Conceiving together : lesbian couples pursuit of donor conception

Donor conception has an established place in lesbian reproduction, and one that
diverges from cultural understandings of conception, parenthood and family.
However, to date, there is no major UK study into lesbian couples' experiences of
pursuing donor conception. Exploring these experiences, the thesis first
investigates, in a review and critique of the literature, existing research into
lesbian conception. Noting the few studies into lesbian reproduction, it discusses
how it figures in related areas of research: feminist studies of reproductive
technologies; kinship and assisted conception; changing patterns of intimate and
family life; and politics of gay and lesbian normalisation. Second, it investigates
lesbian couples' clinical and self-arranged donor conception practices in an
empirical study based on interviews with 25 couples in England and Wales, a
study which the literature review suggests is the largest in the UK, to date. What
emerges from couples' accounts is an irresolvable tension between being in
receipt of donor sperm and a romantic desire to become a biogenetic nuclear
family. The interviews are thematically analysed to explore the nature of this
conflict. The thesis demonstrates that couples seek to negotiate donor conception
through disassembling its material, practical and conceptual elements and
reassembling these components in coordinated ways. In addition, couples
undertake a repertoire of practices that signal togetherness, with the aim of
constructing a bounded 'nuclear' family. Through these practices, lesbian couples
seek to contain the potentially destabilising impact of the donor on their desired
way of becoming and being a family. This takes place in a social context which
challenges their claims to parenthood, and the constant possibility that their
conception processes, and the meanings they give them, will be undermined. The
findings underline the centrality of connectedness in contemporary personal life
and the unremitting hegemonic power ofthe nuclear family model.