Blog post written in collaboration with Vida Fertility

What is a Lesfriendly clinic?

This is quite a fair question, especially since we are all focusing on every clinic during this month of Fertility Awareness. We asked one of our EFP patients, Caitleen, about her experience: “When my friend Sandy went with her girlfriend to a fertility clinic in London to find out about the options they had to become mothers, they asked about ‘the father’ and also assumed they were sisters. And although everything else was fine, in terms of technology, results, etcetera, they left disappointed and made an appointment at the same place where I got pregnant, Vida Fertility.” 

A lesfriendly clinic takes the most of its experience and its team

Why? Because it’s not enough to put two women in the clinics advertising, it’s not enough to advertise the ROPA method. To be a truly lesfriendly clinic, you must be a clinic that believes in and supports family diversity in body and soul. That understands that, although lesbian and heterosexual women who make an appointment at a clinic have the common factor of seeking a pregnancy, they are also very different. Many differences in their personal experiences and in the way they build their families, which have only been ‘legal’ since 2009 in the UK.

Vida Fertility is a clinic that was formed by women. By women for women. And with lesbian and bisexual women on its team. In addition, a third of all the staff have undergone assisted reproduction treatment. These experiences, related to sexual orientation and to assisted reproduction to conceive, help to make the view and the protocols on the patients of the LGBTQ+ community real. “And you live and feel that when you are there”, add Caitleen. 

Sometimes we forget it, but Spain is one of the few countries that has a LesFriendly legislation regarding assisted reproduction with significant clinical experience. At Vida Fertility, many patients come from abroad because they cannot become mothers in their country because they are lesbians. Moreover, it is not only about proposing the ROPA method, and, in fact, many lesbian couples do not opt for this treatment. “That is why, at Vida, we first propose a fertility assessment for both partners before making any decision, and we have programmes, from simple AI with donor sperm to oocyte donation with donor sperm included, especially designed for lesbian women,” says Dr Spies, medical director at Vida Fertility Madrid.

Assisted reproductive treatment does not only involve the body. It also involves emotions. Illusions and fears come to the surface and sensitivity is heightened. We are vulnerable, so we must make sure that the atmosphere in our clinic is as familiar and pleasant as possible. 

 A lesfriendly clinic offers personalized and state-of-the-art treatments

Of course, being family diversity oriented is essential, but this should not make the patients neglect the professionalism of the specialists and the technology that the clinic will provide for your fertility treatments.

Vida Fertility is a boutique clinic, where you are not just another patient, where everyone knows your name, knows your story. There is a deep commitment from the team and a close relationship is formed with the patients.

But its labs also have time lapse incubators, advanced techniques such as PGT-A, endometrial and ovarian regeneration, its own donors, all the necessary tests in the laboratory itself. Only blastocysts are transferred (Day 5-6). They have an automated sample traceability system for better security. Use AI to determine the quality of the oocytes, etc.

“Proposing the best personalised protocols to their patients, where none are standard and all are adapted to the circumstances of each woman, is also being a LesFriendly clinic”, concluded Caitleen, obviously very happy with her choice.

Want to know more? Get in contact with Vida Fertility here.