Oversharing - Baby Steps: Common Conception Challenges For The LGBTQ Community || Season 3 Ep. 5

Episode Date: September 3, 2025

Marea Goodman, Licensed Midwife, co-author of the book ‘Baby Making for Everybody,’ and founder of Pregnant Together; joins Jordana for a conversation about the LGBT & Solo Parent pregnancy experience. From at-home insemination and breast feeding when both parents can lactate, to understanding the grief that comes with the “non-traditional” conception process, Marea touches on the many ways she provides support and resources to these communities. While access to technology has made pregnancy possible for so many people, Marea discusses the mental and emotional struggles that are unique to these experiences and shares her many resources for navigating the process.  For More Information About Queer and Solo Parent Pregnancy, check out: https://community.pregnanttogether.com/  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A quick note before we get into the episode, oversharing is a podcast for entertainment purposes only. It is not a medical podcast and does not constitute medical or psychological advice. Always seek the advice of your physician or mental health professional. Hello and welcome back to baby steps. I'm Jordana Abraham and I am so excited to have our guest with us today. Please welcome Maria Goodman. They are a licensed midwife.

They're the author of the book Babymaking for Everybody, family building and fertility for LGBTQ plus and solo parents. and founder of Pregnant Together, which is a virtual community supporting queer and solo parents through preconception and parenting. Welcome. Thank you, Jordana. Thanks for having me. Of course. I'm so happy to have you on because I know that, you know, obviously like trying to conceive and like fertility and parenthood and postpartum as its own challenges.

But I know that there's like additional unique challenges for the LGBTQ plus community. So I'm excited for to learn, not excited, whatever. I'm interested to learn more about that, more about how you help people navigate that space. And I'm sure what's been a sort of like relatively newer field or newer, you know, like with assisted reproductive technology and just, you know, more people having access to these treatments. I'm sure it's like all changing and evolving every day. So I'm really excited to get into it.

Yeah. It's a cool time to be doing this work for so many reasons. You know, I think as people who are part of the LGBTQ plus community, we usually, we come to family building most of the time in in a different way. You know, and I know I speak with a lot of people who specialize in infertility and supporting folks through struggling to conceive and in whatever path that takes. And then usually, so as a midwife, I work specifically with people who have uteruses. Most of my clients are using donor sperm. And starting there is different from trying at home with a partner with sex that can actually get you pregnant. And I think much of the mainstream world not only like shows heterosexual parents and families,

but also the medical system in fertility care is very geared towards helping heterosexual people with some level of sub or infertility conceive. And it's different when you are an LGBTQ person who hasn't been trying to conceive at home. You need that reproductive technology, but you don't know if you are actually on that infertility spectrum until you start trying. And so there's just there's some different. medical care that we need and also some different social support that not a lot of people know enough about, I think, to provide adequate care to our communities. Right. And even like, I think

changing legal, you know, like laws, I've heard around like surrogacy and those things have just recently changed in the past few years, but still, you know, a little bit more difficult maybe to get on a birth certificate or things like that. So I'm sure there's like many different moving parts there. So many different moving parts and yeah, where the donor sperm comes from, what state you live in really affects like how easy it is for if there are two queer parents involved to have them both be legally protected. And obviously we live in a complex time politically for LGBTQ rights. And so, yes, there are a lot of moving parts, I think socially, legally, medically and emotionally, you know, to to not see yourself reflected or to go in.

into a medical setting and be like, oh, is this your sister or the form says husband or, you know, there's these ways that accessing care, there are all these little turns that can be really challenging for the LGBTQ community. Right. I totally see that. So can you like give me just a little background on like, how did you come to, you know, this place where you're helping people navigate this? How did you, when did you decide to become a midwife? What is your own experience with fertility, whatever you're comfortable sharing. Yeah. Yeah, I'm happy to. I started training as a midwife in 2011, and I focused primarily on pregnancy and birth for a while. In 2016, I learned how to do in intra-uterine inseminations, IUI at home in California, and started kind of more casually

providing fertility care to LGBTQ. plus people. And at the same time, I was starting a relationship with, she's now my co-parent, but she was my wife for many years. And we were, she was planning to get pregnant as a solo parent by choice. We'd been friends before. And so she got pregnant with a donor. We ended up dating through her pregnancy. And then when the child she birthed was about 10 months old, we moved in together. And I legally adopted. adopted him and he's now seven and a half. And then a few years later, I got pregnant with the same sperm donor through IUI and gave birth in 2021.

