Free message credits when you login Christmas and New Year

To celebrate Pride Angel’s 7th Christmas and as a thank you to all our members, we are giving free message credits to all those who login at Christmas and New Year.
How to get your FREE message credits?
Simply log back into Pride Angel or Register if you’re not a member during the Christmas period:


- Login on Christmas day and receive 5 free message credits
- Login on New Year on the 1st January 2016 to receive 5 free message credits
- Or login on Christmas day AND New Year to receive 10 credits!

Your free message credits will be added to your account within 48hrs of you logging in – don’t worry you don’t need to do anything!
It’s also a great idea to update your profile regularly and make sure that all your ‘About you’ details are up to date!
So take advantage and login or register now.
Leave a lasting impression... It’s important to make sure that you are utilising all the tools available to you on the Pride Angel website in order to promote yourself to others.
Here are some quick tips for improving your profile:
- Update your ‘About You’ details: this is your opportunity to talk about your likes, dislikes, your values and interesting facts about you and your life – make sure you fill it in!
- Complete your health questionnaire: this is an important part of a profile for people looking for potential donors, recipients and co-parents. Assure people who are viewing your profile that you have the all clear!
- Add a current photograph: Let people see your face! It’s a common fact that people react to profiles with photographs so to increase your chances of a click through, add a recent photo!

Login and update your profile now.
For all those starting on the path to parenthood, we send our best wishes, and wish you happiness along your journey.
Here’s to a wonderful Christmas and best wishes for the New Year ahead!
Pride Angel
Note: Free message credits will only be added to your account once and only if your account has been verified, regardless of the number of times you log in over this time period. If you do not receive your free message credits by the 4th January, please get in touch.
Article: 24th December 2015 by Pride Angel

NOW CASTING FOR TELEVISION SERIES FEATURING PARENTING PARTNERS

Have you exhausted all possibilities of finding a romantic mate to conceive a child with? Are you currently looking for or are in the middle of partnering with someone to have a baby and simply co­parent? We want to hear your story!
We are currently looking to cast for an upcoming television series that will feature 3 stories including: one single woman, one single man, and an individual who has someone in mind that they’d already like to co­parent with. The series will follow each story as they proceed in a process known as a Parenting Partnership.
Cameras will document the highs and lows of what it actually takes to go through this process; including how each participant exhausted all possibilities of trying to either find someone to have a baby with or conceive a baby, so they decide to find a person with whom they want to simply co­parent with.
We understand how challenging this process may be. We want to help people become the parents they wish to be and be able to provide a modern family unit filled with the love and attention every child deserves.
Location: Nationwide Age Range: 20’s­40’s Payment: TBD Contact: To apply, please send a description of your story along with a recent photo and contact information to casting@celistantwins.com. SUBJECT LINE should read: PARENTING PARTNERSHIP ­ YOUR NAME.

Pride Angel Journey - Extremes

I’ve always been one for extremes: things are black and white, no shades of grey for me. But childhood or parenthood or the place where the two meet is something else.
If you’re looking for opposites, polarisation, antithesis, oxymoron, juxtaposition, then get a small child, or ideally two. You will instantly have enough love, joy and hilarity to last a small village fifty years. Meanwhile any supply you previously had of energy, patience and sanity will immediately vanish without trace.
When they sleep there is the peace of a deserted mountain range, still and reliable and changeless. Until, seconds later they wake with all the noise and chaos of a street market, making imaginative demands like a petulant fairytale king. And then they sleep. And then they wake…
There will be a bountiful supply of mess. Time to clear it up will be measurable in milliseconds. Or in minus hours or minus days…weeks...months…
Because really, the problem is time. If only we could spread this love, joy, hilarity, energy, patience, sanity, sleep, noise, chaos, mess over a lifetime. But what we have is a jumbled few years of extremity and then if we’re careful to preserve them, a lifetime of memories.
Article: by Lindsey, West Yorkshire 10th December 2015

Co-parenting journey - Parenting confidence by the short and curlies

As mentioned in ‘Nine weeks and blooming/ballooning’ the decision to take our three month old to America was obviously a tricky one – would the baby be ok travelling long haul? As it happens, our trip was pretty full on. America is a particular place. Air-con, malls, cars, shops, intimidating food portions, fat people and highways running through the city. Why on earth did I think that was just a stereotype? Combine this realisation with a heat wave, being without my partner for four out of seven days, our trip to the Children’s Hospital and hating Boston, Mummy moi was not a happy bunyana. Boston: B****cks to your paltry ‘history’, give me Europe any day of the week. Ahem…
So spurred on by the online community assuring the ease with which I’d travel with a three month old compared with an 18 month old, not having travelled anywhere with any baby, we packed our newly purchased trunk (big enough for the baby to sleep in if needed – weird criterion for a suitcase but that’s where we’d got to, dib dib). In it I put every item of quite considerable baby gubbins we own, a handful of mummy’s undies and off we went. The breast feeding pillow that by day two I’d decided was the embodiment of my ‘parenting confidence’ even had its own rucksack… Little Miss was an absolute ANGEL on the flight. British Airways were great, fast-tracking us and taking care of us on the flight. My partner’s colleague helped entertain Her Nibs on the daytime flight and through some desperate eye-contact / telepathy she suckled for most of the descent. Phew, big lezzo mummy cried with relief as we stepped off the plane that no mishap or sore ears had occurred. Does the good news end there? Kind of… After a positive start to the holiday with a trip to the baseball, the heatwave and realities of mothering in a foreign, oh and did I mention horrible, city unfolded.
The travel sterilizer failed us big time. It left a residue that I’d refuse and Babes wasn’t having it. The mini-bar + heatwave soured the pumped breastmilk. Oh no. So, like it or lump it we switched from combination feeding to breast only. Thank god Left Breast and Right Breast, two creatures quite different in temperament, were up to it. Heroes, frankly, as any mother’s worst fear is not being able to feed baby. Not that she was very interested in feeding – but I wouldn’t want to feed in extremes of heat / air con either.
Then came the afternoon she vomited bloody mucus. Oh did that strike living fear into Big Brave Travelling Mama. Temporarily becalmed by the level head of my (antithetical) partner and a quick google ‘It’s fine if it only happens once’, I persevered. Baby got through the night. Wishing to please my partner: “Why don’t you go to the aquarium?” we crossed town. Quick nappy change before we went in and lo and behold, clear mucus in her nappy. Already on edge from the vomit, BBTM dashed back across town like a bat out of hell running down old women in shopping malls and mentally composing conversations with airlines, insurance companies and emergency services to GET US HOME. Teary tantrum later (again my other half was calmer about the symptoms) we got to Boston Children’s Hospital.
Little One at this point perks up (to be fair, she never actually seemed off kilter in her behaviour). Attendant Doctor declares in his loudest have-a-nice-day-American: “What’s up, this baby looks like a million bucks??” And, actually, she did. She smiled through her examination, she even smiled having her temperature taken rectally. And there was my resplendently gorgeous, and as it turns out, tough, little girl boggling on the examination table without a care in the world and loving the attention. So with her vitals checked and all-clear our holiday continued.
Still very much on edge, I was thrilled to leave Boston behind in our all-American hire car. As a much needed respite we stayed with family friends next. Baby woke from her car journey to five children all clamouring to be in her face. Again, she smiled and took it in her stride. Most of the visit was spent with our ‘supermom’ friend telling me what a ‘first time mom’ I was being. Fine, I can take it. But it doesn’t exactly take the angst away. Without our little break in a real home (replete with baby weighing scales to reassure me that she was actually getting some milk) I wouldn’t have coped with New York. It did at least, have something about it as a place. A very lucky, wonderful Airbnb apartment made for an almost pleasurable stay; but boy is the Empire State building a scary place at dusk with the world and his dog up there and a baby in a sling. Every disaster scenario under the sun coursed through my mind.
Thoroughly exhausted in every respect we returned on the red eye flight. The lady next to us liked the look of Baby so much I concluded she actually wanted to eat her; still, they were supportive of our parenting needs and I ceased resenting them for booking a bulkhead seat and NOT having a baby. Back in Blighty, met by my dad, the sibilant rasp of whispered discussions betwixt two fraught parents abated; my rubbed raw nerves relaxed as we took in the now temperate climate… Ah home. An hour later my partner was asleep face down on the living room floor, and my heart-rate was almost normal. I glanced at my little travelling Babes, two weeks’ older than when we’d left. Calmly propped up on the sofa like a pig in poo she had her TV face on and was watching the Davis Cup. What a laid back girl she’d been in the face of my meltdown.
I’d fundamentally misconceived the question. It wasn’t a case of ‘would the baby handle the trip’, it was whether I would handle the trip. I hung in there, but boy did it test my mettle. I certainly wouldn’t do it again for America.

Chinese or oriental origin? Can you help by donating eggs to a couple in need?

