MY OTHER PROJECT • by Lotte Jeffs

I’m the non-biological mother to my daughter who is almost two and a half. Defining myself like this isn’t something I’m totally comfortable with. It focuses on what I’m not rather than what I am. But language is limiting and doesn’t do justice to the big happy mess of roles that comprise modern families today.

I didn’t carry my child in my body but I carried her in my heart for nine months and when my wife gave birth it was an experience we shared so intensely (though of course physically the biggest demands were on her).

We used a process called IUI and miraculously it worked first time. IUI is when you are inseminated on the optimum day at a licensed clinic - and that’s it! There is another kind of IUI which incorporates drugs to help your follicles release eggs and boost progesterone. I’ve been trying this for our second, and it hasn’t worked for me yet but at least during the process of trying I went from being ambivalent to deciding I really wanted to conceive. I’ve a few more options so I’ll be exploring these when I’m ready. It’ll be interesting if it does work out for me to experience pregnancy from the other perspective - I’ll have a unique insight into being both a bio mother and the partner of one!

I’ve absolutely loved being a parent. Like Sophie I don’t feel any less than a mother when I’m with my daughter. We may not look the same but she’s taking on some of my characteristics and I can see myself in her. It’s a lovely feeling. We did chose a donor who shared some of my personal characteristics but actually now I realise how little that matters anyway.

I host a podcast with Stu Oakley - an adoptive Dad of three about LGBTQ parenting. It’s called Some Families and on it I’ve interviewed so many people who are starting and expanding families in their own fabulous ways and it’s so reassuring to realise that love for our children is the great democratiser. When you’re changing the nappy of a screaming baby in a department store bathroom, you’re not a “lesbian Mum”, a “gay dad”, “mother of a child born via surrogacy” you’re just a parent doing your best. I think often when we’ve had children in unconventional ways we feel an extra pressure to be perfect, to “prove” that we deserve this. But it’s depleting of one’s emotional energy to feel that we owe society something. As my daughter has got older and I’ve settled more into my role I care less and less about what anyone else thinks. I’m so proud of my little family and what we’ve achieved and that’s all that matters.

Lotte’s podcast Some Families is available wherever you get your podcasts