And then a few years later, we split up and were figuring out the co-parenting thing. But yeah, so I have personal experience with IUI and being a queer parent and all the kind of complicated paths there. I think we started writing baby making for everybody in 2020, and that was when I was going through my own trying to conceive process, and even though I'd been working with the LGBTQ community and helping people track their cycles and time inseminations, it felt so much harder to do it in my own body, and we were in the process of, I co-wrote this book

with another queer midwife who lives in Philadelphia, Ray Rockland. We were each in our family building process at the time, and feeling it for ourselves was so different than supporting people through it. And we realized, you know, there hadn't been a book specifically for LGBTQ plus family formation in the last 20 years. Since we published it, there have been some more. But, you know, really realizing how isolating it really is, how stressful it is when you have frozen sperm to, like, get the, the timing right, all of, you know, for folks that have fertility challenges and then being pregnant and maybe being gender nonconforming or not fitting into the traditional ideas of what pregnancy means. There's a lot of isolation and a lot of overwhelm. I think that that I experienced and that a lot

of my clients experience. And so something that I try to do in the community that I run and with my coaching clients is break down the choices as simply as possible, reduce that overwhelm and connect folks with other people that are going through the same thing because, you know, I think in our society, people who are going through fertility struggles, no matter their sexual orientation or relationship, experience hardship and isolation. And it's challenging. I think because there are fewer people in the LGBTQ community, we don't always, we, We're not always connected with each other. And so something I hear a lot is there's no one else that I know who's going through this.

Like all of my friends who are parents are heterosexual and all of my queer friends don't want to have kids. And I just feel alone in this process. And so one of my most favorite things is connecting people from all over the country or the world. Like, oh, this person is also going through reciprocal IVF and you can connect with each other. And it really does make a difference. That's amazing. I think it is, you know, that's definitely one of the toughest things when, you know, the infertility community is finding, you know, people to talk to or people who understand,

especially if you have like the more niche your, you know, whatever you're dealing with is, like the more isolating it can feel if you're trying to find someone with the story like yours. So I think that's amazing what you're doing, even just like, you know, building this community. What would you say is like one of the like more common challenges that people come, come to you with. I think even knowing where to start is a barrier for a lot of people. I think there's a lot to understand about the choices that you have and what makes the most sense given your age and fertility and where you're getting your donor sperm and what your

budget is. There's a lot to kind of sort through. And people often come to me like, we don't even know where to start. So I meet with people there. The other piece is if they've been trying maybe at home with frozen sperm or even with a known or directed donor and it's not working kind of understanding when to switch gears, when to access the medical system if they haven't started there. It's complex because when sperm is limited, the pressure is a little bit high. to figure out what is the most efficient way to do this while still sort of maintaining your integrity in the process. And I think one thing is unique with the queer community is a lot of

people and not everyone. Some people are like, let's do IVF right away or we know we want to do reciprocal IVF. But I do think a lot of people would like to have the conception experience be in the intimacy of their own home and their own relationship. And I know that that's something that heterosexual people have to grieve if they're going through infertility is like not being able to just do it on your own. And I think that's true also for the queer community. There are ways that we have that story. Have that story.

Yeah. There's a lot of like we romanticize the process a lot. You know, we romanticize like the conception process, the parenting process and pregnant. I know I romanticized my pregnancy. So I was like, oh, I'm going to be like wanting to swim in the ocean all the time. be so spiritually connected to myself. And like all I wanted to do was lie on the couch and eat potato chips. And like I didn't journal one time my entire pregnancy.

