Community Success Stories

We wanted to feature some of our beautiful & amazing Mamas & parents from all over the world who successfully had the families of their dreams & amazingly some of them we have seen grow over the past few years; Below are their journeys- we hope they inspire others looking to start a family that they can make it happen with our support & our community!

The Cervantes-Downs family, USA

Courtney and Sabrina met in 2014 in Southern California through a mutual friend. Courtney, originally from Ohio, was working temporarily in Southern California when they met; she only had 11 days remaining in before going to Georgia for a few months. The connection was so intense that both knew they were each other’s complimenting piece of the puzzle that was missing.

They were married in November 2017 and quickly began their journey towards motherhood. Their first IUI treatment was in February 2018. In May 2018 the couple became pregnant, but that ended in a loss. Fast forward to Mother’s Day 2019, they woke up bright and early, it was their pregnancy test day!!! Yay!!!! They are pregnant. At week 6, Sabrina started experiencing the same symptoms as the previous miscarriage; however, that was not the case at all!  That’s when the couple found out they were having not ONE, not TWO, but THREE incredible babies- Noah, Penelope and Julian!

The Smith family, UK

At 33 I found myself single and aware time was running out to have a child naturally. I had always wanted to be a parent and due to ongoing fertility issues I knew it was now or never. I had IVF with a sperm donor and became a solo parent by choice is 2021. My son is the most wonder and exhausting tiny human and I feel blessed to be on this adventure called life with him by my side.

The Kee family, USA

We met in college over 16 years ago. We shared mutual friends, but our relationship didn’t blossom until a year after we graduated. By then Gloria had started working a cross country job. Sarah flew out to spend time with Gloria, & we hit it off over a quiet little dinner in NYC. We endured a cross country relationship for 8 years. In total, we’ve been together for 13 years & married for 9. We celebrated our love in front of our family & friends in 2011 & were legally wed in 2013 when California recognized same sex marriages. Sarah convinced Gloria that children was our life chapter. After a few years of trying to conceive at home, we were surprised with the news of twins! Our daughters were born in 2015. As a family (including our two miniature schnauzers), we love going on outdoor adventures across land & sea & traveling the world. If not traveling, we enjoy family dance parties in our living room!

The James family, USA

As a stud I didn’t think that I would ever have my own child. Mostly because of the negative stereotypes attached to artificial insemination and also because of my own fear that I wouldn’t be good enough. I’m 2018 I put my fears aside and decided the time was now. I did my research on artificial insemination and decided I wanted to use a sperm bank. In the middle of January (January 18) I ordered sperm from the California Cryo Bank. I had it expedited to me so that I can have it by my ovulation day which was approaching. This initial insemination was suppose to be a trial to see how the process works with the hopes that it was successful. January 21st was my insemination day. Two weeks later I found out I was pregnant and it was the happiest moment of my life. Now I get to do things like be my sons Dr., Teacher, Therapist, Dentist, Playmate, And twin all at the same time. We enjoy outside time, matching together and being in each other’s presence.

The Henderson-McNeil family, USA

One night, under a glorious full moon, I asked the Universe for my very own family - a wife & eventually a son. I wrote down every single detail that my soulmate & my family would possess. Exactly, two weeks later, Javoni arrived with one-year old Phoenix in tow. One of our first deep conversations was about family building. She hesitantly shared that she had a visualization during meditation that included us all being a family weeks prior to building the courage to reach out to me. Her visual included us having a baby girl. So, when asked, “How did your family start?” the only way I know how to answer is to say that it began before we even met while on two different sides of the country, through written words, visualizing and meditations. At the time, it seemed otherworldly. It still does. Harnessing my true desire to build is the single most important thing that I have ever done. While some things were very difficult, I think chiefly of my getting pregnant, I’m still amazed at how every single desire has come to fruition.

The Burris-AlCACA family, TEXAS

My wife and I have been together for 12 years & married for 7. Our road to Motherhood has been filled with highs & lows. My wife carried our first son via IVF after 3 failed IUI attempts. Our first son was born June 1st 2016. I never thought I wanted to carry my own biological baby until we endured several close losses within our immediate family. It was a total perspective changer. Fortunately we still had the same donor sperm available as our first son. I began with 3 failed IUI’s & made the financially hard decision to attempt IVF. I got pregnant but unfortunately experienced a miscarriage around 10 weeks. We were shocked & heartbroken. We decided to give it one more try and we got pregnant! I delivered our second son on May 8th. I look at our family of 4 with so much gratitude!

The Jackson Family, USA

Aj & I met in the year 2014, & we secretly got married in 2017. We began our fertility journey of Home AI' with a known sperm donor in April 2018 & we became pregnant in March 2019. In that time we had switched donors once, & went through so many Home insemination kits! Each negative pregnancy test broke our hearts, but we didn’t give up. We were lucky to have found success using ‘The Stork OTC Home conception device’ along with a new donor. Our little girl Avi was born November 3rd, 2019 & she’s such a cool little human! We are looking to grow our family in a few years using the same known sperm donor! 

