Couple of women talk about in vitro fertilization – 01/07/2024 – Equilíbrio

In November last year, singer Ludmilla and dancer Brunna Gonçalves, married since 2019, announced that they were undergoing an in vitro fertilization process to become pregnant.

The technique was also the option chosen by Lizandra Hachuy, 43, and Mariana Castello Branco, 42, when pregnant with two of the couple’s four children.

In in vitro fertilization, when the process is carried out in a couple in which both people were born with female reproductive organs, the egg from one of them is collected and fertilized with the sperm of a donor in an environment outside the uterus. After fertilization, the embryo is transferred to the uterus of the person who will carry it. In artificial insemination, the donor’s semen is artificially deposited in the uterine cavity.

For Lizandra and Marina, however, motherhood goes far beyond genetics and biological processes, and is related to care and the desire to be a mother.

The couple’s other two children did not come from in vitro fertilization, but from Mariana’s old relationship. “I had already come from a marriage that was ‘on life support’, and then I found myself in love with a woman, which was something that never crossed my mind until I met Liz,” she says.

Lizandra says that “before I met Mari, I thought I couldn’t have a family, because I was a lesbian.” At first, she was called “Aunt Liz” by the children and did not allow herself to be seen in the role of mother. “I was only able to be a mother to Manu and Miguel. Until I got rid of my own prejudice that I couldn’t, even though I wanted a family. Reaching the maternal position, for me, was a process, it was an adoption of them, it was a self-permission “, he states.

She understands that these prejudices are related to the romanticization of motherhood. “There’s this place of sanctified, beatified motherhood. ‘Oh, how beautiful, there are two mothers!’ But behind that is this terrible place of, ‘Wow, they have sex with each other, they’re lesbians, they couldn’t be mothers.’ And when we have kids, we’re seen as irresponsible,” she says.

Mariana, on the other hand, perceives her first maternity wards in a different way. “I was compulsorily obliged to take care of my children alone. If you are pregnant with that child, then you are obliged to be his mother. If you don’t want that child, you are a terrible mother. It is a place that is yours that you don’t want.”

Together, the two decided to have two more children. “I was able to be a mother within a heteronormative society, which never took that place away from me. On the contrary, it always demanded it from me. Then, I was able to be a mother with another woman who gestated my egg. As I had come from a heteronormative experience, initially , I thought that the fact that it was my egg, which she was gestating, would bring me some place of motherhood”, says Mariana.

Aline Cristina Camacho Ambrósio, gynecologist and sexologist at Albert Einstein Hospital, states that, many times, cisgender women choose fertilization, in which one donates and the other pregnant, so that both feel like participants in the pregnancy.

In these cases, Ambrósio explains that the baby’s genetic load will only come from the donor mother’s egg. But, when the child is created in the other mother’s womb, “she is already receiving information from that mother, both from the biological side, from nutrition, hormones, and from the emotional climate that this mother generates while gestating the baby. This is one of the things that encourages women to do this in a shared way. The emotional climate is extremely important for the pregnancy of this child.”

However, the couple understood that motherhood is not just related to genetics. “I didn’t feel like his mother when he was born. The fact that he had my genetics didn’t guarantee me a maternal place with him. I had to earn that”, says Mariana.

“I didn’t feel like his mother because he had my egg, I felt like his mother because I wanted to be his mother, because I went in search of that, because in everyday life we ​​invested in this exchange, in this care, in this bond. If not There is desire, there is no motherhood.”

In addition to the mother and child bond, Mariana also comments on the relationship developed with her wife within double motherhood. “You need to look at the other and think ‘now I’m going to stop so that the other can exist’. This is necessary because we are sharing this place of care.”

The gynecologist also explains that it is possible, in the case of two cis women, for both mothers to breastfeed the baby. In mothers who have not been pregnant, it is possible to induce, with medication, the production of prolactin, a milk-producing hormone.

“Just the act of sucking can also stimulate prolactin. As the baby sucks, you enter a repetitive cycle of production of this hormone that causes the body to produce milk”, highlights the doctor.

Ambrósio explains that, in the case of trans women, pregnancy is also possible through fertilization and insemination. The semen from one of the trans women will fertilize the donor egg and the embryo will be gestated by a supportive belly. “The two trans women will be closer to this cis woman who will be pregnant, who will be entering with the uterus. It is important for the emotional climate for them to participate”, he says.

However, the gynecologist highlights that, for women who use feminizing hormones, the ideal is for the semen to be frozen before starting therapy. If it has not been reserved, it will be necessary to stop using the hormone during the fertilization or insemination process.

Maternity leave

Assisted reproduction for all LGBTQIAPN+ women is guaranteed by resolution No. 2294/2021 of the Federal Council of Medicine (CFM). However, some rights, such as maternity leave for non-pregnant mothers, still need to be judicialized. During Lizandra’s maternity leave, Mariana continued working as she did not receive her leave.

“I still have a case in court regarding my maternity leave, and there is no answer. This brought me to a place of great pain, because I wish I had been able to invest in my relationship with her from the beginning, and I had to go back working. I got really sick, I got really depressed. Our justice system still doesn’t look at these families as an equal place”, says Mariana.

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