[00:00:04] Speaker A: Welcome to Start to Finish Motherhood, a podcast for those thinking or already single mothers by choice. Just looking for practical advice for navigating life's relationships. When you decide to have children on your own, it doesn't mean that you're completely alone. I'm Aisha Jenkins and I'm partnering with you every step of your journey.
Hi everybody. I had an opportunity recently to sit down in a really informative session discussing the legal side of assisted reproductive technology. This was a session that was put together by SMBC Resources and it was so good and so thorough that I asked permission to share it with you, my listening audience. I've been in the SMBC community for more than a decade and this session brought up questions and answered questions that I had not even thought of. It was so good that I did not want to touch it. I just wanted to bring it to you straight. So here we go. I hope you find it informative and let's jump into it.
[00:01:09] Speaker B: Good morning everyone. Welcome to our legal info session. Today we're going to be speaking about legal issues and assisted reproductive technology. We're joined by Morgan Schumann, an attorney who's going to speak to us through the ins and outs of using a known donor. I am Regine. I'm the founder of SMBC Resources. We are a platform for solo moms or women or birthing people who are interested in becoming solo parents. The platform contains a directory of professional services, experts, subject matter experts and resources really tailored for anyone who's on the journey to solo parenthood. Whether you're looking for an attorney, a mom coach, a financial planner, all of them are listed in our directory today. We also offer wraparound program that would allow it's personalized case management. So if you're on the journey, thinking of the journey, need help, need advice, need to get in touch with the right attorney, financial planner, the right doula. We have a team of experts who's available and ready to help you through that journey and walk you through some of the steps, depths and the intricacies that it takes to go from point A to point B. I'm going to pass on the presentation to Morgan, who's going to go into some of the intricacy using a donor and what it looks like, what donor conception actually looks like from a legal standpoint. Morgan, the floor is yours.
[00:02:40] Speaker C: Thank you for the kind introduction. My name is Morgan Schumann. I am an attorney with Pineapple Lothy. I am licensed in the state of Illinois. One of the things that we'll talk about today is that assisted Reproductive technologies is a type of family law, and family law is generally governed by states. So there are very individual considerations depending on what state you're licensed in. But what we're going to do today is talk about some of the broad, overlying like arches and kind of themes in assisted reproductive technology law and then what your task would be as the next step is to dig into. How does what we talk about today apply to your particular circumstances, both in terms of, as a practical matter, what do you need to do to build your family? Are you relying on sperm donation, embryo donation, surrogacy, those types of things, and then also connecting with the appropriate professionals that are licensed in your state to be able to give you that kind of next step advice. And I'll talk with you a little bit today about how you can go about making sure that you're selecting a vetted professional that's going to be capable of handling that. Just a quick preview of what we'll be talking about today. We will go into sperm, egg and embryo donation, of course, for solo parents by choice, and specifically solo mothers by choice. Usually they're needing to rely on sperm donation of some kind. You might be going through the IVF process. You're likely going to be creating embryos. So you might think about embryo donation both from the perspective of someone who might choose to receive a donated embryo, but also from the potential perspective of becoming a future embryo donor yourself, if that's something that's of interest and that might impact some of the choices that you make along the way as you're preparing for your IVF journey. We'll also just briefly touch on egg donation and surrogacy. Of course, a lot of people that come to the decision to become a solo parent by choice or solo mother by choice are perhaps a little bit older if they produce eggs and their eggs are not of a quality that are likely to be successful with ivf. You might also be relying on an egg donor. So I'll touch on that as well. The next thing that we'll talk about just is some information about how you establish who is or is not a parent to your child in a legal setting. So doing that by court order. And then we will also touch on just next steps in terms of estate planning and guardianship considerations once your child is earth sized and some things that you might want to look for in clinic consent forms. I've got my contact information at the end, so if you have individual questions and you'd like to reach out, please feel free to contact me. So as you're listening and thinking of those questions, jot them down so that you remember what you want to send. Right. So the first consideration as we're thinking about gamete donation is are you selecting a donor or donors that are known to you, or are you selecting donors that you don't currently know their identity or something in between? And so of course, this applies for most of us in the context of sperm donation. But like I said, there's lots of different types of donation. You might be thinking about receiving a donated embryo. That same decision can also be blocked into this consideration of known donors versus receiving an embryo in a more anonymous way versus a kind of facilitated match through an agency or a matching. Just think about it