THE RILEY FAMILY, USA

Ashley never wanted to carry a child so all along we knew it would be me (Calli). We chose a donor after a few months of searching. We really wanted to find a donor that show cased my wife , Ashley’s, traits. So ... dark hair, olive skin, collegiate athlete, etc. We wanted it to be as close to us conceiving as possible. We tried one IUI attempt at home & it was a very stressful process that did not end up taking so we opted to continue the Inseminations in the clinic. first attempt failed & round two... SUCCESS we have TWINS! 

The Brown Family, USA

We (Amanda and Lauren) have been together for over five years. We knew from the very beginning that we wanted to do reciprocal IVF where Lauren would carry Amanda’s egg. We found the perfect clinic & after a long road, we are so happy to share that we are expecting a sweet little boy in December!

The Barquero-Hughes family, California, USA

We started our journey to become mommies by using a fertility clinic. We both tried to get pregnant with the same donor sperm, Jenn’s failed twice & Jazmine’s once. We decided to try once more before starting to save up for IVF. This time, we did it at home, we were successful & Jennifer was finally pregnant with our beautiful daughter Jennyvieve who would then be born 11/08/18. We’ve been together almost 14 years & married for 12!

The Alvarez-Crandall family, Las Vegas, USA

We met at University. It was an instant connection for both of us! We became quick friends & started dating a few months later. We got married in 2015, after 4 years of dating. We became parents in 2016 (only 9 months after being married) via at home insemination through a known sperm donor & then again in 2018 using the same process! We each got to experience pregnancy using the same donor, it was important to us to have our children be genetically related. We each got a mini replica of ourselves with our kiddos & we couldn’t be happier!

The Abdullah-Malizio familt, USA

We are from the United States and currently residing in Wyoming. 

Before Jamie & I (Abby) met I already had a daughter named Maiyah due to a previous relationship with a man. Jamie entered our life when she was 18 months old & has been the only other parent that Maiyah has ever known. Jamie & I decided that Reciprocal IVF would be the best choice for us when we looked into growing our family. We took Jamie’s egg, an Open Donor’s Sperm, implanted the fertilized egg in me, & I carried. As of right now we have no serious plans to have more children.

The Oldham-Mentern family, UK

We started our journey to parenthood in Summer 2018 at the Herts & Essex Fertility Centre. We decided to do reciprocal IVF (Hannah’s egg, my womb). Our first attempt sadly ended in miscarriage after 5 weeks which was heart breaking so we decided to pause for a bit after that to recover. Attempt 2 was unsuccessful & hit us as hard as our loss. It started to feel like it wasn’t going to happen for us & then the stars aligned on our 3rd attempt using a frozen embryo from the second round. Our little frosty is now a 5 month old beautiful baby girl called Frankie- she is the light of our lives!

The Pargey family, UK

We’ve been a family since 2014 when we met but since then have got married, bought a home & in 2017 were approved as foster carers & have now had a little boy in our care for 1.5 years who will be staying with us until he’s able to be an independent adult. He’s currently very excited about the news of becoming a big brother as we’re also expecting a baby-another little boy! Becoming parents has been a huge learning curve, especially as our first experience of parenting together was caring for looked after children but we’re so excited to be welcoming our baby boy this year and to keep on adding to our nest!

The Fox family, Bristol, UK

We’ve been together for 9 years & a year after we got married we decided to try and get pregnant at home. We did our research, ordered our sperm and inseminated at home. We were so excited, looked out for every twinge and symptom & felt so positive. And then my period came! After this we decided to leave it in the hands of the experts & contacted London’s Women’s Clinic. We opted for medicated IUI and were extremely lucky as it worked first time! Fast forward to now and our tiny little dot of a baby is about to turn two!

The M-M Family, UK

Having attempted 3 cycles of full IVF that led to 2 negative's & a blighted ovum miscarriage discovered at our 8 weeks scan, following 3 cycles of IVF in a previous relationship resulting in 2 negatives & an early medical miscarriage, we decided to look into Adoption. Our journey took longer than for others due to one of us serving in the military that led to a move mid-way through which held things up a little but, luckily, we adopted through the charity SSAFA who have a specific adoption team, who understand the nuances of military life. After nearly 2 years of intense social worker interviews, approval panel, online family finding, matching panel & introductions during the Covid19 pandemic we finally have the most beautiful child that we are proud to call ours!

