Sara in Copenhagen

Jul 18, 2016
In February this year, I accompanied Sara to Copenhagen. Sara is one half of the lovely couple I interview and photograph for my book project about lesbian lives. She and her wife Carmen are trying to get pregnant with their second child. This was their second attempt.

They decided early on to use the services of Vitanova, a Danish fertility clinic in Copenhagen. Why Denmark? Well, it’s illegal for Swiss fertility clinics to cater to homosexual couples. Gays and lesbians can get pregnant on their own, of course, but their partner can’t adopt the child: That’s the law here. But lesbian couples in Switzerland do have families, and do get pregnant — it’s simply a fact. Our law forces the couples to use expensive lawyers in order to set up their customized partnership contracts and fosters a sort of insemination tourism that borders on the absurd.

 

“Quite a lot of Swiss lesbian women come and see us when they want to start a family,” Karin Sintring, the receptionist at Vitanova clinic in Copenhagen, told me. “Also many, many Italians.”

Sara and Carmen discussed multiple options before having a family. Rather than asking one of their male friends for sperm, or co-parenting with a gay couple, they finally decided that they didn’t want to know the biological father and opted for an anonymous donation from Denmark. Their daughter Joa, however, will be able to contact the clinic when she turns eighteen to receive the donor’s contact information. I was surprised to learn that only 10% of children conceived this way are interested in doing so!

 

They also wanted to make sure that Joa would be able to have a biological sibling: Sara can potentially get pregnant multiple times with donations from the same sperm donor. Sara and Carmen both grew up with siblings, and they don’t want to deprive their children of this primary connection.

But first and foremost, though, they wanted their own family: They simply didn’t want to have to share their children with anyone else. “Don’t underestimate the power of a biological connection!” Sara says. “What if a male friend who donates his sperm suddenly recognizes himself in our children, and wants to spend a lot of time with them even though this wasn’t part of the deal? There’d be no legal grounds for us to deny him this. Plus, I — as the biological mother — want Carmen to be my equal partner. I want her to be just as much of a mother as I am. With the biological father in the picture, she might feel excluded, or like the fifth wheel.”

 

“We just want to be a normal, boring family,” Carmen concurs. “We’re basically living the dream of every conservative politician.”

Karin Sintring, the receptionist at Vitanova, prints the bill for Sara’s insemination. A first consultation along with a sperm depot (six “shots”) cost 1250 Euros. The insemination procedure costs 525 Euros.

 

“We’ve started saving money early, not only for the procedures, but also for the costs of plane tickets and hotels,” Sara tells me. “We had a special account set up for this years ago.”

Daily, the clinic receives pictures and cards of happy parents and displays them in the waiting room.

The sperm packages are frozen and thawed before use.

Sanne Drabaek, the nurse and insemination assistant, checks a couple of facts with Sara before the big moment — her full name and her birthday, for example. Sara signs off on the procedure and we are go.

Done! We are hungry!

We eat a humongous burger at Cafe G. It’s become Sara’s post-insemination go-to spot in Copenhagen. We joke that even if she won’t get pregnant, the trip was totally worth it just for the burgers.

After our meal and a short walk around Copenhagen, it’s time to go back to the airport. Sara is elated and full of hope, but very tired. “It’s stressful having to come here to Copenhagen. Booking flights on such short notice, organising child care, and just simply the trip itself. The waiting, the airports… It’s absurd I can’t just get on a bus and have my ob-gyn inseminate me when I ovulate.”

 

Three weeks after our trip, Sara texts me to say she’s not pregnant.

 

 
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