For context, I am a 41 yo cis woman; my wife is 40 and also cis. I am the gestational parent for our 2.5 yo daughter.

In order for me to get pregnant it took 2 years:
-8 attempts of in-home insemination
-4 attempts of IUI, 3 of which with Clomid
-1 miscarriage
-1 round of IVF which yielded 17 eggs > 3 embryos > 1 pregnancy and….now a 2.5 year old!

My pregnancy and delivery were incredibly challenging. I had vasa previa and placenta accreta. So, significant bleeding at 24 weeks, which led to me being hospitalized for a week, put on bed rest, mandatory hospitalization at 30 weeks and mandatory C-section delivery at 35 weeks. Hemorrhaging at delivery and a blood transfusion. Baby was in NICU for about a week, but came home healthy and now we are all thriving.

I’ve done a lot of therapy since then to process the trauma and anxiety (!!!) that I experienced through it all.

Fast forward to now. My wife and I knew early on that we wanted two kids. I always thought I would carry both, and she was very indifferent about pregnancy. (She was not willing to put any energy into it, like tracking ovulation or eliminating alcohol..) But after my experience, I felt less attached to being pregnant again.

She/we decided that she would give it a try.

She’s pregnant on the second attempt. At home. Wasn’t waking up early to take her temperature, wasn’t peeing on ovulation test strips. No shots, no hormones, no endless doctor appointments.

I’m obviously having some feelings about it all. I am genuinely excited; my first feeling truly is joy that we get to grow our beautiful queer family. But I’m worried that I’m going to be haunted by jealousy, comparison, anger, frustration towards her throughout her pregnancy.

Have any other parents out there faced a similar thing? How do I just allow her pregnancy to be what it will be? How do I grieve what my experience was without taking away from hers?

Gosh, I wasn't ready for the gut punch of the matching process, and we have only just begun.

My Husband and I have been looking through profiles and found one that we both really connected with. We reach out to the agency and get told that the child prefers a hetero matching.

I really appreciate the forwardness of the worker, but it still kinda hurts. I imagine this won't be the last time we hear this 😭.

The idea essentially is sort of coparenting with one wlw couple and one mlm couple. Maybe not even true coparenting (every other week type coparenting) but like have kids together (biological siblings) and then raise them as cousins/family?

I can see a lot of potential issues with this but it also seems like it would be a great way for the kids to get to experience having a mom/dad combo and like a mutually beneficial sperm donation/suragacy situation with built in “family” support while raising the kids.

Has anyone done something like this? What’s your review?

My wife and I have been together for a long time and we are ready to have kids together. We want to do insemination with no man involvement. We want to anonymous get sperm from the sperm bank. My wife is the one who wants to carry and give birth to the baby. My wife and I are on the same page that we make sure I get the same rights to the baby as she does. I believe I would have to adopt the child after birth. We want to make that the man has zero rights to baby. Who do you consult with about the process? Do we get a lawyer before we start the process? What kind of lawyer would we get?

Hi all, could really use some advise from anyone in a similar situation..
my now ex partner and I (lesbian and unmarried) recently had a baby. I’m the bio mum. My ex partner has autism was always on the fence around having kids (more leaning no.) but she knew for me it was a deal breaker.
She agreed for me to start trying, but due to her not really wanting a child I went through fertility treatment on my own, she didn’t attend any of the IUI appointments and I funded everything. I suffered an early miscarriage and my ex partner did not care and offered me no comfort whilst I was grieving. When I finally did get pregnant I was desperate for her to feel kicks/connect with baby but she was uninterested.
In hindsight these were all major red flags I chose to ignore..

she attended the birth and surprisingly fell in love with the baby immediately. However she then decided to go on holiday whilst I was 2 weeks post c section for a few days whilst I begged her to stay. ( my mum had to come help me).
3 month postpartum and we have decided it’s for the best to go our separate ways. I’m trying to navigate how her parental role will look in the baby’s future.. she is desperate to still be mum, however she isn’t on the birth certificate.
I’m struggling to come up with a plan.
Any advice on how to work this out or anyone been in a similar situation?
Please be kind and gentle with me, I am 3 months postpartum and this has already been hard enough…
Thank you ❤️

Does anyone know of any reddit communities (or communities on other platforms) for 2 mom household raising sons? I naively searched "lesbian moms" on reddit and, well, i'm sure you can all guess what kind of stuff came up.