Dear All,
We are fervently searching for an altruistic egg donor who is willing to be known and contactable when the child reaches 18, or to keep in touch before then, if everyone is happy to. I am Singapore Chinese but we’d be happy to hear from donors of any oriental background, or perhaps South America, Tibet, Himalayas, where people have similar characteristics.
We didn't get married until I was 41 and started trying at 42. We spent much time and savings trying IVF six times with four different clinics, including Array CGH. We also needed ICSI. The last time we tried was in March 2010, when I was 45. This contributed to a toll on our marriage and we had couples counselling that year.
I think some people who suggest adoption rather than egg donation don’t understand the feeling of wanting to physically connect - I was adopted at birth by western parents, so had been brought up missing all the genetic family comparisons. It felt like a twisted blow when I realised I couldn’t have a child of my own to share my character traits with either. At least if we have egg donation my husband’s genes would be there and I’d dearly like to give birth to the child myself rather than use a surrogate.
We have visited all of the stalls at the London Fertility Show but most clinics only use anonymous donors and there are never any oriental ones there. It’s hard for us to sign up to these as we think it better if the child is given the opportunity to know who their biological parent is and what the circumstances are.
There is a demand for oriental egg donors but traditional Chinese do not believe in donating body parts and some donor agencies want endless fees. We went to Thailand and the US to speak to clinics and agents however we found it all very commercial. We’d rather someone donated who really wants to help and doesn’t see it as a regular income; also donating too often may not be good for the donor’s own welfare, although some agencies encourage it.
Life has whizzed by and I’m now fifty, fit and healthy as far as I know but on the edge of time for acceptance into UK clinics. Dear husband is forty-two.
We are praying and hoping there is someone out there who can donate or egg share, where perhaps they need someone to help pay the costs of their own IVF treatment. That could be us? We’d love to speak to you if you feel you can genuinely help. We are registered with the lovely Pride Angel if you’d like to contact us - our photo is also posted there.
Kind regards,

Are you a lesbian mum? Did you egg share with your partner?

ARE YOU A LESBIAN MOTHER?
DID YOU AND YOUR PARTNER CONCEIVE THROUGH IVF?
DID YOU SHARE YOUR EGG WITH YOUR PARTNER, WHO CARRIED YOUR PREGNANCY?
IF YOU CONCEIVED THROUGH INTRA-PARTNER EGG SHARING (ALSO KNOWN AS RECIPROCAL IVF), YOUR CHILD IS OVER THE AGE OF ONE AND YOU ARE WILLING TO SHARE YOUR EXPERIENCES OF BECOMING A MOTHER, I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU!
My name is Laura Bottomley and I am doing this research project as part of my doctorate in Counselling Psychology at City University. It is supervised by Dr Deborah Rafalin, Registered Psychologist and Senior Lecturer (D.Rafalin@city.ac.uk).
Participating in this research will involve meeting with me for approximately 1½ – 2 hours, to share and discuss your experiences of becoming a mother. I hope that sharing your story in a safe and supportive environment will be a positive experience for you, that allows your voice to be heard and you the space to think about and process this important period in your life. I further hope that your willingness to share your experiences will benefit other women who conceive their families in this way, and that this knowledge that you are helping others will be rewarding for you. I hope that through sharing your story and illuminating some of the challenges and joys these women may face, their friends, families and the services and professionals involved during this period will be better informed and therefore better able to support them and meet their needs.
Please know that your participation in the research will be kept confidential and no information that could lead to the identification of any individual will be disclosed in any reports on the research or to any other party.
If you are interested in sharing your story, or would like to find out more, please give me a call/text on 07951 893 443, or email me at: laura.bottomley.1@city.ac.uk
This study has been reviewed by, and received ethics clearance through the City University London Psychology Department Research Ethics Committee, City University London [Ref: PSYETH (P/L) 15/16 04].
If you would like to complain about any aspect of the study, please contact the Secretary to the University’s Senate Research Ethics Committee on 020 7040 3040 or via email: Anna.Ramberg.1@city.ac.uk
Read more about lesbian parenting options at www.prideangel.com

Co-parenting journey - 9 weeks and blooming/ballooning

My not-so-little little girl (the Jewish mum in me swells with pride at the burgeoning double chin and tummy) is doing just fine. So much so that we’re electing to take her to the ‘states on a family trip. Bolstered by the online blog posts claiming that it’s easier to travel with a 2-3 month old than an 18 month old I’m taking heart and going for it – my next blog may mention the results!
My partner and I have agreed I should ‘modify’ my expectations for how much I’ll get to see and do. In our household this means lower them. After all, if I can’t get out of the house until beyond lunchtime in a sweat of stress at home, why should it be any different abroad? I’ve never been the U.S., am a born explorer and used to the freedom of pounding streets and crannies unencumbered. Much as I have now physically achieved lifting the baby, nappy bag, two parts of the heavy pram up three flights of stairs at a time (just one of many rites of passage for any mother worth her salt), it isn’t quite my idea of a fun time so the trip should be an interesting one. I need to realise the extent of my travel restrictions for the next 5 years. Wouldn’t a routine help? The mere word sends shivers down the spine…..
Much as my little sweetheart is a very good baby by all accounts, let’s be clear: showering, brushing my teeth and getting fully dressed in a day is still a victory. From 6-8 weeks the likes of Gina Ford start carping about routines and structure for the baby. My partner is all for this. But it falls down at the point of being me, 24/7 Mummy, who has to deliver it.
One fateful Monday my partner worked from home to oversee our first attempt at a routine. More implied than overt we both knew it wouldn’t happen left to me alone. One hour to feed and change, one to play and a 1.5 hour nap from waking. Not so hard, huh? Of course Little Beans had other ideas and not only did it fail but it took with it the previous few days’ of almost-routine behaviour, taking us on a completely new trajectory of hourly waking from 4am onwards. Most unforeseen.
By 7am I was comatose and my partner chucked her at my nipple in bed so she could go to work; I blocked out the pain of the resulting shallow bed-latch position with sleep. So, turnips to routines! Though I admit we could have tried it for more than 24 hours and would be happy to hear from people who have got it to work (and how!). Wearing a wristwatch might help but frankly, but it just ain’t me.
Along the rocky road of early parenthood we’ve often disagreed. This is no surprise - we’re behaving exactly to ‘type’ (of which we are opposites) and it can get frustrating. The bottom line is that when she does cry we both get stressed. And with that stress comes blame. And that word again, routine. It just won’t go away.
Talking to the other NCT girls’ their partners defer to them as ‘the birth mummy’, taking full account of every hormone and thought of cataclysm that intractably joins birth mummy and baby. It makes for more harmonious households by the sounds of things – certainly much less DISCUSSION at every juncture. “How much bottle shall we give her?”, “How many layers should she wear?”, “She’s too hot”, “No, she’s hungry!” No such luck in a single sex household. How many lesbians does it take to change a lightbulb? God, please, not two!
Anecdotally and unsurprisingly, our girl wears a lot of baby blue. In fact she bloomin’ well rocks pale grey and pale blue. Lucky she is secure in her gender identity as her main wardrobe is cast-offs from her older future boyfriend (platonic – we’re not casting aspersions on her sexuality as yet – does four gay parents increase the likelihood of her being a lesbian? Let’s hope so! Heheh…) who at 10 weeks old has hit 8kg / 17lb and exceeded 99.6 percentile. Good work my man, they’ll be re-drawing the scales with all the large baby boys coming into this world of late. And well done my cute as a button little 25th percentile sweetheart.
Article: Two excited mums 28th October 2015

Pride Angel Journey - Newspaper cuttings

October 18, 2015 18:41 by PrideAngelAdmin

Every couple of months we pile into the car and land two hours later (or up to four hours depending on the number of potty, nappy, milky, lost toy, food, unstuck sun-blind, sick stops required) at my parents’ house for a few nights. While the children settle in by strewing around the house handfuls of 1970’s/80’s toys, revived from a third-of-a-century hibernation in the loft, I unpack the case and leaf through the dozen or so newspaper cuttings my mum has left for me on the bedside table. An advertisement for chewable toothbrushes for babies, a piece from the local paper about a girl I went to school with…and an article from The Telegraph earlier this year entitled: ‘Is it time to question the ethics of donor conception’. (Of course for some this would be a fairly clear message about their parents’ feelings on donor conception – I, though, simply saw this as a matter of my mum seeing the phrase ‘donor conception’ and automatically reaching for her scissors).
Well, I’ll be honest, it wasn’t an encouraging read, especially since the negative views stressed were those of donor-conceived children of the past forty years or so. And it made me realise that no matter how hard we try to provide opportunities, role models, how hard we try to get it right, there may still come a day when, for example, we need to listen with love and acknowledgement and acceptance to the remonstrances of a furious or miserable adolescent who wants a dad.
But if any part of me starts to question the ethics of our decision to use donor conception, I just need to look at these two beautiful children – beautiful people and remember that outside of donor conception, they couldn’t exist. They are, as we all are, part of that tiny number, those lucky few, that one in a million and something chance of a particular egg and sperm meeting because chance just happened to mean that both were in a certain place at a certain time while some number stretching to infinity tells of the sperm/egg combinations that did never, can never, will never occur. And as the even more unlikely combination of a lesbian woman’s egg and a heterosexual man’s sperm, a lesbian woman and heterosexual man whose lives in no way overlapped until Pride Angel, chance must surely be on their side...
Article: by Lindsey, West Yorkshire 18th October 2015

