Texas Couple Both Carry Baby At Separate Times During Pregnancy

Jan 06, 2020 by apost team

Medical science just continues to advance in ways that people never thought would be imaginable. For one young married same-sex couple, one such miracle allowed both women to carry the same baby in a groundbreaking pregnancy in Texas.

Ashleigh and Bliss Coulter were married in 2015 and like most young couples, they began to make plans for a family. There were a variety of options available, but the women wanted to try and have a biological child of their own. Both women wanted to be equally involved in the birth of their child - each wanted to be able to carry the baby. Bliss didn't want to actually give birth to the baby, however. They shared their wishes with their fertility doctor and, to their surprise, they ended up making medical history.

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Dr. Kathy Doody, with the Center for Assisted Reproduction, shared with them a new and innovative in vitro fertilization process called effortless reciprocal IVF. Traditionally, eggs and sperm are placed into a traditional incubator. In this process, eggs from Bliss's body and sperm from donors would be grown in a device called an INVOcell which was placed inside Bliss's body.

Then, five days later the device was taken out of Bliss's body and several embryos were frozen for possible later use. One of the embryos was placed into Ashleigh's body where it would gestate and continue to grow to term.

Ultimately, they got their wish by both women being able to carry the same child. The procedure was truly a miracle and a medical advance that would change parenting for lesbian couples in the future. Ashleigh and Bliss gave birth to a beautiful boy named Stetson.

While Dr. Doody, who works with her husband Dr. Kevin Doody, has performed this procedure before heterosexual couples, this was the first time that a same-sex couple participated. Effortless IVF costs about half as much as traditional IVF which will make having children much more accessible to those who can't do so on their own.

Have you ever heard of this type of IVF treatment? Let us know in the comments - and make sure you pass this along to your friends and family!