Building your family: pathways for LGBTQ+ parents

I've been doing this work for over twenty years, and the single biggest shift I've seen is in LGBTQ+ family building. The options today are not just broader — they're better.

Let's start with reciprocal IVF, because it's one of the most beautiful options for same-sex female couples. One partner provides the eggs, those eggs are fertilized with donor sperm, and the resulting embryo is transferred to the other partner who carries the pregnancy. Both partners are biologically connected to the child.

And from the patient side, what we hear over and over is that it makes the family feel shared from day one. Both partners are physically part of the experience.

For male couples, the conversation is different. We're talking about egg donors and gestational carriers. The science is well established at this point, but the legal and emotional pieces deserve as much attention as the medical ones.

I always tell patients: get a reproductive attorney involved before the embryo transfer. Surrogacy law is wildly different from state to state. California is one of the most protective; some states have almost no framework.