Woman's Facebook rant about Fertility gets shared by 40,000 people

Emily Bingham has received praise from many young women after a Facebook post she wrote about women and fertility became wildly popular.
The freelance writer, based in Michigan, America, made the point that phttps://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3857675866110314515#editor/src=dashboardeople should stop incessantly asking fertility-aged women when they are having children.
The post was shared nearly 40,000 times, with scores of women applauding her for what she said. She shared an ultrasound image she found on the internet, and wrote a long post about fertility expectations.
It said: "Hey everyone!!! Now that I got your attention with this RANDOM ULTRASOUND PHOTO I grabbed from a Google image search, this is just a friendly P.S.A. that people's reproductive and procreative plans and decisions are none of your business. NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS.
"Before you ask the young married couple that has been together for seemingly forever when they are finally gonna start a family ... before you ask the parents of an only-child toddler when a Little Brother or Little Sister will be in the works ... before you ask a single 30-something if/when s/he plans on having children because, you know, clock's ticking ... just stop. Please stop.
"You don't know who is struggling with infertility or grieving a miscarriage or dealing with health issues. You don't know who is having relationship problems or is under a lot of stress or the timing just isn't right. You don't know who is on the fence about having kids or having more kids. You don't know who has decided it's not for them right now, or not for them ever.
"You don't know how your seemingly innocent question might cause someone grief, pain, stress or frustration. Sure, for some people those questions may not cause any fraught feelings -- but I can tell you, from my own experiences and hearing about many friends' experiences -- it more than likely does.
"Bottom line: Whether you are a wanna-be grandparent or a well-intentioned friend or family member or a nosy neighbor, it's absolutely none of your business. Ask someone what they're excited about right now. Ask them what the best part of their day was.
"If a person wants to let you in on something as personal as their plans to have or not have children, they will tell you. If you're curious, just sit back and wait and let them do so by their own choosing, if and when they are ready."
She clarified in a further comment that the rant was inspired in part by a friend of hers, who struggled for a year with fertility treatment to get pregnant, and then was asked a mere month after her child was born, when 'baby number two' was coming.
Women really liked the post, leaving positive comments. Seraphina Maria commented: "I love you so much. People asking me about my child bearing plans drives me up a tree. Be they my parents or PERFECT STRANGERS, because that happens all too often."
Lindsay VanHulle wrote: "Can I like this a million times?"
This follows Kim Catrell's speech on Women's Hour, where she questioned the term 'childless'. “The ‘less’ in childless,” she argued, “sounds like you’re ‘less’ [of a woman] because you haven’t got a child.” She argued that there is too much of a pressure on women to have children.
Article: 28th September 2015 www.telegraph.co.uk
Read more about Fertility and finding a sperm donor at www.prideangel.com

Pride Angel Journey - Wearing Pink Pyjamas

In the 70’s when I grew up my mum tells me that for purchasing baby and toddler clothes, there was only really Mothercare. I guess they sold dresses and stuff, but when I look back at old family albums, for the most part I seem to be pottering around (with my pageboy hairstyle) wearing brown or blue dungarees. And when you flick ahead, there he is, my brother wearing the very same clothes two years later.
Now, however, Everywhere sells baby and toddler clothes. And Everywhere is well aware that if you polarise them by gender, as long as enough people have both a boy AND a girl, you can sell double the quantity. Same as for toys.
So it’s pastel with a heavy smattering of pink frills – flowers, butterflies and Peppa Pig. Or primary colours with diggers, tractors, and Thomas the Tank Engine.
Now, within weeks of Luna’s birth we quickly realised he speed at which clothes are outgrown. And whilst after the first year or so, the outgrowing panic settles a little as they stop growing ten centimetres every time you turn your head, having ‘one of each’ wasn’t going to stop us getting a bit more wear out of those clothes.
So Willow wears Luna’s pink sleepsuits, pink inflatable swimming costume and the odd floral t-shirt when the digger ones are in the wash.
It’s not just the money and waste though. Luna’s puddle suit and wellies have lorries and concrete mixers on – her current obsession. ‘Boys’’ dungarees can be more practical for exploring the garden. But a dress is handy when you’re potty learning…
Nevertheless, the pink sleepsuits in particular haven’t gone unnoticed by one or two male family members. I’m not immune to ‘what people think’ and I’m sure as our children get older, they won’t be either. And I understand that people have concerns about lesbian mummies raising boys (for some reason raising girls seems to be less of an issue). It’s true that we do need to take responsibility for making sure that in years to come, Willow knows how to be a man, and I’m aware that as he grows older we need to think about how we can put him in the path of suitable male role models: there is much to being a man, and I know little of it. But I’m fairly sure it has very little to do with the colour of your pyjamas, pink or otherwise.
Article: by Lindsey, West Yorkshire 14th September 2015

Are couples being conned into IVF fertility treatment?

Fertility pioneer ROBERT WINSTON delivers a devastating attack that will send shockwaves through the health service
• Professor Robert Winston has worked in fertility for 40 years
• Says many couples are being exploited by a grasping, unethical industry
• He believes that the government and NHS are not doing enough to help
Babies are noisy, deprive you of sleep, destroy free time and are extremely expensive. Yet we feel like melting when we see them: their wide, gummy smiles, the adorable way they curl their tiny fingers around your thumb. This is not rational - it's in our genes. The urge to reproduce is burnt into human consciousness. It is innate, instinctual, essentially programmed through evolution.
But what if you are infertile? I have spent nearly 40 years talking and listening to people devastated by their lack of offspring, believing they are not 'proper' women or not 'proper' men. We have made considerable strides in fertility treatment. But the sad fact is that more and more infertile couples are being exploited by an increasingly grasping industry that frequently ignores ethical standards. And neither the Government nor the NHS are doing nearly enough to help.
It is not only some doctors who are responsible. Many commercial practices, run by people who have little or no professional training, are offering homespun treatments that simply do not work.
As a doctor who has been so closely involved with fertility treatment, I deeply regret that in vitro fertilisation (IVF) has become so commercial. I had thought practitioners would be sensitive enough to realise that they were dealing with people at their most fragile.
Such is my anger that I felt compelled to write a book. It will no doubt be very unpopular with some of my colleagues because it is critical of so much medical practice. But my aim is purely to help people to ask their doctors the right questions and to understand the treatment they are offered.
I am proud that Britain led the way in pioneering IVF. But it has become immensely profitable - and the truth about its success rates is frequently hidden. Each IVF treatment is, on average, only successful in under one-third of cases. Of course, it can be repeated - at great cost, often with much anxiety. But people are led to believe that it is the only treatment available to them - and the most successful. This is utterly wrong.
There is excellent evidence that more than half of those referred to IVF could be treated as or more successfully by far cheaper alternatives. If you went to your doctor complaining of chest pain and were immediately referred for open-heart surgery without proper investigation you would think: 'What a dreadful doctor!' That pain might be due to indigestion, chest disease, a sore rib, or a viral infection.
But now the chances are that if you complain of infertility, you will be referred straight to an IVF clinic - where there may be no proper attempt at making a diagnosis.
To fail to find the cause of any symptom is bad, irresponsible medicine. Each cause of infertility - and there are many - may need a different course of action. IVF most frequently fails when the underlying cause is not first established.
The NHS is much to blame. So often, it does not take infertility seriously. The guidelines for treatment are laughable. As soon as possible, patients are shunted into the private sector.
Then there is the cost: unquestionably, IVF should not cost nearly as much as what is commonly charged - anywhere up to £5,000. Even NHS hospitals frequently make a profit that goes to support other services.
Read more ...

Join us at Manchester Pride this Weekend

Join us at this years Manchester Pride, for celebrations in Manchester's world famous Gay Village as we mark the 25th anniversary of charity fundraising events celebrating LGBT life in Manchester.* From full Big Weekend Tickets and Day Tickets to Children's Tickets and Platinum Passes, there's a ticket with your name all over it!
There's a fanastic line up this year, with Texas performing Friday evening, Alesha Dixon and DJ Fresh on Saturday, Danni Minogue and Atomic Kitten on Sunday and Union J on Monday, along with many more fantastic performers.
The Pride Parade will set off at 1pm on the Saturday. The theme for this year is 'Devotion.' Manchester is a city devoted to embracing and celebrating diversity, especially the LGBT communities that have helped shaped Manchester's cultural heritage and landscape over the centuries. We want people to celebrate the fact that Manchester is proud of its LGBT history and shares in its future. We want people to shout about who or what they are 'Devoted to...' For example 'I'm Devoted to my wife or girlfriend,' 'Manchester is devoted to showing its support to its LGBT community,' whoever or whatever you're devoted to - the Manchester Pride Parade is the perfect platform to show your 'Devotion!'
The Expo provides you with the opportunity to get up-close and personal with visitors to Manchester Pride. Situated in the in-door arena this hugely popular community space gives exhibitors the chance to showcase their organisation, spend face-to face time with visitors, promote goods or services and carry out consultations.
The expo is ideal for local community groups, public sector organisations and commercial businesses, and is open over The Big Weekend from Saturday - Monday between 11:00am and 5:00pm.
Why not visit Pride Angel at the Expo to chat over your parenting options.