that way. Same thing with egg donation. It can be somebody that you know. It could be a sister or a close friend or something like that could be an agency match, or it could be receiving frozen eggs from an egg bank where they've already been retrieved and stored. Think about that as we're talking. Some of the considerations to keep in mind for known donation is you are definitely approaching a situation with a known donor from a perspective likely of trust and of some expectation of continuous communication and correspondence between you. So not just prior to the donation, but potentially on an ongoing basis throughout of your relationship. If they're a family or a friend that you intend to stay in contact with, it's likely that there's going to be some amount of communication between you. They might have a chance to meet your child and get to know them. Things like that are going to impact how you want to build out your legal agreement. This is a situation where you do want to make sure that you have a direct legal contract that is independently negotiated. So in doing so, this means that both sides are going to need their own independent legal counsel to walk them through the implications of what they're doing. It's generally best practice to also do psychological evaluation for a donor situation to make sure that your donor understands and is comfortable with the implications of what they're doing. And that will help to give legitimacy to the donation and to the process that was followed as well. So you're going to have this direct legal contracting, you're going to negotiate the terms of the agreement between the parties. One of the parties benefits or one of the things to think about with known sperm donations specifically is that you may or may not actually need to go through a fertility clinic. So if you are in a state that permits direct person to person sperm donation and you don't have any other diagnosed infertility or any other issue that would necessitate having the involvement of reproductive endocrinologists and you don't want to potentially go to that expense. Known donation can be a way of saving money, the fertility process by avoiding the actual involvement of a clinic. I do want to be very careful in warning you though that this is very state specific. It is perfectly fine and acceptable and there have been court decisions that have established the legitimacy of this at home donation option in some states. But there are also states that have within their definition of assisted reproduction or whatever language that state uses that specify that it needs to be done by a licensed medical professional or language along those lines. So this is an area before you pursue anything with a known donor at home, you need to make sure that you are talking with your attorney and making sure that they have reviewed the laws in your state and that they've checked for any case law, if any exists at this point to find out whether or not the clinic being optional is truly the case in your particular state. And then the last thing that I just want to make a note about for known donation is that if you take time to really listen to donor conceived people, there's ways that you can connect and hear a lot of opinions. And of course all donor conceived people do not share the same beliefs and opinions as to their desire to meet or connect with their donor or their donor siblings. But often that what you'll find is that known donation is what's recommended as a best practice wherever possible in donor conceived communities. So if this is possible for you, it can be a great approach. There's lots of ways to identify a known donor, including reaching out within your social network or if there's just somebody that you think you might be able to ask. It's something to think about. I'm going to flip to the opposite side of things, which is the banked gametes. So this would be if you are going to go to a sperm bank or an egg bank and you are just going to pick a donor essentially from a catalog. In some ways this can be easier because a lot of the legal is often handled for you because the donor has released all of their parental rights and responsibilities when they made that donation to the clinic, you often also will not have the identity of the donor known to you at the time that you purchase or are using the donor gametes. Most Frequently you're seeing ID release at 18 donors. I distinguish this from known donors because they are still essentially anonymous. I use that term very loosely, but they're Anonymous to you at the point that you're using it and to the child until they turn 18. That being said, nothing in this world is truly anonymous, particularly given the access that there is now to commercial and widely available genetic testing. You might think the donor, if they don't want to be known, isn't going to test. But the reality of the situation is that they cannot control whether their brother or their sister or their cousin or their mother or their aunt or their uncle test. And it's very likely that almost any donor with someone who's able to do a little bit of flu and interpret genetic testing results is going to be able to find out the identity of the donor. I don't think that it's a great reason to choose a bank donor if you just think, I want my child to, like, truly never be able to get this information. That's just not realistic. That being said, there's not direct legal contracting. You don't need to have your donor have an independent attorney. And you likely might not need an independent attorney either, because that parental rights is already pretty well established with bank donations. A couple of other just things to think about is that there are likely to be large donor sibling groups, because when somebody donates at a bank, and this is particularly with sperm donation, there are vials that are sold to create multiple families.
