October 28, 2018

This amazing new IVF technique is like passing the baton of the embryo from one mum to the other.

It's 2018 and it's totally not news to anyone now that same-sex couples are having kids and being amazing parents. But, one of the bridges same-sex couples who are thinking about having a baby have to cross, is the fact that the child will only be genetically related to one of them. It can be a tough thing for two women to go through together, only one of them can supply the eggs for the embryo, only one of them can carry it.

Well, it turns out technology is catching up in a very cool way as five months ago, a Texas couple, Ashleigh and Bliss Coulter, welcomed a baby boy together- a baby boy that they had both carried.

The proud new parents. Picture: @Asheligh.coulter Instagram

A bit of IVF magic

Baby Stetson is the first child to be born using a very cool new IVF technique.

“I wanted to be pregnant for so long and so bad,” Ashleigh told NBC 5. “Obviously, us being two women, we were like, ‘How can we make this happen? We felt like there has to be a way.”

Reciprocal effortless IVF allows two women to carry the same baby 00:10:59 Reciprocal effortless IVF allows two women to carry the same baby

And there was, enter a technique called: reciprocal effortless IVF.

“Bliss went through the stimulation of her ovaries and the egg harvest,”doctor, Kathy Doody, told NBC 5.

While in most IVF cycles the fertilized egg would be placed in an incubator in a lab to grow before it was implanted in a woman's uterus, with the process, Bliss's eggs were put into a device called an INVOcell and then inserted into Bliss's vaginal cavity to incubate the embryo.

“She got the embryo off to an early start,” the doctor explained. “The eggs fertilized in her body, and when they returned five days later, we removed the device and froze the embryos.”

After that, the embryo was transferred to Ashleigh who carried the baby until his birth.

“Almost like passing the baton, like it’s a relay race,” Doody said.

“Bliss got to carry him for five days and was a big part of the fertilization, and then I carried him for nine months,” Ashleigh said. “So that made it really special for the both of us — that we were both involved. She got to be a part of it, and I got to be a part of it.”