And I, you know, I think there are a lot of places throughout the journey that that it often doesn't live up to those fantasies of what we think it will be. And so supporting folks through like normalizing those disappointments being like, yeah, It is disappointing that we can't do it at home, that you know, you need this medical intervention that you didn't want to do IVF, but you actually only have one frozen vial of sperm left and want to have a couple of children, ideally. You know, there are some challenging decisions to be made that I think there's a logistical and an emotional piece to address separately.

Can you tell me a little bit more about insemination at home? I haven't. I haven't really heard. I think I've spoken to a lot of heterosexual couples. Is this something that's an option for them or not something they would need to do? It is. It is an option. It depends kind of what the issue is.

So if the issue is like male factor subfertility and there's more than 5 million sperm per unit when you get your semen analysis, IUI is helpful. So that's when we use a sterile catheter and we put it through. the cervix directly into the uterus. And it increases your chances of getting pregnant. There are different factors. If there's female infertility as well, that may make sense to get some medication on board, but not always. But there are midwives, depending on the state that you live, and there are midwives that can do this and come to your home. And this is something that I do for my clients in Santa Cruz, California, and some are heterosexual and some are queer. You have to process the semen to separate the sperm cells from everything else that's inside the ejaculate

and you mix it with a special sperm wash and put it inside the uterus. But what is helpful when it's male factor is like those those sperm cells don't need to use as much energy as they would need to to swim through the vagina and the cervix. And you just put them right near the fallopian tubes. So I did actually, I wrote an article on at home insemination for parent data and there's some resources there because, yeah, a lot of people don't talk about it. You can also do at home insemination with frozen sperm from a bank. You want to use unwashed sperm. There are two different types of frozen sperm.

Actually, there's three different types of frozen sperm you can get from the bank, but you want to make sure if you're doing it at home that it's unwashed. And then I work with a lot of people who use directed or known donors as well and they are often doing at home insemination and depending on age and your perceived fertility, that's a great option, at least for starting to try to get pregnant and works for many people. Some folks will end up needing a little bit more like medical assistance to make it happen. So and then the benefit of this would be just like not kind of bringing it as close to that. Less medicalized.

Yes. Yeah, yeah. Feeling or spontaneous feeling in some. Yeah. Yeah. I think people appreciate that. It's also cheaper. You know, when you're not involving medical professionals and medications. And when you're not buying sperm, you know, people usually, you, there's, there are more complexities in working with a known or directed donor. You need to sign a known donor contract and have them get tested for sexually transmitted infections and test their semen. And, you know, there's more things to figure out. But a known donor would be like if you wanted to use like a friend or a family member or someone, that's right.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like I work with people who use their, you know, their wife has a cousin or a brother who's donating sperm.

And, you know, or these days there are like online places. There's an app called just a baby to meet eligible sperm donors. And there's a new one that I'm excited about called. gay bee, which matches gay sperm donors with prospective parents. And yeah, people are finding very creative ways to grow our families. That's very cool. And it seems like, again, seems like there's so much happening kind of quickly in this space that I'm sure like it's so great to have a resource like yours where you're kind of, you're keeping up to date on all the new technologies and, you know, sperm banks that are, you know, particular for this community and everything like

That's huge. Yeah, it's cool. You know, I think I like to say like queer folks have been growing our families creatively since the beginning of time. We just have more technology and we're able to connect with people, you know, all over the world now. We've had community members in Belgium and Slovakia and Germany and lots of other places. And, you know, it is different what people have access to logistically and legally,

depending on where they live. But there have always, and I think will always be ways that we figure out creative solutions to becoming parents. The insemination at home, is that something that you would need like a midwife for? Or can you facilitate that yourself? So if you are using fresh sperm from a known donor or unwashed sperm from a bank, you can do it yourself. There are syringes that are specialized for this. Mosey baby makes a really nice syringe that's like longer and has a soft tip,

makes the process a little bit easier and more comfortable, but you can also use just like a $2 over-the-counter syringe from CBS or I know people that sometimes will put it in like a menstrual cup. You just try to put the seam in as close to your cervix as possible and elevate your hips and sperm finds its way. Wow, that's awesome. Because when you think of the challenges of getting pregnant in any non-traditional way, I think you always, my first thought is always like this is going to be time consuming,

expensive and really difficult. And this sounds like at least as a first option, something that can be like really cost effective, really spontaneous feeling, more spiritual in a way or more like, just less anxiety-ridden. Yeah, I think it can be. I definitely think it has that potential. I also think, you know, sometimes people put a lot of intention into making it happen that way.