The bank will usually set a limit for the number of families that they are aiming to create, but that limit is often 25 families per donor. And in some situations it is 25 families per country or per geographic group. So you want to be very careful and very selective, not only about picking who your donor is, but also about picking which bank it is that you want to work with, because you want to very clearly make sure that you're understanding what that bank's policies are related to, how many vials they are selling to different families, so that you can get a sense of whether or not a large sibling group is going to be likely. This is much less of a concern when you're talking about egg donation or embryo donation, because naturally the quantities of available eggs and embryos is going to be far smaller. It's likely that you'd have a couple or a handful of families, as opposed to potentially hundreds of donor siblings. So something to think about. This is also often a solution that if you just go into your fertility clinic and you say, I'm a solo parent to be I'm going to need a sperm donor, they are probably going to hand you a list of some sperm banks and say, here's a list. Pick a donor and they very well might not talk to you about other options related to choosing somebody that you personally know or matching with somebody for a more known donation. Because it can be a little bit more of a time consuming process and it's just the next efficiency. They like to get people pregnant fast. So it's potentially the easiest option. Whether it's the easiest option down the road, whether it's the easiest option for your child once they turn 18, all of that are things that you need to think about. But in terms of path to fertility, what's the fastest way to get sperm in my name that I can use to create an embryo? It's going to be with a bank donor. Something to think about. Now match just the overlapping area. There's a couple ways that you could match. You could match independently. This might be somebody that you meet specifically for the purpose of a sperm or egg or embryo donation. There's different forms available. I'm not going to specifically endorse or not endorse any of them. But you definitely need to use your best judgment and really get to know somebody to try to start building towards that trust and communication that you would have with the donor that you already know, regardless of the sources the match there are. So are just starting to be some agencies that are facilitating known sperm donation, known egg donation, or more so matched sperm donation. Matched and known egg donation is much more common in the industry. So if you need an egg donor, you're likely to find this more standard. And I think that has to do with the need for a little bit more of that direct legal contracting between egg donors that are going through a more invasive like medical procedure in order to obtain the eggs. And therefore it necessitates a little bit more of a comprehensive legal agreement that covers all of those aspects of it. But I'm starting to see shifts in the industry toward matched sperm donation as well. And there are a couple of agencies that are doing that. So if you think, oh well, I would really like to have a donor that is known to my child from birth, but I don't have anyone in my own personal network that I feel comfortable asking or that able to do that for me, you might be able to find an agency that can match you with a known donor. Advantages open an early opportunity to be able to connect with the donor. The direct contracting that we talked about and in this type of a situation you are almost certainly going to be using a fertility clinic is going to be the safest way for you to engage with this type of a donor. Okay, so I want to talk a little bit about myths versus realities. One of the things that you will notice, especially if you spend some time on forums or talking to other solo parents by choice, is that a lot of people think that they know a lot about the laws related to solo parenthood. And there is a lot of misinformation that goes around. So when I'm reading through, I have to assure myself that there's no way that I can correct every bit of misinformation that I read. And of course, I'm not privy to most conversations that happen online about the legalities of gamete donation. So I just want to point out a couple of the most common ones that I've heard so that you can notice them as flags when you're reading something that maybe a non lawyer or even a lawyer from another state has posted online about gamete donation. The first myth relates to birth certificates. So oftentimes you will hear solo parents say, yeah, I know that I'll be the only parent because it will only be my name on the birth certificate. Or they'll say, I have a known donor and we agreed that we will not put his name on the birth certificate, therefore he will not be a parent to the child. Birth certificates do not prove parentage. They are purely an administrative document. They do not hold the weight of a court order. In most circumstances, they are just a record. They're based off of the information that's usually provided to the hospital or whoever is preparing the documentation to document the live birth. But there's nothing about a birth certificate that proves parentage. At the end of the day, parentage is determined based off of whatever the state statute is that defines who a parent is or is not. So you might see this frequently in the context even