Fourteen years later after my wife and I started our fertility journey, I look back in wonder the pathway we took and the multitude of barriers we had to overcome.

As a lesbian couple, who were only legally ‘married’ when marriage equality came in and we were able to update our civil partnership to marriage, the years are a blur. Being the first in our area to try to conceive as a couple, we were isolated and desperately lacking in guidance, support and community when we started our journey. It was difficult, full of uncertainty and lack of representation wherever we navigated. By the time we had our second child, we were being contacted in a multitude of spaces asking about how we created our family by other queer people and their family alike- and this is how the organization LGBT Mummies was born.

I look back fondly but also conscious of the trauma that we accrued over our experiences: being both biological and non-biology and gestational mothers, we are lucky enough to have experience of fertility treatment and birth. But between us over fourteen years we have navigated lack of access to NHS funding, PCOS, miscarriage, secondary infertility, failed cycles, TTC during a pandemic and birth trauma- coupled with the institutionalised and systemic discrimination and lack of understanding of our pathway and who we were.

I’m passionate that every human deserves the right to create the family they dream of (if medically viable) by their chosen route, and am proud that we have ensured working with experts means that our community has access through us to make informed decisions on the safe and inclusive pathways and services they can access. I feel privileged to have worked alongside these experts over the years and supported over 80,000 people in our community on their journey. I’m passionate that there should be a balance between patient experience and clinical outcome, and that to provide true, inclusive and safe fertility care, the patient voice must be centred within services, alongside robust education and training for all staff.

To understand our community, identities, pathways, and the barriers and implications the LGBTQIA+ community face. That’s why I am so proud to be a Trustee of Fertility Action, putting patient voice and clinical expertise and evidence at the heart of what the charity does. I’m proud to be part of a charity who sees ours and other marginalized communities not as a ‘tick box’ but as humans who deserve as said- safe,inclusive and personalised care.