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Choosing A Fatherless Family

Over the years, breakthroughs in fertility treatments and technologies have made parenthood a reality for thousands of couples. In recent years, too, there has been a substantial rise in the number of women accessing these services that were originally designed for heterosexual couples in order to start fatherless families.

“Twenty years ago, you had to be married to access fertility treatment in Australia,” says Melbourne IVF specialist Dr Lyndon Hale. “Today, there is a greater acceptance regarding the use of sperm donors for single women and lesbian couples.”

Indeed, according to representatives from several Australian fertility clinics, the growing numbers of single women and same-sex couples using fertility treatments is a noticeable trend.

At Melbourne IVF, for example, of the 5000-plus patients who have accessed fertility services since the start of 2010, 10 per cent have been single women and same-sex couples.And at the Fertility First clinic in Hurstville, New South Wales, four per cent of women seeking treatment are single when as recently as ten years ago, there were none.

It’s not an isolated trend, either. Sydney IVF’s medical director, Dr Mark Bowman, sees two to three women a week enquiring about IVF via sperm donation. And at Monash IVF in Victoria, as recently as two years ago a single-woman patient was a rarity – now 43 per cent of women artificially inseminated with donor sperm are single and 39 per cent using a donor for IVF are without male partners.

“Women have a biological clock, but now women have a choice,” says Dr Hale. “Not having a [male] partner no longer means they have to give up their dream of motherhood.”

ACCEPTING SOCIETY
As the incidence of single women and same-sex couples turning to IVF to start families increases, so too does society’s acceptance of the practice – and TV presenter Sami Lukis’s personal investigation into becoming a sole parent is evidence of that. Sami recently completed a documentary series called Sami’s Baby, which aired on pay-TV channel LifeStyle YOU and put ‘DIY mums’ in the spotlight.

“Media exposure has given confidence to women who are financially independent to go it alone,” says Sydney-based psychologist Vera Auerbach, who works with single mothers on a regular basis.

The new breed of non-traditional families – solo mums by choice and same-sex couples opting for donor sperm – have led to a change in attitude. Society in general, if the anecdotal evidence is to be believed, is now a lot more accepting and understanding of the desires of women to start a families without the presence of men in their lives.

CHOOSING A FATHER
The use of donor sperm to start a family still does have a stigma attached. One common misconception is that using donor sperm is about shopping for picture-perfect daddies – however, the experts beg to differ.

“Women are just looking for someone who seems like the best match for their family and are not at all looking for someone with blue eyes or blond hair,” says psychologist Vera. Both Nicky and Bindi say that how their baby looked was last on their priority lists. But what was important was where to find a donor.

“Looking for a donor online was my only option because that meant I could check the sperm medically and physically,” Nicky explains. It was a strange process, she says, admitting she felt that sitting with checklist in hand to choose the father of her child felt a bit like looking for a product at first.

In Bindi's case, choosing a known donor meant they met with him several times and he was part of the process, especially since they were using at-home insemination.

There’s an old adage that says it takes a village to raise a child – something that rings especially true in Nicky and Bindi’s cases, as they are both open to the idea of taking all the help they can get, be it from friends, family or support groups. In fact, Vera says that women in circumstances such as Nicky’s and Bindi’s often go to great lengths to be extraordinary parents.

“I’m so grateful for my son and I had him because I really, really wanted him, so I’ll work harder at being a parent,” says Nicky. “My life is simple and has no emotional dramas. I’m not waiting for my partner to change the baby’s nappy or to take out the garbage. I’m just 100 per cent committed to my child’s wellbeing.”

For the full story on why some mums are choosing to have dad-free families, including more real-life examples, whether kids need dads and long-term effects, pick up a copy of this month’s Practical Parenting, on sale now.


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