of not a solo parent by choice, but somebody that just has a child and thinks, I don't want the father involved, I will just not list him as a parent. It'll just be me and I will raise this child. They might only have their name on the birth certificate, but at the end of the day, if that child was conceived because both parents were intimate with each other, then that is not a donor. That is a parent, no matter how you cut it, even if their name is not on the birth certificate. You might also think, I will just never make any claims like, I'll never tell anybody that he's the parent. How would anybody ever know? And the reality of this situation is that you are actually not the only one that has the Potential for basically establishing a parental relationship. Because sometimes the state has a need or a desire to get involved. And I see this most frequently with people that fall on hard times and they need some support from the government. Maybe in Illinois it's called snap, but like food assistance or housing assistance programs like that. And wherever the state is going to have an obligation to pay out money to a mother and her child, the state is going to have an interest in making sure that same mother can receive whatever child support she should otherwise be entitled to. And so the state can actually bring a parentage action where the mother is required to disclose not who the donor might be, but who the genetic parent is for their child as a condition of receiving benefits. So this can arise where if you fall on hard times, you might not even be able to access benefits. If you're unwilling or unable to provide information so that the state can go forward with attempting to prove or create a parentage relationship between the child and their father. Just saying we won't put them on the birth certificate is not good enough. That's a presumption only. It's an administrative document. The second myth that you will sometimes see is that donor contracts are not enforceable. So sometimes people will say, if a donor contract can't be completely enforced, then it doesn't matter whether I have one or not. And there is some degree of truth that not every aspect of every single donor agreement is going to be enforceable. I will give an example of no donor contracts that I put together. I will always include in there, what are the expectations of the parties regarding contact with them going forward? Are they expecting to communicate on a certain basis? Are they expecting to use specific terms for individuals in the relationship? And one of the reasons that I do that and include that information in there is basically just to document the intent of everybody at the time that they're entering into this agreement. And it helps to be able to think about the contingencies and the what ifs. So you're really thinking about every aspect of this, not just for the purpose of having it in the contract, but having it in the contract forces you to work through. So that's one of the reasons for including it. The second reason for including it is that if there ends up being significant amount of contact, you don't want the donor to be able to come back in and say, yes, we had an agreement, but now I've been spending time with the child once a week or something like that, and I should have more rights to the child than we otherwise agreed. And being able to show contact as being like a change in circumstance versus if that is contemplated in the original agreement, it's a lot more clear cut. No, the fact that you waived your parental rights and responsibilities is to this child, you were doing that even with the knowledge and the intention of remaining involved down the line. So that's the other reason that I typically include that when I'm writing donor contracts for my client. So there are aspects of that though, that is unenforceable. If you don't pick up the phone and call your donor or something like you said you would in the contract, as a practical matter, maybe there's not going to be a lawsuit about it. And if there was, I very well might not be an enforceable component of the contract. But that doesn't mean that, say the parts where it really matters, but of course all of it really matters, but the parts where the donor is relinquishing their parental rights and responsibilities as to a resulting child is essentially the core purpose of having a donor contact. And so long as you are following whatever your state statutes requirements are, then that is going to be enforceable and every state is going to have different requirements. And so that's why it's super important to talk with an attorney that's licensed in your state so that they can tell you what does the agreement need to contain and what documentation do you need to have to prove that it complies with the state statute so that they truly are a donor and not a legal father. The next thing, it relates to money myths. So I've actually heard these go both directions. Sometimes I will hear people say that known donors are free and you can get pregnant without paying a cent. Just find a known donor, exchange in a cup and call it a day. And the reality is that is very likely to cause significant problems with legal parentage. And no, donors are not free because you do need to pay at a bare minimum the legal expenses for each person to be represented by council to negotiate agreement between you. And then you also are likely going to still, at least in most states, not in all states, you're still going to be going