Lesbian Conception 101


Book Description

You've decided you want to have a baby.... now what? How do you decide on a donor? Where do you find lesbian pregnancy advice? What artificial insemination technique should you (or do you need to) use? How much is this all going to cost? How do you even get started? What is the best way to get pregnant? There are a lot of different ways lesbians can make a baby. In this practical (and sometimes hilarious) guide, Kathy Borkoski of LesbianConception101.com walks you through your options and helps you decide what is best for your situation. By giving you all the information she and her wife learned over a year of inseminations, ultrasounds, and questions to their patient doctor and lesbian mom friends, she shows you how to get started on your own path to pregnancy. In this how-to guide, you will be given: *** A glossary for all the confusing processes and jargon *** Easy-to-follow steps to get you started *** Questions you should be asking each other to make the tough decisions *** Cost estimates so you can plan for the real expenses of lesbian babymaking *** Stories from real lesbian moms about their journeys Don't waste more time googling and asking around... get the basics and start making your family!




The Ultimate Guide to Pregnancy for Lesbians


Book Description

The Ultimate Guide to Pregnancy for Lesbians covers everything you need to make the thrilling and challenging journey to motherhood: from choosing a donor to tracking fertility to signing the right papers on the dotted lines. Rachel Pepper's lively, easy-to-read guide is the first place to go for up-to-date information and sage advice on everything from sex in the sixth month to negotiating family roles. Why a second edition? When the acclaimed first edition appeared, the author's daughter was only a few months old. This new edition takes into account the parenting know-how Pepper has developed over the intervening six years, as well as the evolving legal status of lesbian parents, and the increasing importance of the Internet for information on fertility, sperm banks, and donors. The resource section is greatly expanded, as are the sections on each trimester of pregnancy, on childbirth, and on life with a newborn. And Pepper provides more insight into preconception planning for both single lesbians and couples. An indispensable resource, The Ultimate Guide to Pregnancy for Lesbians is now bigger and better.




Heart and Hands, Fifth Edition [2019]


Book Description

A fully revised update of the foundational text on birth assisting from internationally renowned authority Elizabeth Davis, offering professional guidance for both aspiring and veteran midwives. Presenting information on what to expect during each stage of pregnancy, birth, and postpartum recovery, Heart and Hands has been the most trusted guide for midwives and expecting parents for more than two decades. This completely revised edition includes new photographs and illustrations, updated resources for parents, and a current list of midwifery schools. Information will be added throughout to reflect the latest research on the physiology of pregnancy, birth, and postpartum. Combining time-honored teachings with the most current obstetric techniques, this essential reference empowers birthing helpers and parents to create a truly woman-centered birth experience.




Companion to Sexuality Studies


Book Description

An inclusive and accessible resource on the interdisciplinary study of gender and sexuality Companion to Sexuality Studies explores the significant theories, concepts, themes, events, and debates of the interdisciplinary study of sexuality in a broad range of cultural, social, and political contexts. Bringing together essays by an international team of experts from diverse academic backgrounds, this comprehensive volume provides original insights and fresh perspectives on the history and institutional regulatory processes that socially construct sex and sexuality and examines the movements for social justice that advance sexual citizenship and reproductive rights. Detailed yet accessible chapters explore the intersection of sexuality studies and fields such as science, health, psychology, economics, environmental studies, and social movements over different periods of time and in different social and national contexts. Divided into five parts, the Companion first discusses the theoretical and methodological diversity of sexuality studies.Subsequent chapters address the fields of health, science and psychology, religion, education and the economy. They also include attention to sexuality as constructed in popular culture, as well as global activism, sexual citizenship, policy, and law. An essential overview and an important addition to scholarship in the field, this book: Draws on international, postcolonial, intersectional, and interdisciplinary insights from scholars working on sexuality studies around the world Provides a comprehensive overview of the field of sexuality studies Offers a diverse range of topics, themes, and perspectives from leading authorities Focuses on the study of sexuality from the late nineteenth century to the present Includes an overview of the history and academic institutionalization of sexuality studies The Companion to Sexuality Studies is an indispensable resource for scholars, researchers, instructors, and students in gender, sexuality, and feminist studies, interdisciplinary programs in cultural studies, international studies, and human rights, as well as disciplines such as anthropology, psychology, history, education, human geography, political science, and sociology.




Making Babies


Book Description

Making Babies offers a proven 3-month program designed to help any woman get pregnant. Fertility medicine today is all about aggressive surgical, chemical, and technological intervention, but Dr. David and Blakeway know a better way. Starting by identifying "fertility types," they cover everything from recognizing the causes of fertility problems to making lifestyle choices that enhance fertility to trying surprising strategies such as taking cough medicine, decreasing doses of fertility drugs, or getting acupuncture along with IVF. Making Babies is a must-have for every woman trying to conceive, whether naturally or through medical intervention. Dr. David and Blakeway are revolutionizing the fertility field, one baby at a time.




