Anne Marie + Sarah
I am Sarah and together with my wife Anne-Marie we have recently become parents to our son Senna. We live in Galway, but we met while playing GAA in Dublin and after a period of 2 years living in West London we’re glad to be back home, albeit that we are still getting used to the rain!
It was because of work that we moved back to Ireland. I work as a scientist in the area of cell and gene technology. A job in the area of my expertise came up here in Galway and we saw it as a great career opportunity, so we moved back.
We had been talking about having children for a long time before we started our journey. We discussed it regularly in the early years of our relationship. It was important that we were both on the same page about it. Thankfully it was high up on both our priority lists. We were open to considering lots of paths to parenthood including; fostering, adoption and having a child ourselves.
We eventually decided to try for our own child, via IUI in a clinical setting. The donor we chose is traceable. That was very important for us, as we wanted Senna in the future, to have the option to trace his ancestry on both sides and know exactly where he came from. We decided that Anne-Marie would try to conceive first and we got pregnant on the second attempt. We are hyper aware of how lucky we are, we know that it may not be so easy, if we want to try for a sibling for Senna.
When Senna arrived it felt like we had always known him - like we were always meant to find each other. Both Anne Marie and I worried during the pregnancy that there might be some issue with me bonding with him, as it is impossible to tell how you were going to feel until your child is here. However, straight away, when I saw him, I forgot those worries. He centers me, gives my life an incredible purpose and just makes everyday better - plus he seems to reserve this big belly laugh for me and hearing that just makes my day!
Senna is a really happy chappy! He laughs and smiles a lot. He is quite chilled out, except when it comes to feeding time, he likes to eat a lot! Anne-Marie is at home with him full time and while she loves it, she finds it the most difficult yet rewarding job she has ever had.
For fun we love to dance together in our kitchen. Senna has a very sophisticated music palette and like us is a big Stereophonics and Coldplay fan. We haven’t influenced him on that at all - honest! Family is really important to both of us. We love to visit his; grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins (of which he has lots!). Albeit that’s a bit harder since we moved to the west coast. Hiking is another favourite activity. When Senna was only a few weeks old we got on a ferry and then hiked up Dún Aonghusa on the Aran islands with his cousins. Thus far, he seems to like the outdoors!
While the whole process has been very rewarding, one negative is the amount of intrusive questions we get about our journey to parenthood, from well meaning people, as we go about our everyday business. We get asked detailed questions on; how and where we conceived Senna, who the donor is, what he looks like, did we choose him in order that Senna would look a certain way - intimating that there was some sort of design element involved. I understand it is human nature to be inquisitive, especially as we can’t physically conceive a child together, but more and more we found ourselves being asked to give information to strangers that we just weren’t comfortable to provide. That said, we are more than happy to share our experience with LGBTQ+ couples who are thinking of starting a family and who have ‘logistical’ questions. It would have been great if we had someone to ask while navigating the process.
We find it shocking that the Irish state feels that it’s okay to dictate to a loving couple on; when, where and how our children can be conceived and born. Having a child is stressful enough, without these added concerns and pressures. We worry about the impact on our child, and the other children of LGBTQ+ families, as they get older and begin to understand these issues in more detail.
It just doesn’t make sense that so many loving families are not protected legally. If we were still resident in the UK when Senna was born, we would both have been automatically named on his birth certificate, from the beginning. We will only rest easy when parental rights are granted to all couples, regardless of their conception story or the place of birth of the child.