through a fertility clinic. And of course you're going to have to be paying the costs that are associated with that. The flip side of this is the money myths that known donors cost too much. Because if you're doing a known donor, I say like in the proper way, but if you truly are getting an attorney for yourself, you're paying for an attorney for your donor, you're doing genetic testing, you're doing a psych evaluation, you are doing banking and actual testing of the sperm. Usually there's a quarantine period, FDA required quarantine period before it can be used. Things like this, all of those things do add costs into the equations. A no donation done with all of those safeguards in in place is likely to cost more than if you were to go and purchase a single vial of sperm from a sperm bank. That's the truth of the matter. However, the other thing to think about is the practicality of how are you attempting to conceive. Because if you're attempting to do IUI or CI or anything where you're likely to be using multiple vials, sperm banks can add up too, because you're paying each and every time that you're needing a new vial versus with a no donation, you're paying basically for all of that up front. But then once that donor is yours, they can create and store multiple vials. So the cost considerations really is just going to break down between how many vials are you going to need and what is the cost of all of these safeguards that you're going to put in place. And then the fourth myth here, donation must always happen in a clinic. We talked about that already. You really need to check, check with your particular attorney in your particular state to find out whether or not donation can happen in an at home setting. Know your state law. All right. The next thing that we're just going to touch on here is some extra considerations for egg donation and surrogacy. And I mentioned that these contracts need to be a little bit more robust because somebody is going to be undergoing a invasive medical procedure and or potentially pregnancy in order to help you to build your family. There's more that needs to go into making sure that there are safeguards in place around the monetary aspects of this, around people's health and things like that. One of the first considerations here is escrow. Typically in surrogacy and egg donation, where there are compensation being exchanged between the parties and expenses that need to be paid like insurance and legal expenses and things like this. Typically the cross for the journey is going to be placed place upfront into an escrow account so that all sides know that the money is there and that that money is protected so that they will be able to access it where it becomes necessary. So this will also usually cover money that's going to be used for travel expenses. Usually or not usually, but often a clinic is going to be in a separate location from wherever your egg donor or your surrogate is located. So they very well may need to travel out of state or out of their local area in order to do that process. You will also be paying for medical screenings. Medical screening for egg donors is pretty comparable to the medical screening that you would be paying for sperm donors. Same thing, psychological screening. It's best practice to have that be done with both egg and sperm donation. But you will see it being more of a requirement whenever you're working with an agency. It oftentimes part of the agency process and not something that you're able to wait. You just need to check with your agency on that to find out whether audits required for psychological screening. There's two different types. For a donor, it is an evaluation. It is a pass fail. The person who does the psychological evaluation, the professional is going to be evaluating whether the person is capable of making that decision to donate. On the other hand, sometimes you'll see psychological consultations more so than evaluations. And that's for the intended parent to really work through with a mental health professional the implications of you building your family through surrogacy or through egg donation. And that is not an evaluation. The provider is not there to say whether or not you should be a parent. If you think you should be a parent, then you should be a parent that you're the one that can make that decision. But it is implications counseling. It's not an evaluation the same way that it is for a donor. So just something to note, we talked about travel expenses briefly. Insurance is another expense. Are likely going to be paying for some sort of insurance for an egg donation or surrogacy journey. For surrogacy specifically, you're generally going to be taking over payments for the overall medical insurance that is going to be used to cover the pregnancy. And you are also likely going to want to do an insurance review to confirm whether or not the medical insurance that your surrogate already has is surrogacy friendly. Sometimes there are policies or often there are policies that will either attempt to exclude surrogacy pregnancies from coverage or place a lien that would require the surrogate to basically pay back any insurance amount that is paid. So you need to have an insurance review done and you can get this done professionally. But of course there's an expense for that where you're confirming what is the insurance coverage that's in place. So you can determine whether or not you can move forward with that surrogate. And if you want to move forward but