S and R’s Experience with Insemination at Hannam Fertility Centre
As a queer couple seeking fertility support, S and R felt both cared for and listened to by a team that encouraged them throughout their entire journey — without pressuring them to take on treatments before they were ready.
Written by Corrina Allen.
Six years ago, S and R began thinking about what they wanted their future family to look like. R had plans to propose and the couple had begun to discuss the possibility of becoming parents. A conversation with S’s family doctor led the pair to sit down for a consultation at Hannam Fertility Centre in order to better understand their options. As a couple, S and R knew that they’d need access to sperm and fertility support to conceive, but they weren’t sure how soon they’d need to begin actively pursuing treatment.
“I remember Dr. Schram telling us that we were in a good space,” says S. “She was really good at both impressing upon us the importance of starting soon but also not being like, ‘Come on, the clock is ticking’ or ‘Shame on you for not starting earlier.’” It was, says R, “a very care-forward approach to thinking about who we were, what we would need, and who would be good for us.”
“It was a very care-forward approach to thinking about who we were, what we would need, and who would be good for us.”
At HFC, every effort is made to serve each patient’s unique goals and requirements. For S and R that meant creating a care plan that recognized and understood who they were as a couple and what they wanted for their family. Each expressed a distrust of the medical system, where the heteronormativity they encountered made it difficult to find care that aligned with their needs. But when it came to building a family, that system was their only option.
“We can't get pregnant any other way,” S explains. “So it's obviously a very active choice, but it can be fraught, too, because queer people's experience with reproductive technologies is very different than if you're straight. For example, other people with fertility challenges may say, ‘Oh, we're just trying and seeing what happens.’ For us, as queer people, every step is intentional.”
The couple began their first round of donor insemination early in the pandemic. While this timing presented additional difficulties, S and R say that they experienced reliable, consistent communication and support over the course of treatment.
In total, S underwent donor insemination six times. “Four of those times we were successful, but I miscarried,” she says. “That was very difficult. Each time was really, really hard, but the clinic was amazing through all of it.” Her care team at HFC told her that miscarriages are common and that she and R could try again when they were ready. “They didn't rush it,” says S, “but then [the miscarriages] kept happening.”
S and R were faced with the question of whether they should escalate their treatment — both had concerns about the additional physical, emotional, and financial stress that a move to in vitro fertilization (IVF) might cause. Before they had to make any decisions, the team at HFC brought in a second physician to do an independent review of their case to ensure that every effort had been made to see that the donor insemination was successful.
“That was huge for us,” says R. “To hear from the doctors and to know that we've done everything we could — that if we stopped today, we'd have done everything that we could — I still feel the relief that those words gave us. Because we were really struggling financially and emotionally. There was so much self-blame. To hear both doctors say the same thing independently and confidently was life changing.”
S and R took a year-long break before deciding that they would return to the clinic to try again. This time, R would undergo treatment. On the second round of donor insemination, the couple conceived. Today they’re parents to a happy, busy toddler and they plan on adding to their family in the near future.
For S and R, the support HFC offers has helped to broaden the circle of care. When they arrived at the clinic, R didn’t have a family doctor. Dr. Schram connected them with a family doctor with the experience to meet their medical needs. That, says R, “was the first act of allyship I have ever experienced from someone in the medical industry. It changed my relationship to my health. Hannam very much facilitated that access — [they] shifted the way that I experience healthcare.”
