Addressing a child's questions about insemination

Naomi Hanna, Certified Nurse Midwife, shares advice for parents on how to address your child's questions about artificial insemination
Addressing A Child's Questions About Artificial Insemination
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Addressing a child's questions about insemination

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When you have a child with a known donor, or with an anonymous donor, it's wonderful to be able to speak openly about it from a very young age. We never sat our kids down and had a discussion about this. We just talked about it in front of them from the day they were born. And when this happens, then the children just take in all the information and when they're ready to ask questions, they ask the questions they need to ask. And it's very similar to adoption, where if you just talk about it from the moment of birth, it's not a secret, it's not an issue. You just say to the person in the room, "Oh, doesn't he have his dad's eyes?" or, "Doesn't he like like his donor when he cries?" And it just becomes common knowledge, and it becomes open. And when they started asking the questions about how two women can have a baby or when they're faced with their peers' questions at school, "Who's your real mom? How do two moms have a baby? You can't have two moms." The way we told them the story is that having a baby is like making a cake. You need all these ingredients, you need flour, you need sugar, you need love, you need boy cells, you need girl cells, and we had all of the ingredients to make a child but one. So just like borrowing a cup of sugar from the neighbor, we borrowed the ingredient of boy cells to make them.

Naomi Hanna, Certified Nurse Midwife, shares advice for parents on how to address your child's questions about artificial insemination

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Naomi Hannah, CNM

Certified Nurse Midwife

Naomi Hannah is a midwife who has worked in several birth settings: she has been a Doula, a Certified Professional Midwife, a labor and delivery nurse, and is now a Certified Nurse Midwife. Naomi has approached the many facets of birthing from various angles; a birth center, a home birth practice, and currently a hospital-based practice. She lives in Taos, New Mexico, with her partner of 13 years and their two children, Eden who is 10 and Ezra, seven, both born with the help of known donors. Her personal experience and professional skills have made it possible to help other women conceive at home with alternative insemination.  She is also a singer-songwriter who has taught preschool music classes. She enjoys sharing music with her children and watching their musical language unfold. 

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