her insurance is not sufficient, then what do you need to do to purchase another policy that is going to cover the surrogacy journey for egg donation. Still have insurance considerations, but you are likely going to be looking at IVF complications insurance. So this is insurance that would kick in and cover complications from the ivf. So if they develop ovarian hyperstimulation or any other complications, their involvement in the egg donation, this is like a supplement to the medical insurance that they would otherwise have. I forgot to include in here, although I think I might discuss it later, that you also may be paying or sorry for life insurance and or disability insurance for a gestational carrier because by definition they have to already be parents. And so of course you are putting their life at risk. And if something were to happen to them, at a minimum they need to make sure that they're children are going to be taken care of. So that's also a typical expense for egg donation and surrogacy. And then related to legal, we've got the expenses associated with the contracting. This is actually putting together your donor agreement or your gestational agreement on both sides needing independent counsel. You're going to have potentially expenses associated with the actual parentage action where you are obtaining a court order that demonstrates that you are the sole legal parent to that child. Oh, and then I put in here estate planning expenses for the gestational carrier. That's not in every agreement, but that's becoming more and more common and I do think it is best practice to pay for that if you're engaging the services of a gestational carrier. All right, I think we can go to the next slide.
[00:29:47] Speaker B: I'm a little bit stuck. Sorry.
[00:29:49] Speaker C: There you go. Okay, babies here. What now? I am not giving answers to these questions because we don't have time for that and because they're very individual questions that you need to think about. But this is just to get your wheels turning about what's next. Of course, should the worst happen, who is it that you want to care for your child or two children and if that person can't or it won't, then who would be the backup to them? Make sure that is documented in a way that is going to be respected. Secondly, do you have a way to make sure that those children are provided for? So you don't want to appoint somebody as a guardian to your children, but then have them have to figure out some way of. Of sustaining that financially. So do you have a will or a trust in place that's going to financially provide for them and or do you have Life and disability insurance with a coverage amount that's high. If the worst does happen, that the guardian for your children will be able to access those funds in order to support them until they reach adulthood. The next thing that you want to think about is how do you ensure that any information that you have about your donor is not lost with you if you were to die or become disabled and not able to communicate that information? We do see and hear when I speak with and learn from donor conceived people that often they do want to make sure that they are able to be in contact with their genetic siblings and potentially the donor that helped to create them. And so if you have any information whatsoever about the donor, whether this is the profile from the bank that you have saved on your computer, if this is a known donor, their last known contact address, email, just everything, if you have an independent contract that was put together, have a copy of the contract, have this with your important paper so that if something happens to you, that this is information that is not lost in that process. It's also something to think about as you're preparing the donor agreement. So when I put agreements together for my clients, I will make sure that, that it's in there that the donor is consenting to being contacted not just by you, not just by the child, but also to anybody that might later become a parent or a guardian to that child, so that information can be shared with the child, regardless of if the worst happens. And so that work can be done up front. And it also prepares the donor for that possibility that they might not have otherwise thought about. The next thing is, do the consent forms that you sign with the clinic accurately direct them as to what they should do with any genetic material that you still have stored. So in most cases for solo parents, there's likely not going to be anybody else that you're going to be passing this on. So maybe it's destruction or whatnot of the genetic material. But whatever your wishes are, you should make sure that the consent forms that you have on file are accurate, and you should periodically review those to make sure that your wishes will be respected in that regard. This is also something that if you have any stored genetic material, and you do later talk with an attorney to put together an estate plan, make sure that you're notifying that attorney of the existence of this material so that it can be specifically addressed in your planning document. And then finally, what do you want to have happen to unused embryos after your family is complete? You might of course, still be around for this, and you can change your mind as you make these decisions. But you can think about it from the perspective of if you would like to donate embryos to another person or family for reproductive use, you can think about it in terms