Donor conceived need to find the truth about their sperm donor's identity

Sperm donation is a topic that makes some people uncomfortable. For me, any qualms about discussing sperm vanished when I began producing a documentary about donor-conceived adults for the ABC. Sperm became a constant topic of conversation as we tried to unpack why in the past, sperm donation was anonymous and shrouded in secrecy.
In making our film Sperm Donors Anonymous we are hoping to reach the thousands of men who donated sperm anonymously and say: please watch these stories of children conceived with anonymous sperm. Many are growing into adults, finding out the truth about their conception, and many would like to know about their biological fathers. They have a right to know.
Laws need to be passed in Australia giving them this right. It’s time to put an end to the secrecy and the lack of openness that has surrounded donor-conception. Anonymity is a flawed process causing distress and grief for children, parents and sperm donors themselves.
When we started our project, director Lucy Paplinska and I made contact with sperm donors and donor-conceived adults through the Victorian Assisted Reproductive Treatment Authority (Varta).
We met Michael Griffiths, 40, a musical theatre performer who, at 28, found out by accident that he was donor-conceived when he read it in his mother’s unpublished autobiography. This revelation had a profound impact on him, causing a great deal of soul searching. Unfortunately, Michael was conceived in South Australia where many donor records were deliberately destroyed, but he was determined to discover his donor’s identity to complete the picture of his own identity.
At a group meeting in Melbourne, we met Ian Smith, a donor from the Madmen (Melbourne Anonymous Donors). Ian spoke about how he felt for the seven children he had fathered but never met. He and other donors at the meeting revealed a side to this story we hadn’t heard before. Here were guys who donated sperm more than 30 years ago, who at the time of donating thought little about “offspring”. But now they were open to contact, and in doing so, were supporting the donor-conceived people they knew who were fighting for the right to identifying information about their donor.
Lucy and I often asked ourselves what the fertility doctors who used anonymous sperm for almost 40 years were thinking. But it is estimated that the majority of the 60,000 donor-conceived people in Australia don’t know they are donor-conceived. Their parents haven’t told them, the clinics won’t tell them, and it’s not recorded on their birth certificates.
The clinics, in order to get on with the business of creating babies for infertile couples, made a decision in the 1970s that anonymous sperm donation was the only way society could deal with this new fertility treatment. This plan works as long as children don’t find out they are donor-conceived, and parents can shoulder the burden of keeping their secret.
Ross Hunter, who we also met in Melbourne, found out he was donor conceived at age 33. He wants to find his donor but his conception records are still to be located and his donor is not on a voluntary register or DNA database. Along with a group of other donor conceived folk, Ross started a campaign called RUDC? (Are you donor conceived?), encouraging children to ask their parents this question. But encouraging kids to ask also means encouraging parents to tell the truth. Parents are more likely to do this if they think their children will be able to find their donor.
The research to date isn’t conclusive on how many donors are open to contact. However it’s clear from our research that many donors are open to contact. We were fortunate two of our participants located their donors during filming and both were open to contact.
We followed Michael Griffiths as he returned to Adelaide looking for information about his donor. One donor came forward after reading a newspaper article but wanted to remain anonymous to Michael until a DNA test could prove paternity. A few weeks later, I went to visit the donor to ask if he would participate in our documentary.
I discovered he donated as a student. Seeing Michael’s face in a newspaper sent a jolt through him and he became determined to find out about the children he had fathered. He rang and emailed everyone he could think of – clinics, government, doctors. He showed me the file he kept tracking the correspondence; it was huge.
Here was a man coming to terms with the fact that he had children out there. He was willing to do a DNA test and go on a register, but no organisation in South Australia would facilitate a test, or give him information. When he told me his family was very musical (Michael is a singer and pianist), it was hard to hold back the tears. I could see clearly that the power of biological connection was going both ways, it wasn’t just the children who had a need to know.
Victorian clinics like Monash IVF now write to donors when requested by their biological children, as they have kept identity profiles. Some donors reject contact, and when they do, the clinic cannot give the children any identifying information. This rejection is painful. I know that making contact and handing over identifying information isn’t what anonymous donors signed up for, but there are real children out there.
I stayed in contact with the anonymous donor in Adelaide, and through the process of his DNA test with Michael. While waiting for the results of the test, he was on tenterhooks. He said he felt like an expectant father waiting for the birth of a child.
Article: 17th August 2015 www.theguardian.com

Liverpool in the UK needs to recruit more sperm donors

Liverpool’s sperm bank is running dry due to a drought of willing donors.
Rule changes mean men who donate sperm can no longer hide their identities and are not paid. This has “decimated” the number of willing volunteers, according to Prof Charles Kingsland, founder of the Hewitt Fertility Centre in Liverpool Women’s Hospital.
Prof Kingsland said there is a growing need for sperm donors, but around another 200 men need to sign up in Liverpool for fertility experts to keep pace with demand. Prof Kingsland said: “The law changed so that a child has a right to know their genetic parent and donors cannot be paid for their service.
“Unsurprisingly, that decimated our sperm donation programme. It had a devastating impact. “Who is going to donate if you do not get paid and you are not allowed to remain anonymous?”
The law changed in 2006 to allow children fathered by sperm donors to track down their biological dad once they turn 18. The number of donors coming forward has fallen steadily ever since.
Prof Kingsland, a professor of reproductive medicine and a consultant gynaecologist, said: “The whole process has become much more difficult, but the demand has not gone away.
“We are now seeing more people importing sperm from overseas. The sperm donation capital is Denmark. “They have a whole industry over there because the laws covering anonymity are different and donors can be paid more money.”
The Hewitt Fertility Centre is now appealing for more donors to come forward. Prof Kingsland said: “We need healthy Liverpudlian males who may wish to consider this to help people who are in a position where they need sperm donation.
“We have the Hewitt Fertility Centre here in our city, a huge internationally renowned service, but we just can’t get the number of donors.”
He continued: “Liverpudlians are legendarily generous and if anywhere should suffer from a shortage of donors, it shouldn’t be here.”
The shortage of donors places massive mental strain on the families desperate to start a family. Prof Kingsland said: “Not being able to find a donor takes a big psychological toll. “The rules now mean waiting times are inevitably protracted and demand far outstrips supply.”
The primary recipients of donor sperm are heterosexual couples suffering from male infertility, lesbian couples and single women.
When straight couples opt to use a sperm donor, rigorous testing is carried out to find a donor with similar physical characteristics to the male partner.
Donors must also be rigorously screened for diseases, genetic defects and other health problems to ensure the children are born as healthy as possible.
Article: 15th August 2015 www.liverpoolecho.co.uk

Pride Angel Journey - Books and Daddies

August 10, 2015 22:36 by PrideAngelAdmin

I walked into the living room to find my parents reading an old book of mine to two-year-old Luna. There was an awkwardness in the atmosphere. It turned out they’d panicked at the appearance of the main character’s ‘daddy’, but explained they’d managed to handle it by saying it was ‘grandad’. Phew! Still, much as Luna is very clear about what being part of an LGBT family means (looking at the page of ‘Dads’ in the Ahlbergs’ the Baby’s Catalogue: “Does Luna have a Daddy?”, “no, two mummies.”) it would be nice to see our own family structure reflected a little more frequently.
Of course there are some excellent LGBT books for toddlers available: in Newman and Thompson’s Mommy, Mama and Me, the mummies are uncannily like Sal and me in the mothering roles they adopt and Luna is clearly convinced that the story was written about her little life. But you don’t just walk into any old high street book shop and find those books. Not in my experience anyway. Not yet.
In the meantime, we might just have to make a few subtle alterations to some of the stories we already read and have Little Red Riding Hood rescued from the wolf’s belly by the woodcutter the sperm donor and Goldilocks tasting the porridge of Mummy Bear, Mama Bear and Baby Bear.
And if a daddy crops up again somewhere? Well, maybe he’ll be with his boyfriend...
Article: by Lindsey, West Yorkshire 10th August 2015

