The Way We Make Babies Is Changing, So Why Isn’t the Language Around It?
“When mummy and daddy love each other, they make a baby” doesn’t cut it anymore
Today marks my second failed round of IVF.
It’s not working for me. Twice my body has refused to respond to the medication.
My doctor has told me the best way forward is to use donor eggs.
Whether IVF eventually works or I go with a donor egg, one thing is for sure. Any future baby of mine will not be made by my partner and I getting our bedroom groove on.
It will be made in a lab.
The same goes for my friend who just had a baby with a sperm donor. And for another who had a baby with her wife using the co-IVF method.
None of these babies were made the way I was taught. One mother, one father — ideally married — and perfunctory sex. This was the narrative that followed me from my first sex-ed lesson right through to my adult years.
It probably followed you, too.
The way an increasing number of people make babies is changing but not everyone has changed with it. Many people still talk about baby-making the old-fashioned way.
