Choosing To Have A Baby As A Single Woman
'Most studies have shown that psychological well-being tends to decline when people have kids,' Pienta said. 'And it only rebounds much later, when the children have left home. IVF versus The One: Why more women are choosing to have babies alone IVF treatment has doubled in popularity for single women, but what's it really like having a baby alone? One, the recent mother of twins, went so far as to start a business to counsel single women with resources on how to have a baby on their own. Others remain somewhat secretive of their pregnancy.
Until recently, single parenting carried such a stigma that often those who fell into it were embarrassed and withdrew from society. However, society has become more accepting of this form of family. This acceptance, combined with the availability of artificial insemination, has begun to pose problems for the church —and for pastors who must counsel and deal with single female members who want children. According to Carole Klein, an activist in women's rights, the acceptance of single parenthood has been brought about by the unflinching efforts of those singles who felt that children and marriage should not have to be synonymous terms, that people who believe that they have the capacity to give love should not be locked by a cultural stereotype into the limitations imposed by marriage. In her book, The Single Parent Experience, Klein mentions three routes through which people enter single parenthood: 1. Through adoption. By this means, both single males and single females can become parents.
Here we are talking about singles who participate in sexual activity, conceive unintentionally, and then decide to go through with the pregnancy —often because of strong religious convictions regarding abortion. By deliberate action. This category includes singles who engage in sexual activity for the purpose of becoming pregnant. Often the woman who takes this route severs connections with the father, even refusing to tell him of the pregnancy. 1 We would also include in this third category those single women who become pregnant through artificial insemination. When artificial insemination first became available, there was much debate about its appropriateness even for married couples.
Theologians (particularly Catholic theologians) and medical experts spent a lot of time with questions such as What are the implications of pregnancy without coitus and procreation by donor? What about the transfer of disease? During this time the women's liberation movement —which was growing in influence —began to suggest alternative lifestyles, such as choosing to live singly (unmarried). But some of those who chose this lifestyle did not want to forgo having children. Consequently, many women began to talk of and experiment with having children without sexual contact. 2 Then they spoke of their success and satisfaction. Before long, some Seventh-day Adventist women began to toy with this new lifestyle.
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Peer pressure and a lack of decisive action by pastors and churches have allowed increasing acceptance of this lifestyle; we know of one congregation in which there are two singles who claim to have used this procedure. The cost of artificial insemination prevents many who otherwise would attempt it from doing so. But medical experts foresee the day when young women will be able to administer this procedure themselves.
3 When it is a matter of single parenting by adoption, divorce, or death, the questions are relatively simple, and answers seem to come easily. But when the matter of single parenting by accident or deliberate action is raised, the questions become complex and the answers involve shades of gray. For her part, the woman engaging in the practice may cite as the reason her need for companionship, her desire for a family and for security in old age, and the fact that she is getting old and has not met Mr.
On its part, the church faces a real quandary. On the one hand, it is concerned for its reputation, fearing that it will be misunderstood, that some will conclude that it condones pregnancies outside of marriage. But on the other hand, how can it charge the woman with committing adultery or fornication when she has not engaged in sexual contact?
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Further complicating the picture for the church is the question of whether the pregnant single woman has actually undergone artificial insemination. Could her claim that her pregnancy is the result of this procedure merely be an attempt to cover sexual indiscretions?
How can the church know, particularly when the procedure may have been self-administered? And what boundaries demarcate the church's right to know from the woman's right to privacy? What counsel can you give? So what can a pastor say to a woman who is contemplating artificial insemination? The pastor must begin with the biblical ideal, marriage —an ideal that has withstood the test of time. God's command to humanity to 'be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth' came in the context of His creation of two beings who together made up His image, a context that indicates that the tie binding the parents together must be stronger than that which binds them to their children (Gen.
1:27, 28; 2:23, 24). Even though some single people do a better job of parenting than do some couples, one needs to remember that single parenting is not ideal. In fact, such a lifestyle has concomitant problems that do not affect an ideal couple's family.
For example, most single parents must work hard to support themselves and their children. That generally means leaving the children in the hands of a baby-sitter. Having to depend on baby-sitters for the rearing of children does not necessarily augur problems in character development, but all the major studies of child development have found that the best baby-sitter cannot substitute for a caring and loving parent.
While some single-parent families are successful, we cannot deny the link between the increase of human delinquency and the rise in single-parent families here in America. And it is not so much the families that enter the single-parent category by accident that present the problem, but those that do so by deliberate action. The title of an article in Human Rights on the rights of women to freedom in making reproductive decisions is quite revealing: 'My Body, My Life, My Baby, My Rights.' 4 Singles who want the church to approve of their becoming pregnant by artificial insemination also proclaim their rights to privacy and to reproductive freedom.
However, one must wonder if all the arguments do not boil down to one thing —self-centeredness. What of the consequences to their progeny? In a survey, Carole Klein found that children whose parents have chosen to be single must face many problems. Of ten such a child wonders about his or her father and the social and economic context to which the father belongs. And what of the paternal relatives? Though loved by the single parent and the maternal relatives, the child who is without answers to these and related questions often faces a crisis of identity that can spearhead many other problems. 5 The extended family has much to do with a child's psychological and social stability and with the child's character formation.