Study shows casual sex may improve a man's sperm count

Men who have sex with new partners will produce better quality sperm, scientists believe. A study has shown that sperm health is improved when men have encounters with unfamiliar women. And researchers at The College of Wooster in Ohio hope their findings will help to improve treatments for fertility Quantity, movement and structure all aid sperm health.
Writing in the journal Evolutionary Psychological Science, researchers said they believe these traits may change for the better, with new sexual partners. 'Our findings are the first to demonstrate that men's ejaculate behaviour and composition change in response to novel female stimulus,' the team led by Paul Joseph said.
The study involved 21 participants, all heterosexual men aged between 18 and 23 years old. The men each provided seven ejaculate samples over the course of 15 days.
Those recruited to take part were only enrolled if they had no history of sexual dysfunction, no conditions affecting testicular health and no sexually transmitted infections. In addition, they were not taking any medication and didn't smoke.
Researchers used clips from sexually explicit films, involving one actor and one actress. Each participant watched the clips in the same private room at roughly the same time of day every 48 to 72 hours. The clips were three minutes long and were played on repeat until a man ejaculated.
Six film clips featured the same man and woman but differed in the sexual acts performed. Meanwhile a seventh clip featured the same man while the female differed distinctly, with different facial and body features, hair colour and tattoos.
Each man was asked to record the time he started watching the film clips, and when he ejaculated. Researchers then analysed the men's samples, to ascertain sperm health. The authors wrote: 'In our study, men produced higher quality ejaculates when exposed to novel, rather than familiar women.
'Additionally, men ejaculated more quickly when viewing a new woman after being exposed to the same woman repeatedly.' They said their findings suggest that men 'preferentially invest more' into new sexual situations with unfamiliar partners.
The study's authors said one reason for producing 'better' sperm with a new partner is down to sperm competition and an evolutionary desire to secure an heir.
'An increase in the total number of motile sperm may result in higher likelihood of fertilisation and greater ability to compete with other male’s sperm, whereas a decrease in the time to ejaculation may decrease the likelihood of an extra-pair copulation (with a partner that is not your own) being detected,' they wrote.
They added the results could have an impact on fertility treatments, warning male infertility could be being under-diagnosed. This is because 'ejaculate samples used to test for infertility are often collected with the use of images depicting women other than the man’s partner', the researchers said.
'Our results have important implications for understanding selective pressures on male reproductive patterns, the plasticity of ejaculate allocation, and diagnosis and treatment in the context of male fertility,' they added.
They suggest that further studies would be beneficial to help assist medical professionals in devising improved strategies for male infertility diagnosis.
Article: 4th August 2015 www.dailymail.co.uk

'How to Prevent Problems with your Sperm Donor'

So you have made the decision to find your own sperm donor or maybe you already have someone who is willing to donate? but maybe you are worried about whether you are making the right decision or just want to prevent things going wrong?

In this blog I am going to talk about the main areas which people have concerns and about what you can do to minimise the risk of anything going wrong?

The first is finding the right donor?

There is a right donor out there for everyone, this is because we all want different things. So firstly identify what is really important to you? is it eye colour, height, intelligence, good looks? or is a good personality more important? are you wanting contact with your donor? or maybe you don't want the donor to stay in touch. The important thing is to prioritise what really matters to you. Don't forget the more exact your requirements are, the harder it may be and the longer it may take, so be flexible.

So when you find your donor and start communicating, be honest with them from the outset. The donor is helping you, so it's only fair that you talk with them about your expectations. If it doesn't feel right, be upfront, move on and find someone else.

What health screening/genetic tests do I need?

Protecting your health from infectious disease is so important. There are three main options either take your donor to a fertility clinic and they will do all the tests or ask the donor to go to their doctors or thirdly a sexual health clinic and get the checks done there. Make sure you personally see the results and check their ID - don't ever just take their word for it.

Ask your donor questions about his health and his family's. If there are any concerns over genetics conditions take the donor to a fertility clinic for genetic tests or approach a private genetic testing clinic.

Should I use home insemination or go to a clinic?

Whether you get treatment at a clinic or use home insemination is a personal choice. Many people wish to conceive using home insemination as it has the advantages of using fresh sperm, being a relaxed environment and its cheaper! However there can be legal considerations depending on your personal situation and the law in your country. Taking a donor to a clinic for treatment is going to be the safest and will protect your rights especially if you are a single woman. If a single woman conceives at home, the donor would be classed as the legal father. In the UK married couples or lesbian couples in civil partnerships can conceive using a donor at home and still be the legal parents but its best to check your rights first.

Should I be paying my donor?

In the UK it is illegal to ask for payment for sperm, but it is reasonable for them to request expenses. Expenses include travel, hotel accommodation and time out of work. If a donor asks for a large amount of money BEWARE!

Many donors will donate for free, but there is a positive side to paying expenses - that it clearly shows that the donor was purely acting as a donor not as a potential co-parent.

Where do I stand legally?

The law in the UK has become much clearer in recent years. If you take a donor to a clinic they will not be the legal parent of your child. If you conceive at home, it depends on your situation, are you single or married or in a civil partnership? Its best to get legal advice to be on the safe side and get something in writing. Legal Sperm donor agreements can prevent future conflicts, so spending several hundred pounds or dollars now, can help prevent costly court cases further down the line.

Should I maintain contact with my donor? 

Studies have shown that donor conceived children often want to know more about their donor, so having information about your donor and contact details is important. However whether you maintain regular contact between your donor and child is a personal decision and often depends on how you get on with your donor and the wishes of your child as they grow up. To prevent problems its best to be clear and honest with your donor about your expectations from the onset.

For example, if you want your donor to be an uncle type figure seeing your child twice a year, make sure that it is clearly communicated that you don't want him to be 'dad' and that you don't expect him to 'contribute financially'

Giving mixed messages about how you see your donor's role in your child's life is one of the biggest ways of creating future conflicts! so prevent problems by talking openly.

Read more about getting a legal sperm donor agreement.

Read 'Top 10 reasons for using a private sperm donor'

Read 'Choosing a private sperm donor, is it the right decision' or start your search of thousands of sperm donors for free

Thousands expected for Brighton's 25th Annual Pride Event 1st August 15

Some 160,000 people are expected to line the streets of Brighton and Hove for the 25th annual Pride event later, the organisers have said.
The parade, including dance troupes, drag queens and campaigning groups and other organisations such as Sussex Police, will start at Hove Lawns.
The colourful procession, starting at about 11:00 BST, will arrive in Preston Park a couple of hours later. Road closures will affect bus routes and other traffic in the area. In previous years, the parade has set off from Madeira Drive.
The LGBT parade, on the theme of Carnival of Diversity, will make its way from Hove Lawns, along King's Road before joining the previous route of West Street, North Street and London Road. Paul Kemp, the director of Pride Brighton, said: "It's a celebration and it brings in a lot of people from all over the world.
"Economically, it's very good for the city and brings in £3.5m. "Behind the celebrations it highlights LGBT campaigns all over the world. There's a long way to go globally to bring about equality." On Thursday, six people were injured in a stabbing at the Gay Pride parade in Jerusalem.
Peter Kyle, MP for Hove and Portslade said: "Pride is many things to many people. There are people who are straight who have got families who go along to celebrate the diversity of our city."
Brighton DJ Fatboy Slim will be playing in the Wild Fruit dance tent in Preston Park, and the cabaret tent will be hosted by Lola Lasagne.
Other acts appearing include The Human League, Ruby Rose and Ella Henderson.
Article: 1st August 2015 www.bbc.co.uk
Wanting to be a parent? come and speak to Pride Angel at Brighton Pride

Testimonial from a new Dad 'Thank you Pride Angel'

Dear Pride Angel,
I have been wanting to write for a long time but finally I have taken the time to do it. Thanks to this website I am now a dad. Ethan was born 17 July 2014. He lives with his two amazing mums Jane and Sarah. I can't believe how lucky we are. We feel so blessed! Legally they are the parents and Ethan is very lucky having the two best mums in the world! Ethan will always know that I am the dad and will call me dad. I think it's important for all children to know where they come from. That was what I wanted from the day I posted my initial profile here on Pride Angel and I was lucky to find Jane and Sarah who wanted the same as me.
I did find another couple on Pride Angel before Jane and Sarah and we tried 11 times to get pregnant but it didn't work out. It was a hard decision to tell them I didn't think it would work. I almost gave up becoming a dad but my paternal instincts were so strong so I tried to find another lesbian couple through Pride Angel. I couldn't believe my luck when I heard from Sarah and Jane- that lived just 10 minutes walk away! We met up many times, we had to build a lot of trust and shared our values and lives. After a while Jane and Sarah trusted me, and I trusted them that they wouldn't cut me off after Ethan was born. I think we tried the artificial insemination at their home 4 times before Ethan was conceived. The following 9 months felt like 9 years, we were so excited.
Realizing I was gay at 15 years old, I never thought I was going to be a dad. So to see Sarah pregnant knowing that another human being was inside her, with half of my DNA felt both amazing and surreal. Towards the end I truly realized the magnitude of what Jane, Sarah and I had done- creating a child! Many thoughts went through my head, were we selfish putting this child into a world that wasn't 'normal'? Was our child going to be bullied? Were we playing God creating babies artificially? Now looking back all those questions seem silly but right there and then, that was what I thought about. When I saw the photo of a new born Ethan and the happy face of his two mums, I felt a sense of piece, my life felt so accomplished. This was what I wanted for such a long time; to help a lesbian couple having a family and somehow passing on my own legacy. It's hard to explain with words how happy I was. Ethan is the most amazing little kid I have ever met, he's so sociable and confident. It shows what an amazing job Jane and Sarah are doing, they give him so much love. Ethan is also surrounded by their amazing family and friends making him feel even more loved.
I see Ethan about every two to three weeks, sometimes more, sometimes less. But only when it feels natural for all of us. There's no pressure. Jane and Sarah have become my two soul mates, they know everything about me. I sometimes come and tell them all my love or family problems and they always listen, they are amazing people. I'm so lucky. And I guess they are lucky too but foremost, Ethan is lucky to come in to this world with so much love. And if it wasn't for your website, he wouldn't be here today. So a huge thank you from Jane, Sarah, Ethan and I.
Kind regards, Andrew
PS. The first couple that I met through Pride Angel was in the end also lucky to have a baby called Jude. They had to do it a bit more complicated with the help of a clinic, they took an egg from one of the mums and planted it into the other mum that didn't have any eggs. A friend of theirs is the donor. So they also had a happy ending and we are all so grateful for each other. maybe one day Ethan and Jake can play together.