And there are a lot of other opportunities for stress. Like if the donor is sick or out of town or doesn't live close by, like I know people who do inseminations in the back of their cars, timing can be a little bit changed. challenging, like tracking your cycle. And so that's something that I work with a lot of people about is understanding how to track your fertile signs, when to time inseminations, ideally, depending on your fertility symptoms. And I think, I think as with everything in life, like, there's, there's, it can be so smooth. And there are also a lot of places where, where things can go not as planned.

And so, you know, I talk to folks about having like plans A, B, C, D, E, and F. And, you know, we go through as much as we can and hope that plans A or B or C work. And there are always places, there are always other doors to walk through. So like if that at-home insemination doesn't work the first three or four tries, you may want to consider, you know, trying IUI with a midwife, which does increase your chances compared to at-home insemination or even adding medication, depending on your age and fertility symptoms and going to a fertility clinic. Some people are really clear that they want to start out with reciprocal IVF. So that's when one partner uses their eggs to create an embryo and then it's implanted into the other partner's body.

And there are so many options. So really, I think, supporting folks through getting a sense of what they're ideal, is and then understanding what the options surrounding those are if the ideal isn't like isn't working. Right. And if like so if both partners have a uterus, um, do you help people navigate like who should, who should carry or do that kind of thing? Yeah.

Yeah. Yes. I help people a lot through the nuances of like the relational aspects because sometimes sometimes it's really clear. like one person is really clear that they don't want to carry the pregnancy and the other one maybe has a family history of a genetic disorder and they would like to not use their own genetics. Sometimes it's like beautifully organized like that and it's like, cool, this partner is going to do an egg retrieval and this partner is going to be pregnant. Sometimes both partners really want to experience pregnancy or the one who really wants to experience pregnancy. goes through infertility.

And then it gets a little more complicated. And I think that what's unique about queer, assigned female at birth, relationships is, well, we don't really have like a role for the non-gestational mother or parent, whatever their identity. and it can be challenging, but for those of us used to being in like queer lesbian relationships, we often experience a lot of biological similarity. Like we both menstruate. We are just sort of used to having shared biological experiences and pregnancy can sometimes be, or the trying to conceive process can sometimes be the first time in a relationship that you're experiencing something really different in your bodies.

And I see a lot of people struggle with that because it's unusual and it changes the power dynamics. And I think my assumption is that in a heterosexual relationship, you're just used to that. You're used to not having the same biological experiences. And so it's not as jarring when it happens. Right. So I think that's a nuance that a lot of people don't really talk about. And it's very smooth for some couples. But for many, it's not.

You know, I'm about to do a workshop for Bobby, the formula company, on navigating co-feeding dynamics in queer relationships where, you know, both parents want to breastfeed or chest feed or, you know, there's a lot of nuances that can be sort of complex to navigate at different stages of the time, especially if both parents would like to experience pregnancy. And then, yeah, sort of, it's. I've helped people through sort of the nuances of the relational aspects and the decision making, and then the fertility clinic will be, will be able to advise those people on, you know, based on age and fertility assessments, kind of what the recommendation is for the highest likelihood

of success, whose egg? Basically, IVF really matter, like the main factor is the age of the egg. So usually it's the younger person's egg, but sometimes there are other factors that influence it. Right. And it doesn't necessarily have to be the person who's egg it is is the person who carries. Exactly. Right. Yeah. Right. Right. If you're going to do IVF, further. And, you know, they say there's some evidence that reciprocal IVF has higher success rates than atolligous, autonomous IVF, I think they call it. because you have two people's bodies to choose from and you can kind of, you know, you can maybe both people do an egg retrieval and you look at, you know, those embryos that are created through that retrieval and figure out from both parties, like whose embryo

