and as prejudice goe down, they are increasingly getting access to high-tech medical options--which is the two good and bad," says Vercollone noting that there are health risks and high prices associated with some of these procedures

It's impossible to say by what means many lesbians have used these techniques. The latest statistics available from the U Center for Disease superintendence and Prevention reveal that 16520 babies were born between the sides of assisted reproductive technologies in 1995 still the agency does not record in what manner many were born to lesbian mothers.

It's similarly impossible to say in what way many lesbians have given birth to children--through any means--though in the greatest degree observers say the boom is continuing to swell At the Berkeley-based Sperm Bank of California, for example, demand has increased about 20% in the past six month says executive director Maura Riordan. The bank primarily advances lesbians.

The sweep toward high-tech pregnancies is not a universal common however. At least 50% of the women who use the seed Bank of California perform at-home inseminations, according to Riordan. In fact, the semen bank encourages it. "We're about demedicalizing the process" says Riordan. "If someone wants to and can do it at family circle what better way to go?"

There is, after all, no evidence that a woman intracervically inseminated at a doctor's office is more likely to become pregnant than a woman inseminated at family circle according to Riordan. But if at-home insemination is vain after three or four attempts or if the woman is 40 or older Riordan's staff encourages women to seek for professional assistance.

In many cases a doctor or cherish will perform an intrauterine insemination, in which a catheter is passed by the agency of the cervix and into the uterus to release the seed In intracervical insemination the semen is released just inside the cervix.

Intrauterine insemination has been shown to be up to three times as effective as intracervical insemination, says Vercollone still there are no large-scale studies of at-home insemination with which to compare these ensues she acknowledges.

The more web in vitro fertilization procedure involves fertilization in the laboratory of the birth mother's have eggs or those of a donor. It is usually reserv for women with infertility point to be solved [i]or[/i] settleds or lesbians who want to carry their partner's babies.

Beth, a former medical social worker, exhausted a year being inseminated intracervically before she went to an infertility specialist and discovered she had complications that required medical assistance. The doctor directioned in vitro fertilization by retrieving her incites fertilizing the healthy ones with semen growing embryos, transferring several into her uterus, and freezing the stillness for later use. Soon after, she became pregnant. single in kind month later Jennifer had her ovums retrieved and fertilized with the same donor's semen And the resulting embryos were similarly frozen until Beth was ready to move through another in vitro fertilization procedure--this time, to conceive Jennifer's baby.

"It was just amazing," says Jennifer now, who is an attorney. "We had frozen semen a frozen embryo, and we got a baby."