Donor conceived man wants to change his birth certificate

An Adelaide man, who was conceived with anonymous donor sperm, believes the "donor-conceived community is perhaps the last group of disenfranchised people" after a court ruled he cannot change his birth certificate.
Damien Adams, 40, who wanted to have his father's name changed to "unknown" on his birth certificate, said the laws preventing the change were discriminatory and should be reviewed.
Mr Adams does not know who his biological father is and wants his birth certificate to be as honest as possible.
"So it wasn't just for me, it was also for my children and my descendants. So if anybody ever conducted genealogy in the future, that they wouldn't be led down the wrong path," Mr Adams said.
"So it's not about anything untoward, my dad who raised me who I love very much; it's just a matter of having something that is truthful and accurate."
Earlier this year a magistrate ruled she did not have the authority to make the change.
"I don't obviously hold anything against the magistrate; she can only do what she's entitled to do by law, but I find that it's highly discriminatory that everybody else in South Australian society is allowed to rebut paternity except donor conceived people."
The problem is a law in South Australia deems the husband of a woman who received the treatment as the legal father.
Mr Adams has conceded he has limited options left open to pursue the case.
"One is that I can try and appeal and take my case to a higher court, to see if they have the power to do what I am seeking. Although that is obviously going to be very cost prohibitive. Or the only other option is to try and seek a change in the legislation.
"I think that law is very anachronistic; it's part of the bygone era.
"When it was originally set up so that the man who was the husband of the wife or the partner couldn't shirk any responsibilities later on if he decided he didn't want anything to do with the child.
"But particularly as an adult myself of 40 years of age, there is none of that sort of welfare issue to be dealt with.
"It's a matter of not hiding or concealing the truth, because at the moment we basically enshrined deception into the law."
Mr Adams said governments needed to be doing more to address the problem.
Read more...
'This begs the question whether there should be a change in the law, to allow the ability to add the sperm donor or egg donor details as well as legal parents details. Or in the case of co-parenting, the ability to add three legal parents to the birth certificate, for example the two mums along with the biological father?' Pride Angel

Co-parenting journey: Our beautiful baby arrives

Parenthood is… an all-consuming love-filled black hole of the life you once had
So I’ve crawled out from under my eventual baby for five minutes. And I’ve managed to do it without leaving my boob in her mouth so the respite won’t last long. I sit here with tense hunched shoulders waiting for her hunger cry as my partner stands guard over our sleeping babe. The less said about my labour the better. Suffice to say it did involve most of the interventions that modern medicine has to offer as my little sweatheart’s hands were up by her head making passage into this world a little challenging. We all got through it in one piece and she is a very healthy little girl, still with her hands stubbornly up by her head most of the time and boy is she strong.
I have formed many views about the treatment of pregnant and post-natal women and believe me, they are extreme. In a nutshell it is all rather barbaric at times and I can’t believe that any other group of people requiring medical attention due to a known condition would be expected to put up with so much pain, a smattering of avoidable mistakes and then be sent home still anaemic, mildly incontinent, unable to sit down or go to the toilet and with the scantest set of instructions. Follow up midwife visits have proved a lifeline but at one out of the three home visits I was meant to get, I am one of the lucky ones in my area. After that I was asked to travel two miles to a children’s centre and I’m sure it was that bus that gave my poor baby her first cold at a delicate two weeks old.
On the plus side the dedication, knowledge, experience and support of the midwives has been really touching. And guess what, they even seem to CARE!!?? Every midwife we had contact with throughout the entire journey came to visit once she was born. The Maternity Day Unit was a godsend and haven during our days of post-due date waiting. It was the one place we could turn whilst drifting on paper between the GP you rarely see and the nameless consultant in charge of your pregnancy that you’ve never even seen. The super-gentle cervical sweeps administered by those amazing midwives made it possible to avoid induction and I’ll be eternally grateful for that. They never made me feel like I shouldn’t be there asking for help and they went above and beyond the call of duty to care for me and for the baby in the way that I wanted. Even the Birthcentre midwife that sent us away with no pain relief and then made us ‘wait another hour’ throughout my night of contractions came to say hi and I realised, in a strange way, that she was trying to do us a favour.
Now our daughter is four weeks old she is really blossoming into an alert, thoughtful and determined mini-me. We’re starting to get something back after the initial weeks of feeding anxiety, general anxiety, endless nappies and loss of our former lives – oh, to go to the pub on a warm summer’s day for a care free pint – those were the days! To any would-be or expectant parents: do make the most of your remaining independence I’ve been stuck in the same armchair watching more Come Dine with Me and Homes Under the Hammer then I’d ever care for even in my wildest ‘duvet day’ fantasies of my former working life.
She listens when we sing to her; she spends periods of the day awake and looking round entertaining herself but NOT CRYING (OMG!); she looks up and smiles at us from the apocalyptic and multi-coloured scene of her changing station; she notices changes in light from room to room and from inside to out; she pulls through for us at the eleventh hour and does that poo/feed/sleep just at the right moment to enable us to get to an appointment or occasional social engagement; and she gives off an air of superiority and intelligence in the company of the legions of baby boys born at the same time as her (8/2 in our antenatal class alone – a pattern repeated across the south east from what I’ve heard!).* *Heh heh, not so unusual, women have been doing this since time immemorial I think it is the feminine ‘je ne sais quoi’ that we all know and love – I knew I wanted a girl!
The post-natal hormones are quite something; I’d like to say I’ve laughed and cried but it’s mostly been tears. And I mean proper meltdowns. Arguments with parents and partner, crying sessions in public over whether to attempt to eat in a restaurant or not – by now you may be able to taste the anxiety-tang, ‘what am I going to do if she wakes up screaming and disturbs the whole restaurant?’. Maternal angst by the bucket load: She’s been asleep for hours, do you think she’s ok? Vs. Omg she won’t sleep…! She won’t breastfeed properly vs. ‘can you just give her a bottle, my nipples hurt.’
Most of all, my partner and I have spent the last four weeks falling in love with our daughter. This is really the crux of it. The why, wherefore, what and how. It isn’t so easy for some mums and it doesn’t always come naturally but we’ve been incredibly blessed with the most wonderful, beautiful being who we’ve been able to get to know her and nurture even through the tough times. We’re a little team now. And just thinking about it in a sustained way makes me cry with joy (and maternal angst). It’s like having your heart in the vice-like grip of her little hand…
But darn it, my time’s up, I hear her summoning cry.

Lucy Spraggan at L Fest 17-20th July 2015 Uttoxeter

Lucy Spraggan who shot to fame on X Factor in 2013, will be headlining this year's L Fest festival.
L Fest is taking place this weekend 17-20th July 2015 - It's the UK's multi award winning lesbian festival with music, arts, comedy, workshops, cinema, sports and so much more...
L Fest is the multi award winning Lesbian Music, Arts and Comedy Festival. It is widely recognised as being the "number one" Lesbian festival in the UK and is now in it's fifth year. With a host of acts and activities to suit all tastes it has grown year on year.
L Fest has developed with passion and drive of Festival Director Cindy Edwards. Back in 2010 Cindy was running an event she co organised, Stanstock 7's women's football tournament for 400 women. She saw the amazing atmosphere she had helped to create at Stanstock and started L Fest; that back then was "a multi sports weekend for women who liked women"!
L Fest grew and grew as Cindy met more people wanting to get involved and believed in L Fest in the same way she did. Even before the first festival L Fest had grown from a multi sports event to a music, arts and comedy festival with its own cinema as SpringOut, The Rainbow Film Festival, Laughing Cows Comedy and many other individuals brought in their valuable contributions to the festival. Cindy is the only full time member of staff, helped by volunteers who are vital to programming different areas of the festival.
L Fest also has many stalls, and Pride Angel are pleased to be attending this year.