of donating. It's often a term donating to science. In practice, it's often donating to science or medical training. And so it can help to teach and instruct future fertility doctors and medical professionals in the world of fertility. Or of course, thawing and destruction of embryos. So those are the typical buckets, but what do you want to have happen to any unused embryos that you have after your fertilizer families complete? One more thing popped into my head before I jumped to this side relating to embryo donation, and that is talking back and thinking back to the discussion that we had about family limits with banked donors. Every sperm bank is going to have their own individual policy as to whether or not you should be permitted to donate embryos that were created using donor gametes from that bank. Because, say, you have a bank that has a 25 family limit, 25 families are created, and then those 25 families donate their remaining embryos to another family or even to multiple families. You can very easily double or even triple the number of families that are created from that same donor. You also create almost like a second class of donor conceived people that are not documented with the bank. Because when you go through a bank donation, you are likely signing something that says that you agree to inform them as to any live births that arise from this. But then if you go on to donate your embryos, the next person doesn't have that chain of documentation tying their child back to the bank. So it's very likely that they either can't or won't record that with the bank. And that can impact whether or not that child is going to be able to access information about the donor, particularly in an ID release at 8 situation. So, so think about that both in terms of the legality and the ethics. If it is important for you to not destroy an embryo, and you want for sure that your embryos are going to go to someone for reproductive use, that might be a reason to look toward a known donor, because there you can have that individual conversation with your known donor as to whether or not they consent to that. And you can select a donor that aligns with your views in the same area. So you can know that you do have the rights to to donate further without having to either be prohibited because of the bank policy or struggle with the ethics of doing something which has implications for lots of different families that that maybe didn't think about that when they were using those same gamuts to create their families. Okay, so jumping to my top five tips. I've said this now multiple times, but you really need to rely on counsel of an attorney who's experienced in assisted reproduction of technologies and specifically license in your of course, this is also country specific and I've approached this entire conversation from a US Centric perspective because that's where I'm located. But if you are not in the United States, you need to make sure that you're seeking counsel from someone who is in your country and is familiar with this area of the law. If you don't know who that is, you can feel free to contact me. I've got lots of connections and can probably help help to get you connected with somebody even if it's an out of country attorney. Second, don't get legal advice from non lawyers on Facebook because of the myths that we talked about and all of the misinformation that's going around. 3. Hope for the best, but Plan for the Worst of course we want everything to always go smoothly, but you need to make sure that your parental rights are in place. You can't just assume that a donor is never going to want to establish parental rights. You can't assume that you'll never fall into hard times and you'll never need assistance from the government. You can't assume that you'll never die or never become disabled. All of these things, as much as we might want them to never happen, are possible. And we need to make sure that we're doing everything up front to be able to make sure that our future children are set and that they're going to be okay even in this type of a worst case scenario. Fourth, don't rush your decision. Really take the time that you need. Unfortunately, the fertility process is a long process. This I get it Personally. I made the decision to become a solo parent by choice in December of 2021. It is now July of 2024. I've gone through multiple donor bank donors, known donors, all of it to try to build my family. And unfortunately sometimes doing things the right way just takes time to take the and also, don't be afraid to change your mind and change your opinions as you go through this process. If you learn more information that changes the way that you think or view something or your priorities change, don't be afra to go back to your attorney and say, hey, can we rework this aspect of the agreement or I really think maybe we need to switch donors because this no longer aligns with what I want for my future families. Take the time to research and really carefully consider what your options are both in terms of known and banking needs, and then just thinking and planning ahead. This relates to not just how do I go about getting a child now, but what are the implications in 18 years? If my child feels one way, how do I make sure that I am protecting access to information that they might want? How am I preparing myself? Maybe I feel like they shouldn't need or want to have communication with a donor, but if they do, how am I preparing myself so that I'm able