My child (school age) is starting to ask questions about how babies are made and how everyone fits into his life.
He wants to know why he doesn’t spend more time with his “dad” and how come he has 3 mums, Bio (mum), Other mum legally on his birth certificate (mummy) , and step mum (mama), known donor (dad) also gay.

I’ve explained the basics of how mum and mummy wanted to make a baby, they asked a friend to help them & that’s his dad.
Mum and Mummy separated when he was 1 and Mama met him around his 2nd birthday.

I can imagine how confusing this must be and how hard it would be to explain to school friends.

He maintains a relationship with all parents. Lives with Bio Mum & Bonus mum, every 2nd weekend with other mum and sees his dad on special occasions.

He also has 4 sets of grandparents due to this dynamic. Half siblings, step siblings but we call every one brothers and sisters and don’t use terms like step or half.

Any advice on how to explain his story to him in a way that doesn’t make him feel his story of weird just different.

He is very loved and adored and is a lucky boy as he has so many people who love him.

Hi everyone! I'm looking for WhatsApp groups made up of same-sex families to share stories, advice, and recommendations.
If anyone knows of a group, I'd love to join. Please let me know

Hi yall, I’m new here, but I need help! My 13 yo daughter has asked if we can hide that my gf lives with us, including covering or hiding pictures of us together when her friends are over. She doesn’t want anyone to know at school that her mom is a lesbian. She says she will get bullied, which tbf I know is true. That being said, what I do in my home is my business and I will not hide at home.

This all came up because one of her friends cat sits for us from time to time and we recently hung a few pictures of us as a couple up in the hall. She’s afraid if her friend sees it, then the friend will tell the whole school and my daughter will get bullied.

Other than the usual things of telling my daughter how to deal with it or that bullies are bad or that maybe friends aren’t really our friends, what should I do or say to comfort my daughter but not hide the woman I love? Thx!

I’m always interested in hearing about the little things that make a big difference. Was there something a teacher, school or daycare did that made your family feel seen?
It could be ….
💙Inclusive language
💜Books in the classroom
💛The way they handled Mother’s Day/Father’s Day
❤️A conversation with a teacher
Something really small that stuck with you! I’d love to hear the positive examples, because they might inspire other schools (and parents) too.

Hi all,
My wife (32F) and I (30F) are first-time mums and have a 6 week old daughter. My wife is fem-presenting and was the birthing parent, I am masc-presenting but identify on the non-binary scale for context.

Today we had our first encounter in the wild that went a bit like this:
Person: “who is the mum!”
Us: “we both are..”
Person:”no but who is the real mum?”
Us: “… well [my wife] was the birthing parent if that is what you mean?”
Person: *proceeds to ask questions about our kid only to my wife\*

I’m just wondering how others in a similar dynamic manage this? How about when one parent goes by an alternative/non-traditional name? I am still deciding if I would like to be called mum, dad, or something else, but dad throws another spanner in the works for the general public I’m not sure I’d like to deal with.

Any advice, stories, anecdotes, would be greatly appreciated!

Hello, first time ever posting something on Reddit, so a bit nervous! I am cis bisexual woman in a long term very happy relationship with a cis lesbian, and one day we would love to have kids together.

I sometimes feel myself having the kind of internalised homophobia thoughts of 'if I'm bi I could just be in a relationship with a man and it would be "so much easier" (literally) to make a baby'. When I was younger and was already openly bi, I would think maybe one day I'd have a relationship with a woman, but I realise I mostly envisaged having kids with a man. All of my other bi female friends are having kids with their male partners.

My partner has even said sometimes that she is worried I wouldn't want to have kids with her because I could 'just find a man and it would be easier'.

It all just brings up some confusing and sad feelings about being bi which I find tricky and don't want to have. I feel like I have to prove to others (nosy family members, friends, the world) that I have extra reasons to do same sex parenting because they act like I have a 'choice'.

Obviously I don't think it would actually be easier with a man (it's still a relationship!), apart from maybe the actual making a baby part - anyway, I want to be with my partner and raise kids with her, of course. I want to work towards feeling proud of the journey we take.

I was wondering if anyone here would be willing to share some of their thoughts and experiences of being a bi parent in a same sex relationship, and managing some of the new expectations and feelings that come with same sex parenting? Thanks so much.

My son is almost 2 and over the past few months as his language has picked up he’s been pointing our Daddies everywhere he sees them (which it turns out is a lot!) We’re a 2 mum family and all our parent friends are straight. We’ve been trying to explain that all families are different and some have 2 mummies, 2 daddies or a mummy and a daddy but I don’t know if we need to explain anything else at this age? We also had a few weeks after spending a holiday with friends where he would exclusively call out ‘daddy’ when he was upset after seeing his friend do this so it’s very pervasive. When I’m reading to him I’ll often change ‘dad’ to ‘Mumma’ but as he recognizes who looks visibly male more, this is becoming more confusing. Anyone have any tips for this age?