Voluntary Register for parent-to-parent and ‘sibling’-to-‘sibling’ contact and for donors willing to be identified

As a parent, have you ever wished for contact with parents who have used the same donor? Or for your children to grow up knowing their half-siblings? As a donor, do you have any interest in contact with the parents of the children conceived with your sperm or eggs? If so, please read on..........
Currently if a sperm, egg or embryo donor donates through a licensed UK clinic, then their details and those of any children conceived together with the details of the parents planning to raise that child are automatically kept on a national register by the HFEA (Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority). The only problem is that no-one can access identifiable information from that register except the ‘child’ and then not until they are 18. If the conception takes place outside of a UK licensed clinic, whether in the UK or overseas, then currently there is no official way of maintaining these details or making these details accessible to families with younger children.
Well, I’ve been meeting for some time with a group of people to try and get a Voluntary Register off the ground here in the UK. It will be hosted by the Donor Conception Network (DCN) but run separately. It will be open to both DCN members and non members and will operate to strict confidentiality rules. The group are still working on the technical details, but it is clear that there will need to be a charge for the service – perhaps a joining fee, an annual registration fee and/or a lifetime membership fee.
The group would be really interested to hear your views and suggestions. Would you be interested in registering? If so would you be prepared to pay for the service and if so what sort of amount and should it be annual, lifetime or...? What do you think the register’s key features should be? What are the pros and cons? I’d really like to hear your feedback, so contact Erika at info@prideangel.com and don’t forget to say what your involvement with donor conception is......
Article: 14th July 2015 by Pride Angel

Australia - Is the law failing children of anonymous donors?

July 11, 2015 20:28 by PrideAngelAdmin

Something happened over the weekend in Melbourne which has never happened anywhere before in the world. This is the future come home to roost. For decades, medicine has created miracle babies, while pretending that biology doesn't matter. The time for that pretence is over. Now it's time for the truth. On Saturday, donor conceived offspring gathered from all around Australia – and some came from overseas – for the country's first National Conference for Donor Conceived People. (We call ourselves 'DC', which is a less socially awkward shorthand for 'people conceived using donor sperm or a donated egg'.) It's the first time in the world that such a gathering has been organised by DC people themselves. You know what that says? The experiment has grown up. Forty years after this industry really got going, we're no longer just donor conceived children. We are donor conceived children, teens, and adults, some with children of our own. Just like adoptees, we want to know who our biological families are, and what our medical history is. We want to know whose genes we have. We have a right to it.
This desire to know the truth shouldn't threaten anyone. We love the people who raised us. They are also our families, and for many of us, they are the most important families we will ever have. But it's utter nonsense to say that donor conceived people have a finite amount of love to give. Finding out you have a lost half-sister doesn't mean you love your other sisters less. And I've been told I could have up to 20 half-sisters to find.
I'm one of the many Australian donor conceived people created under an anonymous donation regime. Anonymous donation has now been outlawed in my state of NSW – but that only happened in 2010. At a national level, there are no laws regulating donor conception at all, and half the states and territories have no laws either. It's estimated that there are around 60,000 donor conceived people in Australia today. No one knows for sure.
Not all donor conceived people want to find their families straight away. Some may need counselling through the process. (Believe me, while living such a distressing mess, DC people already act as counsellors for each other.) Some may prefer written contact to start with. Some may only want family medical history. But the point is that, like adoptees, all DC people have a right to identity. We have the right to know who our family is, whether we choose to make contact or not.
We had no say in the circumstances of our conception, but governments, doctors, nurses and businesses did. They decided, without us, that we were not allowed to know our family. But our biological families are ours by birthright. That should, and must, be respected in law.
Article: www.dailylife.com.au 30th June 2015

NHS national sperm bank recruits just five sperm donors

The first NHS sperm bank was set up last year in Birmingham to help recruit sperm donors and help with the national shortage. Unfortunately it has emerged that only five donors have passed the screening process since October last year.
Despite being inundated with calls when the NHS-funded was first set up, strict profiling and medical screening procedures mean that only around one in 20 potential donors are eventually accepted.
Demand for fertility treatment with donated sperm is rising steadily in the UK but fertility experts say a shortage of donors is particularly acute in the Muslim community and other ethnic and religious groups.
Birmingham was chosen as the site for the unit because of central location and large population as well as its diverse ethnic make-up. More than 100 men have been screened as possible donors but so far only about five have been cleared, according to leading figures.
Dr Sue Avery, Director of the Birmingham Women's Fertility Centre, who helped found the National Sperm Bank, said: “We have to see and screen an awful lot of people to ultimately recruit one donor.
“One of the of the bits of the learning curve we are going through is to make sure that what we are now doing is to look at more targeted publicity rather than a broad spectrum.”
She explained that many initial contacts are screened out because of personal factors including age and medical history before tests are run for genetic predisposition to certain conditions.
Even then only those with a significantly higher sperm count than average are deemed eligible because of the need to dilute the sample for freezing, which kills off some of the sperm.
“If you think about all of those hurdles then we get relatively few that we can move on to the donation process at the end of it,” she said She explained that the shortage of donors is felt most acutely among some minority groups including the Asian and Muslim communities. “People want sperm donors from the same cultural background and particularly the same religious background,” she said.
“We have a difficulty where we have people from a religious background where the religious teaching – depending on which teaching you accept – suggests that being a sperm donor or having donated sperm is outside of the religion.
“And yet these people still need donor sperm and often are under cultural pressure to have children.” But despite the challenges, the clinic's founder, Dr Laura Witjens said last week that she hoped the centre will have “solved the national crisis” within the next three to five years.
Dr Avery added: “I think we hope to achieve a situation where everyone here in the UK who wants donor sperm will have access to an appropriate donor.
“So there is an existing donor bank here, we are looking to add to that and by targeting recruitment try to relieve the situation of inequality where people from different backgrounds have greater or less difficulty.”
Article: 7th July 2015 Pride Angel

Pride Angel Journey - Milkies

It started when she was eighteen hours old. And ended when she was thirty hours old: a twelve-hour milky marathon. When I say it was just the start of things to come, I don’t mean it was often as extreme as that, but rather, Luna was always very keen for her milk – breastmilk that is – she never took to a bottle, even of expressed. In those early days when she woke or fussed and fretted, it was all about working out what she wanted…and we worked out gradually that all she really wanted was ‘milky’. So, feeling lucky with our smooth start to breastfeeding and a baby who wanted little else, I settled down with a book while she fed for hours and hours and hours…
Luna is two now – almost 26 months. She’s fast asleep next to me as I type; half an hour ago, I fed her to sleep. In place of the breasts I once had, I have ‘milkies’: the left one is (apparently) green and the right one purple. And these are some of the most common phrases I hear: “Milkies, want milkies.” “Two out. Get two out.” “Change sides. Want other side. Best turn around.”
It seems unthinkable that she will ever want to stop breastfeeding, which is a perturbing thought – but also, of course, not true; friends with older children assure me that it will just gradually not be her favourite thing any more, and then just not be her thing at all, by which point of course she might be around three or four years old.
So what is the huge advantage lesbian parents have over heterosexual parents? An extra pair of breasts and thus, potentially, a second lactating parent. Of course lactation isn’t essential for parenthood at all…but it is a very handy tool if you happen to have it.
It didn’t go down well with the nurse at my local GP practice last week when, asked how old the baby I as breastfeeding was, I answered, “well there’s my two-year-old and also my twelve-month-old – the biological child of my partner.” I’m not sure whether she disapproved of the LGBT family, the extended breastfeeding, or the combination. I don’t really care. I’m just glad that when one of our babies is a bit sleepy, or sad…or thirsty…or just wants mummy cuddles, there’s always plenty of milky to go around.
Article: by Lindsey, West Yorkshire 3rd July 2015
Read more Lesbian parenting blogs at www.prideangel.com

http://blogs.prideangel.com/post/2015/06/Gay-marriage-legal-across-all-US-states.aspx

The US Supreme Court has ruled that same-sex marriage is a legal right across the United States. It means the 14 states with bans on same-sex marriage will no longer be able to enforce them.
Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote that the plaintiffs asked "for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right." The ruling brings to an end more than a decade of bitter legal battles. Same-sex couples in several affected states including Georgia, Michigan, Ohio and Texas rushed to wed on Friday.
However officials in other states, including Mississippi and Louisiana, said marriages had to wait until procedural issues were addressed.
President Barack Obama said the ruling was a "victory for America". "When all Americans are treated as equal, we are all more free " he said.
However, Christian conservatives condemned the decision. Former Arkansas governor and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee called it "an out-of-control act of unconstitutional, judicial tyranny".
And Kellie Fiedorek, a lawyer for an anti-gay marriage advocacy group, said the decision "ignored the voices of thousands of Americans".
Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas, a state where marriages licences will now be issued to same-sex couples, said the justices "have imposed on the entire country their personal views on an issue that the Constitution and the Court's previous decisions reserve to the people of the states".
Loud cheers erupted outside the court after the ruling was announced, and there were tears, hugs, and cheers of "USA USA USA!".
A sea of rainbow flags overwhelmed the few anti-gay marriage activists who reacted in disbelief, and the demonstration seemed to turn into a street party.
Read more ...

Routes to Parenthood Fertility Show - Sunday 7th June 2015

Thinking about your parenting and fertility options? then why not visit the 'Routes to Parenthhood' Fertility show in Manchester - Sunday 7th June 2015 10am till 5pm.
The show will be held at Old Trafford Football club, where their ‘goal’ is to provide local communities with the opportunity to get as much information as possible about starting a family via alternative methods. If you have encountered infertility, or are looking at different ways to become a parent, our show is the place to be.
You will be able to speak to exhibitors and listen to seminars about different options such as fostering, IVF, and sperm donation. Pride Angel the leading connection website for finding sperm donors, egg donors and co-parents worldwide are pleased to be exhibiting, so why not pay them a visit at their exhibition stand.

