A lesbian couple pursued reciprocal IVF to create children with shared connection. One partner’s egg was used to make an embryo, and the embryo was transferred into the other partner’s uterus. The process was described as feeling like something between Shakespearean and sci-fi, while also serving as a way to address worries about whether a child would view a parent as “real.” The plan included carrying the other partner’s embryo for a second child so both would have an “irrefutable” relationship. The method was linked to epigenetics and microchimerism, where uterine conditions influence gene markers and small numbers of cells can persist between mother and baby. A known sperm donor was used, described as a dear friend.
"Reciprocal IVF felt like "a way around" some of their worries, she said, like, "What if, one day, my child looked at me and said I wasn't their real mum? (Psychological theory tells us this is a normal developmental phase, but, a more harrowing thought, what if I shared the worry?) What if grandparents, too, felt the difference? What if they showed it? What if, what if, what if - as if anything about having children can ever be controlled or predicted.""
"With their chosen method, they "would both have an irrefutable relationship with our children," Rankin-Gee wrote, explaining that they plan to have her carry Leah's embryo for their second child. "Each time, one of us would be genetically related, and the other would have had a far larger impact: she would have transformed a cluster of cells into a baby.""
"Folded into this were elements of magic we could both get behind; butterfly effects that are still the subject of young science: epigenetics - the way uterine conditions 'turn on or off' genetic markers, effectively making the gestational mother a gene DJ - and also microchimerism. Through the placenta, small numbers of cells would pass from mother to baby and baby to mother, and stay there for ever."
"Rankin-Gee also wrote about the couple's decision to use a known sperm donor, someone she describes as a "dear friend." When Leah became pregnant, Rankin Gee said she felt like she had entered "Dad-land.""
Read at LGBTQ Nation
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