to absorb that and deal with that ahead of time? So just thinking about the implications, not just in terms of, well, what am I doing and how do I get there fast, but what am I doing and how is that going to impact the child that we're creating? So those are my top few tips. The last thing here is how to choose a professional. So I've put on here some organizations that I think are organizations that if you choose professionals that are connected to these, ideally to multiple of these, you are going to have somebody that is generally familiar with assisted reproduction. Resolve is the National Infertility Association. They advocate, they do a lot of legal advocacy, especially around IVF and growing families that way. So choosing a professional that is a member of Resolved or actively involved with Resolve's activities probably means that they do significant amount of work in this space. The donor conceived community has a professionals group. So these are legal professionals, mental health professionals, all sorts of people in the industry that are dedicated to listening to the voices that of existing donor conceived people and using that to incorporate best practices and work to change the industry towards a little bit more of a donor conceived person centric viewpoint. Something to think about whether or not the professional that you're working with is associated with the donor conceived community. Professional group SEEDS is a society for ethics and egg donation and surrogacy. SEEDS is comprised of a lot of agencies. So if you need an agency for surrogacy or an egg donation agency, you might want to check to see whether or not that agency is associated with seeds. CEADS actually establishes a set of voluntary ethical standards that everyone who is a member of SEEDS is agreeing to uphold and it's internally governed. If a member of SEEDS does not follow the SEEDS guidelines, there is a recourse process where SEEDS as an organization will intervene. So it's a group of professionals helping to govern, self governing and Promote ethical practice, particularly in the egg donation and surrogacy area. The American Bar association has a Family Law section with a very active assisted reproductive technologies practice area. There's conferences twice a year that a lot of attorneys will attend that are involved in this space. So if you have an attorney that is actively involved with the ABA Family Law Section, particularly for assisted reproduction, that can be a good indication. And then these other two organizations, we have Quad A. This is the association of Adoption and Assisted Reproduction Attorneys. Quad A attorneys are people that have under a minimum number of either adoption cases or assisted reproduction cases, or in some cases both, and are recommended by other members. So if you choose a Quad A attorney, you should have somebody that is familiar with assisted reproduction. And last is the asrm. This is more of the medical side of things. So the American Society for Reproductive Medicine is typically the area where your reproductive endocrinologist and the medical community is going to be involved in asrm. But they also do have a legal practice group. So you might find lawyers that are also members of asrm. So a few things to think about. I know SMBC Resources has a directory. Of course you can use that as a starting point. You can also contact me and I can put you in touch with with somebody that I might know or be able to recommend in your particular state. And as you're looking through people, even if you find them on a directory listing, do your due diligence and look to see whether or not they're associated with some of these organizations so that you know that you're working with somebody that has some level of expertise and involvement in this area of the law. I don't know if I had more, so thank you so much. I'm sorry we ran a little bit over what we estimated for the time, but if you have any other questions, I've got my email address here. Happy to chat with you or to point you in the right direction for somebody that would be licensed in your state. Like I said, I'm licensed to practice in Illinois. So if you are in Illinois and you would like an attorney to assist you, please feel free to reach out to me. I do have complimentary initial consultations that you can book directly through my website. I've got my calendly link there. So you can just pick a time that works for your schedule. Thanks so much.
[00:42:57] Speaker B: Thank you. So my, my last thing is. Follow us at Ask SMBC Resources, all the social media resources or smbcresources.com if you're interested in digging into the directory. We do our best to vet and engage and have conversations with the professionals who are listed there so that we can ensure or that we can be confident that they are able and willing to support birthing people or women who are on the journey to becoming solo moms. Thank you everyone.
[00:43:27] Speaker C: Foreign.
[00:43:33] Speaker A: Thanks for listening to Start to Finish Motherhood with Aisha. If you want to keep the conversation going, follow Start to Finish Motherhood on Instagram, email
[email protected] if you love this episode, please share it with anyone who's thinking of becoming a single mother by choice, anyone who's already parenting as a single mother by choice and just looking for advice on navigating it all, or a friend or family member who's looking to support someone else's single mother by choice journey. Until next time. Bye now.
