Shared motherhood
Shared Motherhood, also known as intra-partner egg donation has been designed to give both you and your partner a way to share in your family building experience with Care.
With Shared Motherhood, both individuals in the couple can both take part in the IVF journey to family as a shared experience right from conception. One partner donates eggs to her partner in IVF treatment, and is the ‘biological mother’. The other partner carries your baby and experiences the pregnancy as the ‘gestational or birth mother’.
The Treatment Process
- Know from the beginning who will provide eggs and who will have the transfer – if you do, we will complete a number of fertility tests to make sure it is safe for the egg provider to undergo ovarian stimulation and that you are likely to respond well. We will also progress investigations for the partner who is planning to carry the pregnancy so that we are sure it is safe and suitable for you to carry the pregnancy
- Be flexible about each partner’s role in the shared motherhood process. In this case, you may both want to have both types of pre-treatment investigations before deciding the best option for your treatment plan
- Want to give consent from the start to allow the possibility of the non-birth partner having treatment in the future if embryos are frozen during the treatment cycle.
Shared motherhood gives a number of emotional and psychological benefits to both partners. It allows both partners to experience and share in your journey to parenthood. And if you decide to have another child you may decide to reverse your roles
What are the options for using donor sperm?
How do we get started?
You will likely have lots of questions and a call to our dedicated patient enquiry team is a good place to start. They’ll be able to answer your questions and give you any additional information you might need.
You can call them on 0800 564 2270.
The team at your chosen Care clinic will also be able to support you at every step of your journey – don’t hesitate to contact them if you have any questions.