Talking to others about this choice

There is no 1-2-3 formula to deciding whether the Choice Motherhood lifestyle is right for you. But there are a lot of ways to try to figure it out. This is a good place to start.

I lived in New York City 18 years, so it's always a little odd for me to fly in and out of town for a weekend workshop, as I've done the last two visits. But we do pack a lot of information-sharing and support into these events, and the NYC event held in July 2010 was quite dense with resources. Here is some of what we shared.

It's hard for self-sufficient women to ask for help -- or even acknowledge to ourselves that we need it. But we do. Even more than we care to admit, because we tend to be so hard on ourselves. This month I'm thinking about the kinds of support Choice Moms need, and how we can get and give it as a community.

Thanks to the generosity of Choice Mom Emily, I've been able to spend a wonderful 10-day holiday in London with my kids and parents. While here I met in Coram's Field with 14 women, including Moms, Thinkers and Tryers from Belfast, Dublin, Belgium and many others in the United Kingdom. I also met with a large group of Ph.D. students in Cambridge, who were interested in the Choice Mom story.

submitted by Christy
My daughter is 2.5 years old. She is a little girl who doesn't need to ask a lot of questions, doesn't seem to need a lot of prep information, and simply adjusts at the time to whatever is happening around her. She doesn't yet ask why she doesn't have a dad, or who her donor is. But other kids are now starting to do so.

A group of women at a Choice Mom networking event discussed, with the help of counselor Krista Post, the nuances of talking about taking this path with close friends, family and colleagues.

Lesbian and gay couples, and single women, have long been presumed by many to offer "worse" family structure for kids compared to two-parent heterosexual marriages. One new study reported in Time magazine indicates something we've long suspected. That might be a huge presumption.

At a Choice Mom networking event in 2008, I had the pleasure of meeting Anne Catherine Hundhausen. Since then, she has told her Choice Mom journey in a highly recommended documentary, about the grays of the donor conception process for her. Here's her personal story.

Some time ago a librarian wrote to me asking that I send my various books for Choice Moms and donor-conceived families to the Library of Congress for cataloging. This stemmed out of her discovery that there are very few books about donor conception available. She compiled this list, however, of everything she had found to that point.

There are several great options for creating your own storybooks for your adopted or donor conceived child. Here are some of them.

We love reading stories with our kids about non-traditional families. Here are some of the books that have been recommended by Choice Moms.

Well here it is...the public debate between a Glenn Sacks father's rights crony (Robert Franklin) and myself on PublicSquare.net. Read, laugh, seethe, comment. I actually love the opportunity to offer a rational perspective, even if my opponent has a decidedly different viewpoint. Such as Franklin's view that Choice Moms often trick men into having kids and then lie to keep them out of the child's life. Here's a synopsis, with links to the full debate.

A woman wrote to say that her friends were sharing the news of her Choice pregnancy with others, including the fact that she conceived with an anonymous sperm donor, even though she asked them not to. She turned to the community to get advice.

When your uncle is also the sperm donor who helped your lesbian parents conceive, you might presume "the" conversation about your origins would be a hard one. And what happens afterward?

There are three things Choice Moms report in hindsight are their biggest regrets. What do you think they are?

It can seem off-putting when your fertility doctor asks you to do a psychological evaluation before embarking on Choice Motherhood. But it's common at many clinics.

I was asked by American Fertility Association to write an op-ed about my reaction to the stories, issues and disapproval I've heard about a single parent's ability to be the best they can be for their child.

Years ago, when my daughter was in kindergarten, the infamous family tree assignments started to come from school. To allow for the fact that Choice families don't have a "father's side" to fill in, we came up with our own solution.

One woman on the Choice Mom discussion board noticed a pattern -- that others have agreed with -- about who tends to disapprove of the Choice Mom path, and who does not: