LGBT Family Fertility Options

Are you starting a family or thinking of adding a new member? We welcome you as you begin the fertility process.

At Atlantic Reproductive Medicine Specialists, we bring over 30 years of third-party reproduction experience and can offer guidance on how the Triangle LGBT community can grow your family. You will have access to the latest reproductive technologies and a caring team dedicated to integrating the process into your life as seamlessly as possible.

Whether you are part of a gay family, a single LGBT person, or pre- or post-transition, we will partner with you to tailor a family plan that is both evidence-based and aligned with your personal values.

Family Options

Progress in fertility treatments and technologies has expanded our ability to help build families for LGBT couples and individuals. Advancements in our ability to freeze sperm, eggs, and embryos, continued use of long-established treatments such as intrauterine insemination (IUI) with donor sperm, and the growing use of in vitro fertilization (IVF) with egg donation and gestational carrier open pathways to parenting that can be tailored to your resources to give rise to the family you envision.

Family Building Options for Partnered or Single LGBT Men

With the assistance of an egg donor and gestational carrier, partnered or single men can have biological children via IVF. Couples can choose to have one or both partners provide sperm. Egg donors can be known to you or anonymous. Eggs from anonymous donors can be supplied from a fresh egg donation or a frozen egg bank, depending upon the donor characteristics specified by the intended parents. Gestational carriers can be women you know or will come to know during the fertility process. Embryos can be frozen to provide options for additional children in the future.

Family Building Options for Partnered or Single LGBT Women

With the assistance of a sperm donor, partnered or single women can have biological children via IUI or IVF. Sperm donors can be known or anonymous. If a woman wishes to carry a pregnancy from her own eggs and has open fallopian tubes, pregnancy can be achieved via IUI. If a woman wants to share a pregnancy by carrying an embryo from her partner’s egg, her partner can be her egg donor via IVF.

Family Building Options for Transgender Persons

Transgender people desiring families have to plan ahead in ways that non-transgender families do not ensure that their reproductive choices are not precluded by transitioning from one gender to another.

Options for Fertility Banking Pre-Transition

If having children before beginning your transition is not possible, or if you’re not ready to have children, you have the option to go through sperm collection or egg retrieval and have your sperm or eggs cryopreserved (frozen) before beginning hormonal therapy*.

Hormone treatments involved in a transgender transformation will adversely affect eggs or sperm. Therefore, fertility preservation is most successful if pursued before your hormone treatment begins. Sperm or egg freezing allows you to preserve your fertility and keep the door open to creating a family in the future.

You also have the option, whether single or partnered before your transition, to undergo a complete IVF process before beginning your hormonal therapy and cryopreserve the fertilized and developed embryos.

Building Families After Transition with Banked Sperm or Eggs

Banked eggs, sperm, or embryos can be used when the time has come to build your family. The process, which may include IUI or IVF with or without the assistance of a gestational carrier, will be tailored to what you were able to bank before transition and the gender and fertility of your partner if you are partnered.

Conception and Beyond: Why Work with Atlantic Reproductive?

Fertility factors

• We will tailor your treatment to your family’s vision and help you to identify and work with the donor or carrier of your choice.
• We offer the ability to work with fresh or frozen donor eggs. We have available donors and are also happy to work with a known donor, a donor from an agency of your choice, or frozen donor eggs from an affiliated egg bank.
• We offer the ability to work with known or anonymous sperm donors. Our laboratory team has evaluated the sperm banks we work with to verify quality and customer service.
• We are happy to evaluate and work with the gestational carrier of your choice, whether you find a carrier on your own or through an agency.

Reproductive counseling

Reproductive counseling begins with a discussion of the family you envision and the fertility factors and treatment options involved in achieving your vision. Once the medical pathway becomes clear, our affiliated reproductive psychologists and lawyers provide counseling to ensure that all participants are comfortable with their roles and legally protected during all phases of the fertility process.

Our patients communicate directly with legal, psychology, and medical teams that all function together to provide you with a productive and comprehensive experience.

Legal protection

There are no assisted reproduction statutes for any individuals in North Carolina, meaning you need a qualified and skilled reproductive law attorney to protect your rights and provide guidance and education. Working with a reproductive lawyer allows you to fortify legal protections for yourself, your partner, and your children.

From surrogacy contracts and gay adoption laws to birth certificate issues and dispositional control over frozen genetic material, we will connect you to skilled and experienced legal guidance ensuring your journey toward parenthood is all properly planned for, protected, and managed.

No matter where you are in planning your family, we welcome you to the Atlantic family and look forward to helping you achieve your goals.

*If you are a minor contemplating fertility preservation as part of a transitional program, know that these fertility preservation methods constitute medical treatment and will require the consent of your parents in accordance with the American Academy of Pediatrics statement on pediatric assent. These fertility preservation options will also be offered for consent to your parents as part of the informed consent process for any hormonal treatment or surgery you are currently discussing.