Does a parent have the right to impose conflict upon a child by deciding upon single parenting through artificial insemination when other members of the family oppose this procedure? Will pursuing such a course deprive the child of an important support network? No doubt we all have the right to a measure of reproductive freedom. But the questions we have raised point to a larger issue: Does deliberately bringing a child into existence in a single-parent family by artificial insemination violate the child's basic rights and needs? By means of artificial insemination a young lady may satisfy her desire to bear a child —but more than her own happiness is at stake. Like God, Who always wants that which is best for us, Christians will seek to provide the best for their children. Problems that develop in the world often take root in the church as well.
We How can the church charge the woman with fornication when she has not engaged in sexual contact? Cannot afford to dismiss them naively; we must discover and confront them.
We can no longer pretend that there is no problem of artificial insemination among single women in the church. And we cannot say it will solve itself.
Choosing To Have A Baby As A Single Woman Video
Because even sincere Christians are contemplating it, we must begin at once to deal with it. 1 Carole Klein, The Single Parent Experience (New York: Walker and Company, 1973). 2 In England, for example, until 1969 artificial insemination was reserved for married couples and even among them for only a few who were willing to be 'guinea pigs.' But after 1969 any woman over the age of 16 could validly receive artificial insemination.
The Family Law Reform Act (1969) reads: 'The consent of a minor who has attained the age of 16 years to any surgical, medical, or dental treatment which, in the absence of consent, would constitute a trespass to his person shall be as effective as it would be if he were of full age; and where a minor has by virtue of this section given an effective consent to any treatment it shall not be necessary to obtain any consent for it from his parent or guardian' (cited by Olive M. Stone under 'English Law in Relation to AID and Embryo Transfer' in a Symposium on Legal and Other Aspects of AID by Donor New York: Eisenvier, 1973). 3 When only one member has followed a deviant path, one may hide the problem and make private decisions regarding it. But when the problem becomes an epidemic, then the congregation or the pastor has to step out and confront it openly. A 1978 poll showed that 60 percent of Americans regarded the practice of artificial insemination as acceptable, 27 percent opposed it, and 13 percent were undecided (see Peter Singer, 'Public Opinion Polls,' in the Ethics Advisory Board report HEW Support of Research Involving Human In Vitro Fertilization and Embryo Tranfer Washington, D.C.:1979, appendix). 4 Rebecca Levine, 'My Body, My Life, My Baby, My Rights,' Human Rights 12, No.
1 (Spring 1984): 27-29, 48-50. (Italics in title in text sup plied.) 5 While some artificial inseminations involve the sperm of marriage partners or surrogates who are known, the majority of semen donors are anonymous (Klein, pp.
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As much as she wanted to be in a great, loving relationship with a partner, she wanted a baby even more. “If I turned 50 and didn't have children,' she says, 'I'd be pretty devastated.' So after about a year of weighing her options and considering what it would be like to be a mother on her own, she did something a growing number of single women are doing: She chose an anonymous donor through a sperm bank and started her attempts to get pregnant, using drugs to encourage the growth of egg-producing follicles. For seven months, Anne-Marie, now 42, did monthly inseminations, stopping for a year after she began, and then ended, a relationship. When she resumed her efforts, and after a total of 13 tries, she conceived her first son, Pierre, born in November 2002.
Birth of a movement Experts who follow single parenthood say more women than ever are choosing to get pregnant on their own, or adopt a child without a partner. But there are few hard numbers to point to. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notes that preliminary birth data for 2003 show a 4 percent jump from 2002 in the number of births to unmarried women; nearly 35 percent of births in 2003 were to unmarried women. But that number includes women whose partner may be in the picture as well as women who go it alone. Children’s Hope International, an international adoption agency, notes that nearly 13 percent of their adoptions are by singles. And in the 24 years since starting (SMC), Jane Mattes, a psychotherapist and author of 'Single Mothers by Choice: A Guidebook for Single Women Who Are Considering or Have Chosen Motherhood' (Three Rivers Press, 1994), says she's seen tremendous growth in numbers.
She started with eight members and now has more than 2000. So what’s driving this trend? It comes as no surprise to hear that much comes down to timing. “The majority of women who become single moms by choice did want to get married,' says Mattes.
'The reasons why they make this choice haven’t changed: They want to have children and if they’re not married or they’ve divorced they want to have them before it’s too late.” For many women, the much-mocked biological clock may seem to wind down all too quickly, especially for those who are enjoying a wonderful time in their lives with good friends, a nice home and interesting, well-compensated work. Then they realize they have little time left — and sometimes none — for having children.
