How it began...

I've always known that i wanted to have a baby. I guess lots of women think that. I had always had this arbitrary figure of 35 years of age as my deadline. I had read that female fertillity decreased significantly following this time and so had this is the back of my mind as the point at which i needed to do something. When i was single i had thought that if i was still single at age 35 then i would somehow seek out a way to have a child by myself, but as 35 crept closer i wasn't quite so keen on doing it all on my own. This isn't a story of my life in love and relationships up to this point so i won't bore you with those details, suffice to say, i was incredibly lucky to meet Kylie at age 33 (not far off 34) and so with 35 not too far on the horizon i talked to her about my thoughts and feelings on having children.

Ky and I had only been together for about 6 months when i decided i wanted to find out some more about what the options were. It sounds funny now, given the relatively early stage in our relationship , but for me it was really just some fact finding to see what we could do when the time came that we wanted to and for Ky, well, in her typical easy going manner, she just took it all in her stride. So in October 2006, I trotted off to the Carlton Clinic to ask about pregnancy options for girl couples.

The doctor i saw was lovely and i asked my questions about how we would go about it and whether i would qualify for infertility treatment in Victoria, which at the time of writing, still prohibits single women and lesbians from accessing infertility treatment unless they are deemed medically infertile. The doctor, by her own admission, was not an expert in the area, but did seem confident that there were options for us and gave me a referral to an infertility specialist who had experience with lesbian couples. At this point, the issues which i perceived as providing the greatest barriers were our lack of sperm or potential known donor, a waiting list for treatment and the issue of access to services in Victoria. Before leaving I asked the doctor roughly how long the whole process would be expected to take, she said "Oh, from when you first visit the specialist, i'd think you could expect to be pregnant within 6-12 months".

Wow. I hadn't expected it to happen so fast. I had gone to the doctor early to compensate for the expected wait that would occur!