is going to have the highest likelihood of success. Totally. I mean, anecdotally, I see like it's often, you know, it can often be that someone's great at creating eggs or embryos, but, you know, it's tougher for their body to carry or they're, you know, they have to get pregnant on their first time from IVF, but it takes them years to even get a viable embryo. So that does seem to be a, you know, a silver lining, I guess, to the situation. Yeah, depending on, you know, how they, how folks want to do it, yes, like sometimes having two uteruses or like two sets of breasts can be really useful and wonderful. And

Sometimes it can be a little complicated to figure out who's doing what. Can you go back about the breastfeeding or the chest feeding? Is there, because I've heard a little bit about this, but I haven't really spoken to anyone who knows a ton about it. And I've heard, you know, I've heard that you can induce lactation, whether this is, and, you know, whether this is for a couple that both wants to breastfeed or, you know, a surrogate mother in a heterosexual. Like, what is, how is that, how does that work? It's called the Newman Goldfarb method. And it was developed, I think, in the 1970s for adoptive mothers. So mothers who were going to adopt newborns.

And this doctor developed this protocol that involves taking birth control that has both estrogen and progesterone. So you're basically taking hormones that mimic the hormones of pregnancy. And then the recommendation, I don't have it in front of me, I think it's six weeks before the babies do. Don't quote me on that. It could be four. You stop taking the birth control suddenly. And then you're also at the same time taking a medication called Domperidone,

which increases breast tissue growth. And it's a galactagogue, which makes your body produce milk. Once you stop that birth control, you start pumping around the clock. So like every two to four hours, even at night. And you're also taking different earth. herbs that can help encourage your body to produce milk. And so this is a protocol that's been used by thousands of people all over the world. It's been used successfully by trans mothers.

So as long as you have a certain amount of breast tissue, you can induce lactation. Sometimes it's adoptive mothers or mothers whose babies are born through surrogacy, non-gestational mothers, trans mothers. is yeah, parents, people with breasts can do this. There are some contraindications. There have been some reported like mental health challenges on Don Peridone, which is the kind of main medication that makes your body produce breast tissue. And so some people who have a history of depression and anxiety have been advised by

psychiatrists to not do this because some adverse. health mental health effects have been reported either going off of it or on it entirely. Generally, people don't produce a full supply when inducing lactation. So it's useful to prepare with some formula or donated milk to make sure that your baby will have enough. Some people do. It really depends on the person's body and the baby's latch. And I always recommend getting a lactation consultant to help you through that.

But it's really cool. Bodies are amazing how they can respond in all these different ways. And I've definitely seen queer couples co-nourced successfully. And it can be great to have extra breast milk on board. Sometimes since nursing is a positive feedback loop, sometimes it's helpful to have one person be like the main nurseer and the other one be supplements. or snacks. Yeah. Yeah. It can be challenging to really share the workload 50-50 just because the bodies, it's a positive feedback loop and it doesn't always work that way. Right.

So that's something I try to coach people through as well. But it's amazing. It's really cool. It's a big, big commitment, you know, getting up every two to four hours, even at night before your baby is born to encourage that. supply is it requires a lot of dedication, but it can be really just like super affirming for parents who want to do it. And it has a high success rate if you're following that protocol, like to be able to do it. It does have a high success rate. Yes, if you're following the protocol, most people will at least produce some milk. So, you know, it's unusual for people to not produce any milk. It's also unusual to produce enough to fully feed the child if you didn't experience pregnancy. I see. I mean, sometimes the actual

birthing person can't really produce much milk either, even like that they just had the baby. Absolutely. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So that's very cool. I really, I had not seen too much on that, but I've heard like anecdotally that that's a thing that's very like that's. Yeah. Yeah. It's amazing, like the combination of how amazing our bodies are and how amazing like medical technology is these days. Like there are a lot of things that people can do. And it's good to know all of your options. Yes. And do you do any sort of mental health counseling around, you know, if one parent, one parent might feel, you know, that they're not, if they're not the biological parent or their, you know, their egg is being used?