“I think a lot of the reason there are more single women becoming pregnant on their own is because of careers,” says Anne-Marie. “I went to a big-name undergrad school and a big-name grad school, I traveled a lot, I worked overseas. It’s hard to meet somebody, if you didn’t want to date someone from work. All of a sudden you’re 37, 38 and you think ‘I should have prioritized this more.’ But you’re just doing what you enjoy.” After her own wake-up call, Anne-Marie put on what she calls “the full-court press.” “I joined a dating service and for six, nine, 12 months, I was dating more than I ever had,' she says. 'Nothing came out of it, which is no surprise because with every man it was like, are you marriageable? Do you want kids?” Mattes, who is arguably the midwife to this movement, says she has seen big changes in both the perception of single motherhood by choice and the choices women are making about how to create their families.
“The biggest change is that people know about it,” says Mattes. “It’s not such a shock when someone says they had a baby alone; people always seem to know someone now.’”.Anne-Marie did not want her last name used to protect the privacy of her children. 'This is as much (if not more so) my sons' story as mine,' she says.
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'When they are older and can decide how much they want to tell people, whatever I've already said cannot be taken away.' Women pursuing parenthood without a partner have also become something of an economic force, Mattes notes.
“We are a big consumer base of the sperm banks. They’re advertising in the SMC newsletter; I think they’re looking at our growth — and we don’t represent half of the number of women who are doing this.” In 1998, California Cryobank, the biggest sperm bank in the United States, had about 60 percent couples and 40 percent singles as clients. Today, that figure is reversed: About 60 percent of their customers are single women and/or lesbians.
Xytex, a bank based in Atlanta, sees a similar trend. “At least 50 percent, and probably closer to 75 percent of our patients, are single women, meaning unmarried, whether heterosexual or homosexual,” says Sheridan Rivers, a supervisor of customer service and sales at Xytex. Women’s — and, arguably, society’s — comfort level with single motherhood has come so far that more single moms are having a second child with donor insemination or adoption than in years past. “One child was the norm for the first 10 to 15 years of SMC,' says Mattes. 'Now it’s very common to have more than one.
They say, ‘If I had one child, I can have two.’ It’s much more normalized.” In March, Anne-Marie gave birth to her second son, Henri. More women who've hit a roadblock to motherhood owing to infertility are turning to adoption. Adam Pertman, executive director of the and author of 'Adoption Nation: How the Adoption Revolution is Transforming America' (Basic Books, 2001), says current trends include more single African-American women adopting children from foster care and more single women adopting a child of a different race or ethnicity, or an older child.
Difficult choices Single motherhood by choice may be a sizeable and still-growing trend, but it is the result of a series of personal and often very painful decisions made by every woman who considers it. When she was about 30, Holly Vanderhaar decided that if she hadn’t met the man she thought would be her husband by 35, she’d start thinking about going it alone to become a mother. “I thought I had to meet someone — or go into a potentially bad marriage for the sake of having kids,” says the Mesa, Ariz.-based mother. “I said to myself, there is another option and that took the pressure off me for a while and I put it on the back burner.” (Mattes notes that more older women and younger women are coming into SMC as members.
“We used to see a lot between 35 and 40. Now we see more women in their mid-40s and late 20s. Some people are very clear that they don’t want to wait until their fertility might be at risk.”) At 35, with no husband material is sight, Vanderhaar began eight months of treatment for a fibroid and an ovarian cyst so she could start trying to get pregnant; her first insemination, using donor sperm, took place two months before she turned 36. “It took five tries and I got pregnant on my only unmedicated cycle,” says Vanderhaar.
“It was twins — identical.” At 15 weeks of pregnancy, she found how she had twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome, a rare, high-risk condition that required Vanderhaar to fly to Florida for surgery — but not before making the excruciating choice about whether to continue the pregnancy. “It was really, really hard to hear the news and be by myself and feel this huge, incredible responsibility and not have anyone to share the decision with,” she recalls. Fortunately, the surgery went very well and daughters Sian and Sophie were born in April 2003. In weighing the pros and cons of having a baby alone, a woman naturally looks at traditional families, in part to see what she would miss out on as a single mother.
Some women 'grieve the dream,' says Mattes. “The majority of women who become single moms by choice did want to get married.' But others who opt to go this route don’t think they’re missing much.
“With a lot of the relationships I see with my friends, you have a couple of kids and a husband you need to manage — it’s a lot of work to have a great marriage,” says Anne-Marie. “Am I working harder as a single mom than a married mom? I don’t think so. In some ways, I’m working less hard because I don’t have another adult to work around and manage. In some ways it’s simpler.” It takes a village For women considering getting pregnant and raising a child on their own, single moms have one piece of advice that rises above all others: “You need a support system,” says Mattes. “When you’re married it’s built in — you have him and his parents — but when we’re alone, we have to create it.” Anne-Marie moved to New Jersey to be near her parents; her neighborhood also includes two other single moms by choice. Vanderhaar also moved towns in the Phoenix area to be closer to her mother and sister.
“They’re so much help to me on a day-to-day basis,” she says. Local SMC chapters can be a boon in finding other single moms, as well as women who are thinking about single motherhood or trying to get pregnant. “You can do this single, but you really cannot do it alone,' Mattes says. 'Without a support system, it’s 10, 20 times as hard.” Lorie A. Parch is a freelance writer based in Scottsdale, Ariz. © 2013 msnbc.com.