The Ponist family, USA

I never wanted to carry my own child.  So in 2005 I began finding interest in fostering, that seemed that was my best route to take.  So after a little investigating, I jumped right in & began the training.  Once I completed the 3 month course & home-study, I began my journey of receiving foster children.  After having my first sibling group and raising them for 2 years, I learned the stress that comes with the system the hard way.  When I thought the next step was adoption, the children I had were removed from my home to be placed elsewhere.  LGBT adoption was not yet legal, it never crossed my mind until that moment the journey was going to be a lot harder then I anticipated. After that massive heart break, I swore I was never going to foster again. But once I entered a new relationship soon later, I still wanted to experience having children of my own.  Soon after getting married in 2010, we learned that the next best way was a program called “matching”.   Matching is the process of adopting a child within the foster system, children legally free for adoption.  It took a few months of searching, when we found our first son “DeAndre”.    This 4 year old boy, at the time, now 13, was also our first experience with autism.  Not sure if having a special needs child was the best route, I knew the second I saw him on a internet list of children, he was the one. DeAndre’s adoption followed in less then a year later, December of 2012. Once seeing so many kids still stuck in the system, it was decided I needed to swallow my pride and try fostering again. This is when the constant calls were coming in of the many kids in the area looking to be placed in homes. Landon was the next to come & be adopted, he was 2 years old at the time, now 8.  Ironically, he was only supposed to be a 2 week respite that went permanent. In between were a few foster children in and out, when Kairah was placed in the home at 9 months old, the first girl to have gone to adoption.  Not long after Kai, now 6 years old, was Alyx.  Alyx, was an extreme case, medically fragile, she beat all odds.  She was not supposed to live to 5 years old, she is 8 now & thriving.  Once all 4 adoptions were completed, Kristin, my then wife, wanted to experience IUI to carry a child.  I agreed & we decided to close our home as a foster home at that time.  We agreed 5 was plenty & we can focus on them as some of them have extra needs.  After 2 tries, we learned Kristin was pregnant with Gavin, now 3 years old. Although while pregnant with Gavin, 7 months along, we got a phone call about Karson.  Karson is the brother of Kai, he was 2 days old at the time of the call.  Being he was legally to come to us after adopting his sister, we welcomed him with open arms. Karson is also now 3 years old, as well. 

The Serr family, USA

We are Kayla, Chelsea, & Luna Serr . Chelsea & I met in 2010 when we were just 19 years old. I had never dated women, but I had an instant attraction to Chelsea & felt a bond I had never had before. We quickly became inseparable and in the summer of 2014, we eloped in Washington. Same-sex marriage had not been legalized in the state of Georgia at that time, but we did have a ceremony for all of our friends & family later that year. We were both so excited about becoming mothers & in 2016, deciding to start the process of expanding our family. We decided to use an open donor & started out with an IUI. To our surprise, our first attempt was successful & in February of 2017, our sweet daughter Luna was born. Luna is the best thing that has happened to us. She is intelligent, quirky, & fun. As a family, we like to spend our spare time in the park, dancing in our living room, & hanging out with our pup, Goldie! 

The Gregory-Phimister family, UK

After being in the same friendship group for over 10 years, we fell in love when we least expected it. All we both every wanted was to become parents, sharing a dream that we were both absolutely determined to fulfil for ourselves and each other. We’ve both experienced incredible pregnancies, Charl carried Olivia (now 5) & I then carried Edi Laine (now 3)... Olivia decided we were to be called Big Mummy & Little Mummy. After winning a silent auction in 2017 we sealed the deal & became wife & wife where we carried our beautiful girls in our arms down the aisle. Not long after our utterly perfect day I was diagnosed with Cervical Cancer we knew right there our family was complete, to watch them grow is precious. With strength and determination I am now Cancer Free!! Our family is a dream come true. 

The S-P family, UK

My partner and I have been together for 7 years &we are extremely lucky to be Mummy & Mama to twin boys. Our journey to becoming a family, like most, started with research. We attended seminars & accessed online information.  After much (unsuccessful) searching for a suitable sperm donor we decided to switch from IUI to reciprocal IVF.  We found finding a white sperm donor far easier, there is simply more to chose from. Our clinic was very thorough but often threw up a surprise test, or medication, or other 'things', & as someone who needs to know everything, I found this quite challenging. When it came to the day of the embryo transfer, our clinic explained that the day 3 embryos were of average quality and gave us a bit of time to decide whether we wanted to implant one or two embryos.  It was a difficult decision but based on the information our clinic had given us we decided to put two back. The two week wait really is the longest two weeks! I had no idea if it had worked or not. When our pregnancy blood test came back, it was sky high and the nurse joked to say 'it might be twins'. It was! And now they are nearly 4 years old.

The Prendergast family, UK

We are Rachel, Amy & baby Arthur! We’ve been together for almost 7 years & live up North towards The Peaks. We started our IVF journey in 2019 & we were very lucky to fall pregnant on our second round. We admire the work that The LGBT Mummies Tribe are doing and love the community they’ve built. We can’t wait to meet some other two Mum families!