How to Make a Baby

Everything LGBTQ+ Families Need to Know About IVF & Fertility Treatments

Allie Conway, Sam Conway

• Publisher: Mango Media
• Year: 2025
• eBook ISBN: 9781684817634
• Subtopic: Gynecology, Obstetrics & Midwifery

Building Families Through Science and Love

Allie and Sam, widely recognized as "Mommy and Other Mommy," share their emotional and transformative journey to parenthood in How to Make a Baby: Everything LGBTQ+ Families Need to Know About IVF. This inspiring guide is a must-read for LGBTQ+ families navigating artificial insemination, IVF, and other fertility options.

#1 New Release in Pregnancy & Childbirth

Growing a family as a same-sex couple comes with unique challenges. For Allie and Sam, the path to parenthood was anything but easy. Their story reveals the highs and lows of a three-year journey, involving IUIs, a home insemination, IVF cycles, frozen embryo transfers, and significant financial and emotional investments.

From heartbreak to hope, their journey offers a beacon of guidance. Navigating heteronormative fertility clinics, answering questions about their family dynamic, and overcoming countless obstacles, Allie and Sam show that with determination and love, it's possible to create the family you've dreamed of.

Inside, you'll find:

• A comprehensive guide to fertility treatments like artificial insemination, IVF, and frozen embryo transfers, specifically for LGBTQ+ families.

• Valuable insights into the emotional, societal, and financial challenges of the fertility journey, including IVF costs and clinic experiences.

• Hopeful, practical advice to support your unique path to parenthood and create a more inclusive understanding of lesbian couples and their families.

If you liked  It Starts with the Egg,  You Got This - IVF Planner and Journal, or  Oh Sis, You're Pregnant!, you'll love  How to Make a Baby.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Table of Contents
• Introduction: Trying to Conceive as a Same-Sex Couple
• 1. Paths to Parenthood: Adoption vs. Fertility Treatments
• 2. Finding the Right Fit: Choosing a Fertility Clinic
• 3. “Who’s the Dad?”: Picking a Sperm Donor
• 4. Two Ladies Make a Baby: TTC Methods for Same-Sex Couples
• 5. Whose Bun in Whose Oven?: Choosing Our Roles
• 6. A Date with Wanda: Pre-Pregnancy Testing
• 7. It’s Baby Making Time: Our First IUI
• 8. If at First You Don’t Succeed, Try, Try Again: Our Second and Third IUIs
• 9. Time to Pivot: Transitioning to IVF
• 10. Shots, Shots, Baby: IVF
• 11. Ovaries the Size of Grapefruit: The Egg Retrieval Process
• 12. Overstimulated and Overwhelmed: OHSS and Our Embryo Results
• 13. Transferring a Dream: Our First Embryo Transfer
• 14. Continuing to Dream: Our Second Embryo Transfer
• 15. DIY Conception: Trying At-Home Insemination
• 16. Try, Try Again: Our Third Embryo Transfer
• 17. Rainbow Baby: We’re Pregnant!
• 18. “I’m Sorry, There’s No Heartbeat”: Experiencing a Missed Miscarriage
• 19. A New Direction: Allie’s First Embryo Transfer
• 20. Hope After Heartbreak: We’re Finally Expecting
• 21. A Double Rainbow: Pregnant…with Twins
• 22. Pump It Up: Inducing Lactation
• 23. The Cost of It All: Financing Fertility Treatments
• Closing
• Commonly Asked Questions: Two-Mom Edition
• Glossary of Fertility Terms
• Acknowledgments
• About the Authors