Queering Reproduction


Book Description

DIVExamines the medical, social, and legal dimensions of the use of assisted reproductive technologies by lesbian women./div




Lesbian Health 101


Book Description

This is the first comprehensive textbook on lesbian health, reflecting the exponential increase in research on lesbian health over the past 10 years. I highly recommend this textbook to all clinicians and students who provide health care for women, and to inquisitive patients. --Susan Love, MD, President of the Susan Love Breast Cancer Foundation This book presents new and little-known, current and well-researched material that is essential to combat myths and misinformation about lesbian health. The intended audience is literally starved for this book. Health care providers and lesbian health care advocates may be aware of some of the information in this book, but none of us have the comprehensive understanding and knowledge base that this book provides. It should be available in every curriculum where health care disparities are addressed, and where LGBT health is taught. --Peggy Chinn, PhD, RN, FAAN, Professor Emerita, University of Connecticut Each time a lesbian thinks about weight, retirement, children, a hospital stay, filling out a form, or any other health related activity, she has to insist on a paradigm shift to simply be recognized. This book will push that shift along a little faster and give lesbians the leverage we need to live healthily in this century. --Jewelle Gomez, Author and activist This book presents new and little-known, current and well-researched material that is essential to combat myths and misinformation about lesbian health. The intended audience is literally starved for this book. Health care providers and lesbian health care advocates may be aware of some of the information in this book, but none of us have the comprehensive understanding and knowledge base that this book provides. It should be available in every curriculum where health care disparities are addressed, and where LGBT health is taught. --Peggy Chinn, PhD, RN, FAAN, Professor Emerita, University of Connecticut Each time a lesbian thinks about weight, retirement, children, a hospital stay, filling out a form, or any other health related activity, she has to insist on a paradigm shift to simply be recognized. This book will push that shift along a little faster and give lesbians the leverage we need to live healthily in this century. --Jewelle Gomez, Author and activist




Looking through the Speculum


Book Description

Highlights local history to tell a national story about the evolution of the women’s health movement, illuminating the struggles and successes of bringing feminist dreams into clinical spaces. The women’s health movement in the United States, beginning in 1969 and taking hold in the 1970s, was a broad-based movement seeking to increase women’s bodily knowledge, reproductive control, and well-being. It was a political movement that insisted that bodily autonomy provided the key to women’s liberation. It was also an institution-building movement that sought to transform women’s relationships with medicine; it was dedicated to increasing women’s access to affordable health care without the barriers of homophobia, racism, and sexism. But the movement did not only focus on women’s bodies. It also encouraged activists to reimagine their relationships with one another, to develop their relationships in the name of personal and political change, and, eventually, to discover and confront the limitations of the bonds of womanhood. This book examines historically the emergence, development, travails, and triumphs of the women’s health movement in the United States. By bringing medical history and the history of women’s bodies into our emerging understandings of second-wave feminism, the author sheds light on the understudied efforts to shape health care and reproductive control beyond the hospital and the doctor’s office—in the home, the women’s center, the church basement, the bookshop, and the clinic. Lesbians, straight women, and women of color all play crucial roles in this history. At its center are the politics, institutions, and relationships created by and within the women’s health movement, depicted primarily from the perspective of the activists who shaped its priorities, fought its battles, and grappled with its shortcomings.




Queer Social Work


Book Description

This collection of case studies that model LGBTQ+ affirmative social work practice offers real-life scenarios from a range of social work scholars, educators, and practitioners, representing diverse sexualities, genders, and intersectional identities. Together, they demonstrate contemporary, multilevel, queer-affirming social work practice with LGBTQ+ people and communities. These fourteen case studies follow social workers across the country on their quest for quality service provision for vulnerable populations. Chapters explore issues such as finding trans-affirming care for teens, methamphetamine abuse among elderly gay men, previously exploited teens reentering foster care, navigating nonmonogamous relationships, and more. Each chapter offers concrete, comparative case formulation that depicts culturally responsive work with LGBTQ+ people by LGBTQ+ social workers. These diverse vignettes showcase a range of life experiences and explore how factors like religion, age, and immigration status affect social work practice. The case studies in this volume integrate best-practice standards and interventions, social work ethics and competencies, and clinical and critical theories. Queer Social Work is a progressive pedagogical tool that provides a forum for marginalized communities and individuals as well as the committed practitioners who serve them.




The Health of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender People


Book Description

At a time when lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals-often referred to under the umbrella acronym LGBT-are becoming more visible in society and more socially acknowledged, clinicians and researchers are faced with incomplete information about their health status. While LGBT populations often are combined as a single entity for research and advocacy purposes, each is a distinct population group with its own specific health needs. Furthermore, the experiences of LGBT individuals are not uniform and are shaped by factors of race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, geographical location, and age, any of which can have an effect on health-related concerns and needs. The Health of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender People assesses the state of science on the health status of LGBT populations, identifies research gaps and opportunities, and outlines a research agenda for the National Institute of Health. The report examines the health status of these populations in three life stages: childhood and adolescence, early/middle adulthood, and later adulthood. At each life stage, the committee studied mental health, physical health, risks and protective factors, health services, and contextual influences. To advance understanding of the health needs of all LGBT individuals, the report finds that researchers need more data about the demographics of these populations, improved methods for collecting and analyzing data, and an increased participation of sexual and gender minorities in research. The Health of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender People is a valuable resource for policymakers, federal agencies including the National Institute of Health (NIH), LGBT advocacy groups, clinicians, and service providers.