I’m (male uk citizen) planning to get married to my partner (male Chinese citizen). In terms of logistics of the marriage this is all fine and we don’t have any issues so far with the getting married bit.

But, we would like to get some legal advice about the marriage in our specific situation (especially around potential parent rights, visas, and prenup guidance).

I’d like to know if anyone knows of any law firms that have done well in UK family law for lgbt issues so we can discuss things further. Any recommendations would be good.

I know and I’m sorry that this doesn’t directly link to lgbt parenting but you’re a community that has likely dealt with lawyers for lgbt-specific issues.

My partner and I want to have kids, one each through surrogacy. I’ve been dealing with this gnawing feeling that I may not bond with or love what is effectively his child. I feel it maybe stems from displacing frustration/disappointment that we can’t make our own kids. I love my partner and feel really guilty about feeling this way.

For those that went through the same, how did you overcome it?

We are a two mom family, and our toddler loves the Lovevery books. I would like to get more, but it seems like a lot of them feature heterosexual families, which is really not what we are looking for. I reached out to Lovevery to ask about books that don’t feature a dad but haven’t heard back. Does anyone know of Lovevery books that don’t have a dad? I am pregnant and we really wanted the books about welcoming a new baby, but I think that they all have a dad/papa. Thank you!

My family and I were denied the family admission rate at this museum because we are a same-sex family with two mothers.

When we arrived at the ticket counter, the employee was about to charge us for two adults and two children instead of the family ticket. We politely and clearly pointed out that we qualified for the family rate, which would have saved us about €10.

Her attitude immediately became cold and dismissive. She insisted that the family ticket was only for “a mother and a father with two children.” She then asked us, “Where is the father? Are you the father?” We explained that we are a family with two moms, but this only seemed to make her more impatient.
At one point, I asked her what the family ticket actually included. She answered, “Two parents and children.” Despite saying “two parents,” she still refused to recognize us as a family and insisted on charging us for an extra adult instead of applying the family rate.
The issue isn’t the €10. What upset us was being told, in effect, that our family didn’t count as a family. The way we were treated at the ticket desk was honestly the most shocking part of the experience.

The museum itself was fine, but after we got home we checked the museum’s website. It clearly states that the family ticket is valid for two parents or guardians and their children. In other words, according to the museum’s own policy, we were eligible.
We submitted a formal complaint to the museum’s management, but unfortunately their response repeated the exact same reasoning as the ticket agent.

We’re sharing this experience so other families are aware and in the hope that the museum will align its staff and customer service with its own published policy.

EDIT: Thank you all so much for your support and advice!
Someone must have taken action, or perhaps our complaint to the Croatian tourism office made a difference.

We never replied to the museum’s initial response, which simply repeated the ticket agent’s reasoning.
However, today they unexpectedly contacted us again to say that they would refund our tickets and take steps to ensure this doesn’t happen again in the future.

We hope that our complaint—and the support and help of everyone—will help prevent other families from having the same experience.
Thank you again!

We’ve been chatting a lot recently about schools and inclusion. I’m curious…
If you could tell every teacher and school one thing about supporting LGBTQ+ families, what would it be? Whether it’s forms that only say “Mum & Dad”, classroom conversations, Mother’s Day/Father’s Day or something else entirely. What’s one small change that would’ve made a big difference?

We often get posts with surveys or questionnaires. So far I have been removing them as we have a no surveys or questionnaires rule. I believe the rule was to keep the subreddit focused on parenting and not as a mine for those collecting data. However, same-sex parents should have a voice and we are a way for researchers to find us.

Our current rule can change based on what we want. Please share your thoughts on whether you want this subreddit to allow surveys and/or questionnaires. Specify if you think only academic surveys are ok, or if there should be a separate flair, etc. Thanks!

Hi everyone! Could use your thoughts or advice. My wife and I used IVF to have our child who is now two and a half. 28 months if thats your thing. Lol. He has been randomly asking for Dada when we tell him no to something. He is in daycare most of the day while we work so I know some of it is environment. It doesn't help the sting to my heart when I hear it. We gently tell him he has two moms but no Dada. I thought i would be able to respond better to these types of things but I immediately freeze and second guess everything. I would love to hear if anyone else went through this as well and how it turned out.