How I created my family

Kim Bergman, PhD Family Therapist, shares her experience of how she and her partner created their family using sperm donors for each of their two children
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How I created my family

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So my partner and I have been together for 28 years. We met in college. And when we were together about 10 years, I always knew I wanted to have a child and I have pretty much probably been saying it since our second date together. When we were ready, we used an anonymous sperm donor. I carried our first daughter. It took a year to get pregnant. I changed sperm donors like five times. The criteria that I was using changed. In the end, I chose a donor who had a high sperm count and met my medical criteria. And that was pretty much it. Everything else got thrown out the window. Three years later, we decided to have another child. And my partner carried out second daughter and she got pregnant on the first try. So we have two daughters. One I carried. One my partner carried. We had to do a second parent adoption of each of them because our kids are 13 and 16. And back then, that´s what you had to do. Now, the laws have changed and we can do it a different way. But we had to each go through a social worker looking at our whole case and a home study. And we each adopted the other one, but we are the two parents of the two kids.

Kim Bergman, PhD Family Therapist, shares her experience of how she and her partner created their family using sperm donors for each of their two children

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Kim Bergman, PhD

Family Therapist

Kim Bergman, PhD, a licensed psychologist of 22 years, has specialized in the area of gay and lesbian parenting, parenting by choice and third party assisted reproduction for the last two decades. Dr. Bergman has created a comprehensive psychological screening, support and monitoring process for Intended Parents, Surrogates and Donors. She is the co-owner of Fertility Counseling Services and Growing Generations and is a member of the American Society of Reproductive Medicine, the American Fertility Association, the American Psychological Association, the Los Angeles County Psychological Association, the Lesbian and Gay Psychotherapy Association, and the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association. She is on the national board of the Family Equality Council. Dr. Bergman writes, teaches and speaks extensively on parenting by choice. Along with co-authors, she published "Gay Men Who Become Fathers via Surrogacy: The Transition to Parenthood" (Journal of GLBT Family Studies, April 2010). Dr. Bergman created her own family using third party assisted reproduction and she lives with her wife of 28 years and their two teenage daughters. 

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Transcription: 
So my partner and I have been together for 28 years. We met in college. And when we were together about 10 years, I always knew I wanted to have a child and I have pretty much probably been saying it since our second date together. When we were ready, we used an anonymous sperm donor. I carried our first daughter. It took a year to get pregnant. I changed sperm donors like five times. The criteria that I was using changed. In the end, I chose a donor who had a high sperm count and met my medical criteria. And that was pretty much it. Everything else got thrown out the window. Three years later, we decided to have another child. And my partner carried out second daughter and she got pregnant on the first try. So we have two daughters. One I carried. One my partner carried. We had to do a second parent adoption of each of them because our kids are 13 and 16. And back then, that´s what you had to do. Now, the laws have changed and we can do it a different way. But we had to each go through a social worker looking at our whole case and a home study. And we each adopted the other one, but we are the two parents of the two kids.