Are there issues that kind of come up around that? Sometimes, yeah. One of the things that so in Pregnant Together, the virtual community that I run, we have a lot of support groups for different aspects of the experience. And one of those is non-gestational parent support group. And it's so refreshing for most of these non-gestational parents to be in a group of other people that have this shared experience, whether they're the one, you know, even if they are biologically connected, but most of them aren't, to connect around what that experience is. And I have the

experience of being both a non-gestational and a gestational parent. And there are some different aspects to the experience that I think having community around makes such a difference. I think it can also come up around family, especially if family relationships are strained, which is more common in the LGBTQ community, you know, people struggling to really feel seen and understood by their families. And then if they are the non-biologically related non-gestational parent, there can be some challenges in involving the, you know, wider family system. And it's definitely a struggle. that I think we don't talk a lot about as a culture. Right.

Also, depending on their gender experience, you know, if they're, if they're gender, if they're cisgender and like identify fully as a mother, but it, there's, they're not that gestational mother. There's sort of this like, um, awkward place that some people experience. Um, you know, I think obviously, that comes up in the heterosexual community too if people need to use an egg donor or a surrogate, yeah, or sperm donor.

There's just, you know, I talk a lot about the things that everyone can learn from the queer community in family building because, you know, we often know from the beginning that we need to not be genetically related. One of the people will be not genetically related and, you know, family is about relationships and not biology, but we do have like an attachment to biology in our culture. And I think to an extent it's, it's, you know,

sort of a human drive in some ways to feel that biological connection. And it's something to grieve. Like I always say that grief is, grief is somewhere in this family building journey, whether it's like grieving that you're not going to be biologically related to your child, whether it's grieving that the conception process is harder than you thought and you have to involve medical technology, whether there's a challenge that happens during labor or birth that derails your plans or like just the grief of like babies growing up so fast or not being able to like protect

them from a belief at school or the hard things that are happening in the world. like there's grief is part of it and I think making friends with grief early on in this journey is just like an important mental health resilience building factor so that you don't take it as personally like when that grief comes up it's like yes this is part of it like it is normal to grieve that you are not genetically related or that your parents aren't like fully claiming this child as theirs because they're not genetically related. It's normal to grieve all of these things. It doesn't mean that it's wrong or that you shouldn't do it.

It's just way more emotionally complex than most people are prepared for. I think in the heterosexual community, like, it can feel like there's a little less of the element of surprise, like there's more of the element of surprise probably than like you're saying in that in the queer communities because I think that you're kind of sold this story of this, you know, nuclear family and one magical night it happens. And then there's so many parts to sort of like comes to terms with when the journey isn't that simple. But, you know, the queer community has been dealing with that, like you said, going into it. So yes. There's definitely, yeah. I think it's also. There's a gender piece too. Like I think there's, we have a lot of gendered

assumptions about like what women should do and what men should do. And like, I know especially if there's male factor in fertility and people need to use a sperm donor that can be a lot more shame and silence for men. Like they usually don't want to tell the donor conceived child that they are donor conceived more. You know, there's like a lot of intense emotions. Sometimes people feel like a failure, you know, and it's, we are sold these ideas of what a man should be and what a woman should be at such an early age. And it can really come to a head sometimes in this part of the family building time.

And there can be a lot of grief and a lot of not knowing how to process grief. And then just like a lot of isolation. Totally. I think there's a lot that goes into people's self perception of identity that goes into their ability to, you know, be fertile or conceive. And I think that when that challenge is that, I mean, you wouldn't think so because it's sort of like an aspect of your life that you don't really even think about. until you're trying to do. I think everyone assumes it'll be somewhat, or most people assume it'll be somewhat straightforward.