Choosing a private sperm donor, is it the right decision?

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So you have come to the decision that you are not going to meet Mr Right any time soon, or in the case of lesbian couples you have already met Mrs Right and you really want to start a family.

Is a fertility clinic right for you...

What are your options you may ask? A fertility clinic seems to be the right option but something is niggling inside of you saying 'do I really have to pay thousands of pounds or dollars to get a child of my own?' 'do I want to pick a sperm donor from a long list just based on eye colour or haircolour' 'what if I met him and I didn't even like him' or 'I really don't like the idea of spreading my legs in a fertility clinic!' or if you are in a lesbian couple you may have talked about 'wanting the conception to be a joint loving experience' .

Finding a sperm donor through the internet...

Well you are certainly not alone in having these thoughts, as many more people are turning to the internet and sperm donor websites to find their ideal genetic material for their future child. Leading connection website Pride Angel now has been than 36,000 members registered worldwide. So the web is certainly giving options to people, which they never previously had.

Are private sperm donors safe...

The concern many people have is that of how finding your own donor works and ultimately is it safe? We are often bomarded by the media about how bad and dangerous it is to find a donor from a website. With messages being given to us about 'sperm donors only being interested in sex' and 'prolific sperm donors having hundreds of children' or 'sperm donors carrying sexually transmitted diseases and genetic disorders' These negative messages breed fear and lead us running back to the safety net of regulated fertility clinics.

There are benefits to choosing your own donor ...

So are these fears justified or is it just media hype. The truth is that there is always an element of risk in every choice we make, but armed with this knowledge it is possible to benefit from all advantages of finding your own donor and at the same time limit the possibility of anything going wrong. So what are the main benefits of finding your own donor and how can you keep yourself and your future child safe at the same time? Firstly finding a donor through a website puts you in control of picking the characteristics and personality traits of your donor and 50% genetics of your child. It means that you can keep in contact if you choose, and your child can get to know more about them before they reach age 18. If you prefer not to stay in touch, at least you have more info to tell your child as and when they ask questions. It means you can use fresh sperm (better chance of getting pregnant) and be flexible with your donor and fit around your fertility window. With the added benefit that it may certainly save you a packet of money which you can spend on your child instead.

Read more about how you can keep yourself safe and prevent problems with your donor. 'How to Prevent problems with your sperm donor'.

or read 'Top 10 reasons for using a private sperm donor'

or start your search of thousands of sperm donors for free

Top 8 factors which affect Sperm Count

One in six couples now have difficulty conceiving, with a low sperm count or poor sperm quality the cause in about 20 per cent of cases Up to a fifth of young men find themselves with a low sperm count, which is defined as having fewer than 15 million sperm per millilitre of semen. If you wear tight Y-fronts, sprinkle plenty of soy sauce on your noodles, and rest your laptop on your crotch? You could be unwittingly lowering your sperm count, a new study warns. From sunscreen to abstinence, and bacon to cycling, studies have shown a myriad of things which lower sperm count. A new infographic by Superdrug, compiled using several medical studies, reveals what to avoid to keep semen sprightly... The graphic shows what people perceive lowers sperm count, the top answers being radiation, narcotics, and stress. It also shows, the factors that actually do lower sperm count, including hot weather, being overweight and too much exercise Here are the top 8 factors which reduce sperm count: 1) Tight underwear Wearing snug underwear causes the testes to become too hot. In one study, men who wore tight underwear for 120 days saw a 100 per cent reduction in their sperm count 2) Being overweight Those with a Body Mass Index (BMI) of over 24 can have a 22 per cent decline in sperm count, and those with a BMI of over 35 are 19 times more likely to experience low sperm count 3) Smoking Smoking cigarettes can harm DNA, prompting sperm mutations. Drinking alcohol also lessens sperm count and concentration and lowers the percentage of normal sperm 4) PFCs in plastic containers Non-stick pans and takeaway wrappers contain PFC's (perfluorochemicals) which have been shown to cause a reduction in normal sperm. 5) Chemicals in Suncreen Chemicals found in sunscreen can reduce sperm count by 33 per cent. One chemical, octinoxate alters hormone levels, and oxybenzine slows sperm production 6) Chemicals in plastic bottles Plastic bottles and the lining of food cans contain bisphenol A. High concentrations of this chemical affect sperm motility - its ability to move spontaneously and actively 7) Smoking marijuana Smoking marijuana affects the size and shape of sperm and therefore inhibits sperm function. Experts advise not smoking the drug when trying to conceive 8) Radiation from mobile phones Studies show the heat and radiation that emanates from mobile phones can reduce sperm motility by 8.1 per cent, lowering fertility Check your sperm count using the Fertilcount Sperm Test

Choosing a private sperm donor, is it the right decision?

So you have come to the decision that you are not going to meet Mr Right any time soon, or in the case of lesbian couples you have already met Mrs Right and you really want to start a family. Is a fertility clinic right for you... What are your options you may ask? A fertility clinic seems to be the right option but something is niggling inside of you saying 'do I really have to pay thousands of pounds or dollars to get a child of my own?' 'do I want to pick a sperm donor from a long list just based on eye colour or haircolour' 'what if I met him and I didn't even like him' or 'I really don't like the idea of spreading my legs in a fertility clinic!' or if you are in a lesbian couple you may have talked about 'wanting the conception to be a joint loving experience'. Finding a sperm donor through the internet... Well you are certainly not alone in having these thoughts, as many more people are turning to the internet and sperm donor websites to find their ideal genetic material for their future child. Leading connection website Pride Angel now has been than 36,000 members registered worldwide. So the web is certainly giving options to people, which they never previously had. Are private sperm donors safe... The concern many people have is that of how finding your own donor works and ultimately is it safe? We are often bomarded by the media about how bad and dangerous it is to find a donor from a website. With messages being given to us about 'sperm donors only being interested in sex' and 'prolific sperm donors having hundreds of children' or 'sperm donors carrying sexually transmitted diseases and genetic disorders' These negative messages breed fear and lead us running back to the safety net of regulated fertility clinics. Benefits to choosing your own donor ... So are these fears justified or is it just media hype. The truth is that there is always an element of risk in every choice we make, but armed with this knowledge it is possible to benefit from all advantages of finding your own donor and at the same time limit the possibility of anything going wrong. So what are the main benefits of finding your own donor and how can you keep yourself and your future child safe at the same time? Firstly finding a donor through a website puts you in control of picking the characteristics and personality traits of your donor and 50% genetics of your child. It means that you can keep in contact if you choose, and your child can get to know more about them before they reach age 18. If you prefer not to stay in touch, at least you have more info to tell your child as and when they ask questions. It means you can use fresh sperm (better chance of getting pregnant) and be flexible with your donor and fit around your fertility window. With the added benefit that it may certainly save you a packet of money which you can spend on your child instead. Read more about how you can help minimise the risks of using a private sperm donor by getting health screening and legal advice. Start your search of thousands of sperm donors for free now Article: 20th May 2015 www.prideangel.com

Pride Angel Journey - The Car

“Milkies! MILKIES!” “We can’t while we’re in the car, Luna – we’ll be home soon for Milkies.” “MILKIES!” [sob] “Sorry my little one, not yet.” But there was a time not so long ago when I would have performed car-seat breastfeeding acrobatics. Back then refusing ‘milky’ wasn’t an option. Now, at almost two she’s disappointed, but there’s potential for moving the conversation on, for a while at least. “Look, what’s jangly sheep doing?” “Bouncing! Jangy seep bouncing!” “Uh uh uh uh!” “Oh Willow, you’ve lost all your toys – look here’s kitten…” “Luna kitten, Luna kitten, KITTEN!” “Shall we sing again? Oh the grand old duke of…” “Sun bwind off. Too bwight! TOO BWIGHT! … MILKIES!” When Willow was born people kept referring to some advert on telly where a parent is driving round getting a baby to sleep and every time the car stops at traffic lights, the baby wakes up. “You’ll know about this!” They said. But we didn’t. We had two children under fifteen months: we hadn’t watched telly in…well…fifteen months. And as for that myth of children going to sleep in car seats…? One day I’ll have my front passenger seat back. I’ll sit back and relax and our biggest crisis as we head down the M1 will be a splash of tea escaping from my travel mug as we hit a pothole. Or that we’ve lost our place in the latest Sarah Waters novel on audiobook. But for now, here I am in the middle back seat between two huge, rearward facing Isofix contraptions. I’m partially buried under a mound of crinkly, fluorescent Lamaze creatures all with terrifyingly huge eyes and at least two limbs joined together by a teething bar. I will replace the four sun blinds with suction-lacking suckers around 47 times during this 2-hour journey. I will sing ‘Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star’ repeatedly for twenty minutes while eyelids flicker and it seems they might just drop off. And I WILL enjoy this chaotic, noisy muddle of a journey, because when I’m back in that front passenger seat, I’ll surely miss it. Article: 15th May 2015 by Lindsey, West Yorkshire