Paying it Forward: From One LGBTQ+ Family to Another
By Emma Willms
I’ve known my whole life I wanted to be a mom; in fact, as a kid, when asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I always answered with ‘a mom’.
When I came out as a lesbian at age 18, I was worried about what this meant for my dreams of becoming a mom. I didn’t know any queer families, and there wasn’t a great deal of information about LGBTQ+ families available. The one thing I did know for sure was that it wasn’t going to happen without the help of someone else; I would need the help of a sperm donor.
Early in 2018 my wife, Maeghan, and I began our journey of expanding our family. We enlisted the help of a local fertility clinic and started our search for a sperm donor. Other than a few hiccups with donor supply, finding and selecting a donor wasn’t an overly complicated process. After some tests, and once our sperm arrived at our clinic, we were set to get the baby-making started. On our fourth try we conceived our twins, who turn two this month, June 2021.
Although it didn’t feel like it at the time, looking back I feel so fortunate that our journey into parenthood was so seamless. We got to personally experience the entire journey – the ups and downs – right from the start. I know now that this isn’t always the case for queer families, particularly queer families where neither person is able to carry a child.
Being a lesbian couple, all that stood between us and making a baby was sperm. For gay men, there’s more to it. While they do have the sperm, they’re not only missing the egg, but a womb for their baby to grow in. When I think about this and compare my worries about how I would become a mom to what it must feel like being a gay man hoping to build a family, they feel miniscule.
For most of my adult life I’ve felt a pull to act as a surrogate. This pull only got stronger and stronger the further we got into our journey to become mothers. Our twins, Jackson and Addison, are the lights of our lives. And while they may look like spitting images of my side of the family, and they might never have contact with their donor, we can’t ignore the fact that they would not be here if it weren’t for that donor. That donor gave us our greatest gifts. He helped us fulfill our biggest dream; he made us moms and helped to complete our family. How could we not want to return that gift to another family, particularly another queer family?
Our surrogacy journey has only just begun; but we are buzzing with excitement. I’m not sure there’s a greater gift you can give someone, than the gift of helping them fulfill their dreams. We are so eternally thankful for our sperm donor, and we are honoured to be able to return that gift through surrogacy and help make another gay couple’s dreams of parenthood come true. This is just the beginning, and we cannot wait to see how our journey unfolds!