Disagreements

Hi All-

My name is Molly, I am 21 and I have been with my parnter Kelly for 7 years. I realize that I am jumping the gun in thinking about children, but I have always known that I want to have babies and definitely want to try before I'm 30. I recently purchased The New Essential Guide to Lesbian Conception, Pregnancy and Birth and have been getting a lot of information. I feel like I would be more comfortable doing an at home insemination, the problem is everytime I try to talk about this with my partner she just gets anxious. She has told me that she wants children, but she doesn't feel like we should talk about it now. Another thing we have different arguments about is the sperm donor. Should it be someone we know or annonymous? I feel more comfortable with someone we know and trust, but she wants it to be from a sperm bank. I think my main thing is that I want to be able to tell my child in the far future who his/her father is instead saying "uh...i dunno." Anyway I feel like this dissagreement is unsettling and I was wondering if any of you have experienced anything like this. I feel like Kelly and I should be on the same page 100%, even though this won't be happening too soon.

Any info or stories would be appreciated :D Thanks!

Hi Molly,

This is definitely part of the process. When I met Shel I was sure I wanted a known donor, only because I knew someone who would donate. You really need to talk to each other, Shel and I talked about known vs unknown, clinic vs home, how we both felt about it.

Shel's concerns about known were that we wanted to do this together, and she worried about her role and her place if there were already two parents, and two birth parents at that.

We also had to decide WHO was going to get pregnant, I assumed it would be me, but Shel went through a few weeks of wondering if maybe she'd like to be pregnant first. She is older than I am, so we had to discuss that possibility, in the end she decided she didn't want to be pregnant (and after the birth she was quite sure she had made the right decision PMSL!).

You'll have to come to a decision that you BOTH agree with. respect that she might be worried about her place. All the reassurances in the world aren't going to mean much if her she is worried about what happens if something happens to you? So you need to address all her fears regarding a known donor, possibly put in place an parenting agreement with the terms of the agreement. Even though this can be challenged in court, it is taken into consideration when the courts are placing your child into someones care, should something even happen to you.

Hope this isn't too rambley, its 6.40am here lol.

Hi Leasha-

Thanks for your reply, it made sense. She has said that the reason she wants an unkown donor is because she doesn't want anyone to be apart of the child's daily life. In my ultimate view of the situation the donor would be a family friend who would be an "uncle" and wouldn't want to be a "father" type figure. This may be a little naive thinking, but that is my vision. Of course I have no idea as of right now who that would be. I do understand some of her fears, I am just really concerned about the background of the donor and behaviorism etc. At least we have a long time to think and discuss, sometimes it just worries me that she would rather not talk about it, because I think about it everyday.