One of the biggest, most important decisions you can make in your life is deciding whether or not to have a child. It’s a decision that changes your life in a lot of ways. Creating a family affects everything in small and large ways—from the emotional to the financial. So it’s never an easy decision.

However, in some families, this very same decision has an added layer of complexity. For instance, some lesbian couples need to decide who will carry the baby. It is exactly this dilemma that the lesbian parents of Reddit pondered in a viral thread on r/AskReddit.

They shared how they decided which partner would end up getting pregnant. The stories are as powerful as they are informative. Scroll down to have a read. And if you are an LGBTQ+ parent, tell us all about your parenting journey in the comments, dear Pandas.

#1

My friends decided based on who had the best maternity leave package. Practical!

Image credits: missfoy

#2

My lesbian parents tell the story of how they were shopping one day and my birth mom broke down in tears at the sight of baby clothes. That’s how they decided.

Image credits: copfromhellll

#3

My wife and I are good friends with a lesbian couple who had one carry the baby while they used the other’s egg. Since one carried and the other is genetically the mother they each have a special attachment to the baby. I thought it was really neat

Image credits: righthanddan

According to Medical News Today, lesbians have access to the same paths to parenthood as different-sex couples do. The best approach would be to have a talk with your GP or fertility doctor to talk about your options.

Some options include using a sperm donor, whether it’s from someone the couple knows or trusts, or via a sperm bank. The mom-to-be can use the donated sperm to inseminate herself or go to a fertility clinic for the procedure.

#4

We haven’t had a kid yet, but we plan to in around 5-7 years. My fiancee is having the baby because I am terrified of giving birth and she wants the experience. Easy solution for us.

Image credits: Silverpie

#5

A good friend from college is married with a kid on the way. I asked her and she said it came down to genetics – my friend’s wife is BRCA positive (the breast cancer gene), so they agreed my friend should be the biological mother to prevent their kid from having to worry about it.

Image credits: Notmiefault

#6

My wife carried both of our two children. Originally, the plan was to carry one each, and I started trying a year after she had our first child. I tried for 18 months and wasn’t successful, and we really didn’t want a big age gap between our kids, so she tried again – was pregnant on her second attempt.

Honestly, I’m a little disappointed, and a little regretful that we didn’t try harder to figure out how to make it happen for me. That being said, we have two healthy, happy kids that I love more than anything, so I wouldn’t change a thing.

We were also able to use the same donor for both kids, so they’re fully biological siblings. We are also part of an online group of other families who used the donor, so we can share photos of the kids (and make sure no one brings a sibling home one day lol). There are almost 20 of them now, which is cool!

Image credits: charmedistheone

One option that makes both partners feel as included as possible (and something that a few redditors drew attention to in the thread) is using the egg of one partner and the uterus of another. Of course, this decision does require the assistance of doctors.

Unfortunately, some couples can have difficulty conceiving. Sometimes, they have to rely on techniques like in vitro fertilization (IVF) to get pregnant. Another option is embryo adoption.

#7

My wife is 9y older and really wanted bio kids. Our plan was that she’d have one, then I’d have one a few years later w the same donor. BUT she had twins and we don’t want more than 2 kids so I got off easy* :p

except that now we have 3yo twins and exactly 0 things are easy

Image credits: agentqueequeg

#8

I have friends who used one wife’s brother as the male donor, so obviously it had to be the other wife carrying.

Image credits: FindingNemosAnus

#9

My wife and I decided based on a few factors, but most importantly on who had the least fertility issues as those might increase the cost of treatments

Image credits: themeatloafiest

There are also non-pregnancy options available to couples. For example, they can decide to adopt or foster a child.

Despite the fact that we’re living in a far more tolerant time than before, there are still challenges that same-sex couples face. Lesbian couples may find themselves discriminated against. This, in turn, can make parenthood more difficult for them.

There is also the financial cost to consider. Some fertility treatments can cost thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars.

#10

I was a donor for a coworker and her wife. They went based on who had the better insurance/benefits. Our job had s*** benefits and her wife was a teacher with state benefits and such.

Image credits: Zarzak_TZ

#11

My partner (we are both females) went through IUI treatment today! How did we pick? It was easy, there was not a bone in my body that wanted to experience carrying a child. She is 34, I am 32. So, pretty simple decision for us personally.

