“I’m expecting twins so it’s a little scary”smiles Melina. After the opening a year ago, on August 2, 2021, of the Assisted reproduction (PMA) to lesbian couples and single women, she registered on the lists in September. While the debates on the bioethics law had focused on the opening to couples of lesbiansone year later, single women are in the majority in assisted reproduction pathways. Of 5,126 new requests for PMA consultation in the first quarter of 2022, 53% came from single women, reports the Biomedicine Agency in its latest report.
Mélina is single and is now three months pregnant. This 36-year-old mother-to-be thought carefully before embarking on this PMA course. “HASfter being on a journey for egg donation“, one of the triggers was the return of his “fertility results. The gynecologists told me: “If you want to do it now.” So, even before the passage of the law, it initiated the steps abroad.
After a first insemination insuccessful in Brussels, she went through all the stages in France: gynecological appointments, with the psychologist and the notary in order toestablish the filiation of the unborn child. A process that is usually long but which in the end turned out to be quick for Mélina. “JI was really very lucky. I was very surprised that it all happened so quickly.“, she rejoices. She says she is very supported in her approach by those around her, but also by the medical teams. “My father was very encouraging. I never felt held back, even by the professionals I met, on the contrary“, explains Melina.
For this future Parisian mother, having a baby alone was a choice independent of her love life.
“I was in a relationship but I did not want a child with the person I was with”
Melina, mother-to-befranceinfo
“In my relationshipsshe continues, I never imagined myself in a family life. Men and women with children meet every day and we can completely reform a couple without having children together”, she decides.
Did she have any comments? Is there still a taboo to do a PMA when you are a single woman today? “People I meet for the first time always ask: ‘So what about daddy?’“, says the future mother. She finds “crazy“This question because she shows up alone at pregnancy follow-up appointments. “I tell myself that these are the own anxieties of the people in front of me“, slips Melina.
For her, “the fact that a single woman has a child is not taboo“, unlike couples of women who “still suffer a lot“.