But I think that that's such an interesting point that doesn't really get talked about a lot, like how this plays into how people see themselves or their ego or their identity. Yeah, it's really interesting. It's big. It's really big. Yeah.

And, you know, when we were starting to write the book in 2020, infertility rates were one in eight. And now they're one in six. You know, and so like it's like, it's an issue that is affecting more and more people and will continue to affect more and more people. And I think we need to be talking about it and normalizing it. And like that will only help everybody. Yeah. I mean, from you what you've explained, do you think that there's a reason that that number is is increasing that percent of people? I think there are a lot of theories about it. You know, I think we have more microplastics and there's more pollution and like people are.

stressed. People are stressed and, you know, that's, it's, it's a, it's a, it can be a challenge. I mean, not, not for everybody. Um, but, um, I do think in general, we will continue to see the rates of infertility and subfertility continue to increase like male sperm count is, is decreasing all over the world. There's, there's a lot of fertility challenges that are continuing to mount. Um, and I think, I think people are starting to talk about it. And I think we will like in the next 10 years really see more conversations around it. Totally. I think you already see. I mean, maybe with social media, I think there's or maybe that's just my algorithm that I got fed. Yeah. I certainly see a lot. I want to talk about what you were what you're doing with Emily Oster and parent data because

Emily, you know, she was really excited to she's she's been on the show. She's on the show this season. And, you know, she was telling me all about what you guys are doing in the TTC space. And specifically how this, she was saying that this is like the largest database for LGBTQ Plus, basically like information on this topic. So how did that come together? Like what have you just been providing her with like all of your knowledge? Like what can people find more about this? Yeah. Yeah, so they, they, Emily found me through the book, Baby Making for Everybody, and then Parent Data hired me to write a series of 10 articles for LGBTQ conception.

And so we, I've worked on it for for months with her awesome editors, and we came up with like a really cool suite of information that goes through a lot of things that people aren't often talking about. So I mentioned we have an article on at-home insemination. We have an article specifically on known or directed donors, how to choose a sperm donor, navigating the different fertility challenges, when to get your fertility tested and why and what the research actually says for LGBTQ plus individuals, surrogacy, fostering and adoption. We tried to cover the whole gamut. And then I wrote some Q&A is an extra pieces on the nuances on, you know, choosing between ICI or IUI or dealing with like the grief and jealousy of needing to involve external people and sperm donors and medical providers.

And so there's a really great collection on parent data of that information. I'm through pregnant together. I'm putting on a virtual queer family building conference in the fall. It's November 4th and 5th. And Emily Oster is going to do a talk on what the data, what the data actually says about LGBTQ plus fertility because so much of the data that we have is on heterosexual people experiencing infertility and what ART works for them. and that's been extrapolated on to LGBTQ plus people.

We are in the last five years getting more relevant information, but I'm really excited for Emily's talk on what the data actually says for people who are 35 and have never had sperm in their body before and what actually makes sense for where to try. And we are now getting some more. accurate information that I think will be helpful for people moving forward. That is so awesome. And where can people go to find more, you know, information from you if they want to work with you directly or join one of your pregnant together has like support groups, right? And things like that. Yeah. Yeah. So we have like

eight monthly support groups and then other webinars. What's really cool about pregnant together is there's also sort of like a confined social media. So people have profiles and you can connect through comments and threads and connect with each other. So you can find information on that community on Pregnant Together.com. You can also find information on the Together conference there. And then I'm also on Instagram at Pregnant Together.comunity. And then parent data.org has all of those articles that I wrote on LGBTQ plus conception and family building. Amazing. Well, thank you so much for joining us today. I feel like we just kind of like hit the tip of the ice. So I'm so glad there's places people can go to like really delve into any sort of specific

questions they have about LGBTQ plus like conception and anything that might, you know, they are wrench thrown into their plans along the way. It seems like there's questions and answers for all sorts of different experiences, which I think we need more of in the in this community. So thank you for what you're doing. And thanks for joining us. And we'll be back next time. Of course.

And we'll be back next time. Bye.