Image credits: luckycharms889

#12

My aunt’s are Lesbian, and they couldn’t decide so they both had a kid

Image credits: CuppaYT

#13

For us, my wife is a 1.5 year older so she went first.

But honestly after seeing her go through pregnancy and doing breastfeeding I really don’t wanna do it. So she’s carrying my bio baby for baby #2.

Image credits: MsCardeno

#14

My wife is five years older than me so we agreed she’d go first in case it took a while or we had fertility issues (we didn’t know if either of us would have issues as we’d never tried before). We always planned on taking turns though. She gave birth to our daughter last June, and I am 24 weeks pregnant with our son now. Same donor. We did DIY AI.

Image credits: thetokenranga

#15

We both decided to carry a baby (at separate times). They are biologically related since we used the same donor.

I think the deciding factors were age, genetics and “desire” to go through a pregnancy. My wife had a harder time getting pregnant and sadly lost two babies during pregnancy. During those hard times we had discussed on several occasions that adoption was also an equally desirable option for our family.

Image credits: gen_visser

#16

I work with a lot of lesbian families. Usually, one might have a stronger desire to bear children so that is the one who does. Sometimes both do, so they may each bear a child. Sometimes it’s about genetics and someone with a condition or predisposition may ask the other to bear any children. Sometimes none want to bear children so they adopt, foster, surrogate. It’s usually just an honest conversation about who may want to give birth if anyone.

Image credits: NumerousExplorer

#17

Not a parent but my wife and I are planning in that direction. My wife has no urge to carry a baby and doesn’t want to pass her family’s medical history on to another generation. I want to experience pregnancy and giving birth. The conversation was incredibly easy for us.

Image credits: VonAshley

#18

Since most of these comments are not from actual lesbians — Hi, lesbian here. My wife and I have an 11 month old son. She carried the baby bc she has better genes (no cystic acne or severe mental illness for starters!) and is a few years younger than me.

Also, I’ve never wanted to be pregnant for like a gazillion reasons, so many that I could probably write a book, so it was her or no baby!

Image credits: pseudotimes

#19

My moms are gay. One was a bit older and just never wanted to be pregnant, and the other wanted to be pregnant. It worked out really well that way.

Image credits: klymene

#20

We ultimately couldn’t decide, and after investigating the costs of IVF we decided to become foster parents. Which has been really rewarding

Image credits: JadziaDaxIsBestDax

#21

My wife and I are just starting the process. I am hopefully (keep your fingers crossed) going to carry first. I’m older than her so I’m going first in hopes to catch my eggs before they turn to mush. I had a major blood clot a few years ago so I have to be on blood thinner injections during pregnancy which has made me go from wanting to carry twice to only wanting to carry once (9 months of daily self-injections is a real bummer). We are hopefully both going to carry eventually using the same donor.

Image credits: JMaple

#22

For my wife and I it was an easy choice. I wanted to carry a baby, and she was indifferent to that aspect of being a mother. She was willing to carry if I for some reason couldn’t, but luckily we didn’t have to cross that bridge!

We also used an anonymous donor, so there was no genetic aspect to worry about.

Image credits: ncm1784

#23

My wife is in the military and didn’t want to mess up her body until her contract was close to over, so it fell to me. Plus, I have the desk job with 12 weeks paid maternity leave, while she works part-time in healthcare, standing all of the time, with no benefits. Really didn’t feel like there was much of a decision to make with that in mind.

Image credits: Calyrica

#24

Hi, I’m an aspiring lesbian parent. My partner and I have discussed that I will carry first, as I don’t have any underlying health conditions. She will attempt to carry second (we’re hopefull), but she has pcos, so we will reasses when we’re going through it.

Image credits: brynleeholsis

#25

One of us thinks pregnancy is neato. One thinks it’s a horror show.

Image credits: TriFeminist

#26

My son is from a donor that others used too. One set of mommies each had one. I think it’s totally cool. They each have a mini.

Image credits: battle-kitteh

#27

My sister and her wife are in the process of getting pregnant.

My sister in law has always wanted to get pregnant and my sister honestly has no desire to be pregnant so I guess it was an easy choice for them.

Image credits: tlr92

#28

Me and my partner are starting the process at the back end of the year. She will carry as I absolutely do not want to carry and couldn’t think of anything worse than pushing out a baby but she really wants to experience pregnancy

Image credits: ArchaicPirate

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