Being Gay or Lesbian and Adopting

Among the many big issues facing gay and lesbian couples today is that of adoption. Many gay couples also want to expand their families by adding a child to it. They have lots of love to share with a child and there seems to be no solid reason why they shouldn’t have the privilege of enjoying children. Years ago, adoption for gay and lesbian couples was next to impossible. However, now it has become much easier for them to bring a child into their families.

With the laws easing up on gays adopting, it isn’t as difficult now to even get an infant. It still seems to be a bit faster to adopt an older child than an infant since everyone wants a newborn. There are also other ways that gay and lesbian couples can go about obtaining a child to add to their families. Some of these routes may even be simpler and faster than going through adoption agencies.

Lesbian couples have a bit of an advantage in that they both have the necessary female reproductive organs. These couples can find a suitable sperm donor and go from there. They can also go to fertility clinics and be artificially inseminated. In this way, they can carry their own children. Sometimes the sperm donor will be a relative of the partner not carrying the baby. In that way, the baby shares blood from both families, just as it would if it were conceived between heterosexual couples.

Obviously, it’s a bit more difficult for gay men to come up with alternative methods for adding a child to their families. After all, they don’t have the “equipment” needed to conceive and carry a child. However, a route that many gay men take to get a child is through the use of a surrogate.  The surrogate is usually a good friend of the couple. Sperm can even be donated from one of the men so that there is a blood tie involved.

Gay and lesbian couples tend to make exceptional parents. It could be due to the fact that they had to work so hard to get a child or it just may be that their parental instincts are coming out. For whatever reason, children raised by gay parents are just as well adjusted as kids that come from heterosexual homes. Sometimes, they’re even more adjusted.

Once it became apparent that children weren’t going to be “damaged” by having gay parents and weren’t guaranteed to turn out gay themselves, more adoption agencies were willing to work with gay couples to help them become parents. Something else positive to come out of this is that there are even more children that will be able to have a home with parents that love them and will take care of them because, many times, gay couples are happy to get children of any age. It’s a known fact that as children get older, their chances for being adopted decrease drastically. So, gay couples offer these children much better odds for finally getting a home of their own.