Why Growing Your Queer Family Can Feel So Overwhelming

As a queer midwife who has supported thousands of LGBTQ+ folks and prospective solo parents along their family-building journey, and the co-author of Baby Making for Everybody, founder of the PregnantTogether community, and a parent of three — I know how overwhelming growing your queer family can feel.

Growing your family outside of the traditional heterosexual nuclear family model is a profound undertaking. It requires learning so much new information, spending a considerable amount of money, and, often, overcoming challenging emotions. It’s common to feel overwhelmed at any and all parts of this process.

That said, if you are part of the LGBTQ+ community and thinking about or in the process of growing your family, you are in good company: 18% of all LGBTQ+ adults and 63% of LGBTQ+ millennials are or want to become parents. We deserve an abundance of resources and communities that support us in every aspect of our family building.

I want to help you break it all down. First I’ll offer a guide to approaching all of my articles on ParentData so you can understand, in bite-size chunks, the information relevant to growing your family. Then we will get into the different barriers people frequently face when going about this process, and I’ll share research-backed ideas on how to overcome them.

Where do I begin?

I’ve written 10 core articles that go over everything you need to know to get started on growing your family, particularly focusing on the experiences of people using donor sperm. Here is how I recommend going through them:

Think about where you’re getting your sperm

Understand your fertility and conception options

Go deeper

Set up your support networks

Now let’s talk about the numerous barriers queer people face in growing our families and, more importantly, evidence-based suggestions for how to overcome them.

How to overcome medical barriers

Challenges finding affirming and supportive providers

Many LGBTQ+ and solo parents I work with run into challenges finding supportive and affirming providers throughout this journey, which can both make it difficult to access necessary medical services and increase emotional barriers to receiving care.

How to overcome this barrier: Ask friends and community members for referrals for queer-competent providers, and get specific on the questions you ask providers before you start working with them (e.g. How many LGBTQ+/solo/[fill in the blank] patients are you working with currently?). You can access a free FAQ sheet on how to find an affirming provider here.

Navigating the perplexing (and heterosexist) world of fertility clinics

Fertility clinics arose to support heterosexual couples experiencing infertility, and often LGBTQ+ folks growing their families encounter one barrier after another when seeking care from these clinics. This is especially true for those using directed (identified) sperm donors in a fertility clinic setting or who live in a state where there is a dearth of LGBTQ+-competent fertility clinics.

How to overcome this barrier: First, tap into your community and the internet to find fertility clinics that are truly LGBTQ+-competent (that don’t merely have a rainbow flag on their website). If you’re planning to use a directed donor in a fertility clinic, get a sense of all of the requirements for proceeding at your particular clinic before initiating care so you have a better sense of what to expect. At the time of this writing, the only LGBTQ+-specific fertility clinic in the U.S. is the Q+ Family Building Clinic, a faction of Stanford Medical.

Fertility or health challenges that affect your options

Sometimes, real medical barriers exist and make it hard for us to grow our families in the ways we originally hoped.

How to overcome this barrier: Take the time to find a fertility provider and/or clinic as described above, and don’t underestimate the power of educating yourself about your choices and options — studies show that increasing your understanding of the situation improves your overall care experience. While sometimes there is nothing to do in these situations besides processing your emotions, other times you can find success with a second opinion or trying a new fertility intervention that wasn’t available through your initial provider.

How to overcome financial barriers

The high cost of donor gametes and fertility care

It’s no secret that growing your queer family can be wildly expensive. As of 2024, a vial of donor sperm from a bank costs up to $2,000, depending on the type of sperm. Costs increase exponentially when exploring egg donation, surrogacy, and the fertility treatments many people use to get pregnant.

How to overcome this barrier: Family Equality and Rainbow Families list organizations offering grants and financial assistance for LGBTQ+ family building. As of this writing, 20 states require insurance companies to cover fertility services for people experiencing infertility — and LGBTQ+ and solo parents qualify for this due to their relationship status. I’ve had clients face barriers in getting their insurance to cover fertility treatments even in states where it is mandated, and they’ve found support through their state’s insurance commission office. When people live in a state where insurance coverage isn’t yet available or face other financial barriers, I’ve seen people get creative about accessing the financial support they need, including but not limited to crowdfunding campaigns, getting a job at a company that offers fertility coverage, taking out loans, traveling to a low-cost fertility clinic, or throwing baby-making showers (instead of or in addition to baby showers).

How to overcome emotional barriers

External and internalized oppression

Societal oppression impacts our emotions around growing our family. I often see homophobia, transphobia, biases against single people, racism, or classism affect my clients as they navigate the emotions of growing their queer families.

How to overcome this barrier: When navigating the many internal and external types of oppression, it’s helpful to externalize them as much as possible — remembering that society is full of biases but that those biases don’t hold capital-“T” truths about you, your fertility, and your family-building potential. Studies also show that connecting with people within your same community has positive indications for your mental health. I run PregnantTogether, an online community supporting queer folks and solo parents from preconception through parenting, for this exact reason. You may also be able to find a supportive community on Reddit or Facebook.

Overwhelm, decision fatigue, and ambivalence

I often see clients hit extreme levels of overwhelm and decision fatigue as they navigate the complex logistics and experiences of queer family building. Ambivalence about choosing to become a parent is also a common experience, and can be made stronger for queer people because of the extra barriers to becoming parents.

How to overcome this barrier: Focus on practices for regulating your nervous system such as journaling, meditation, seeing an informed therapist, or other practices that work for you. You may also choose to take a break at any point of your process to rest and recalibrate — this is totally okay and often very supportive to your mental health.

The medical, emotional, and financial barriers you face as a queer person trying to grow your family can certainly feel overwhelming at times. Hopefully the resources above can help you remember that you aren’t alone on this journey. It’s a long road, but there is so much joy that awaits you.

We recognize that readers of ParentData identify in different ways — read more about our approach to gender-inclusive language here.

About our sponsor

Ro is a healthcare platform that’s helped millions access tools to achieve their health goals in fertility, weight loss, sexual health, and more. Data-driven and clinically-backed, Ro offers telehealth, labs, and pharmacy services to enable seamless, convenient care.

Community Guidelines

+ Add a Comment