Valerie Bauman says she was put on earth to be a mom.
Bauman, 42, first realized she wanted to become a single mother by choice — a woman who decides to have a child without a partner — during the summer of 2020, when “I was 38 years old and realized I was out of time to start a family the traditional way,” she says.
With the help of in vitro fertilization, Bauman gave birth to her son in May. But with IVF under threat from conservative lawmakers, the dreams of single mothers by choice may be farther from reach. While Bauman says she wouldn’t live in a state likely to ban IVF, “it concerns me for myself and any women who could have their reproductive choices limited.”
“Women’s fertility is being held hostage,” says Bauman, author of “Inconceivable: Super Sperm Donors, Off-the-Grid Insemination, and Unconventional Family Planning.”
Earlier this year, the Alabama Supreme Court made a controversial ruling that embryos are considered children, spewing backlash from reproductive rights advocates. Shortly after, multiple fertility clinics in the state paused their IVF services after considering the possible legal consequences from the rule. As a response to the criticism, state Gov. Kay Ivey signed a bill into law to protect IVF.
Still, concerns for women’s reproductive rights persist with the emergence of “Project 2025” — a 1,000-page document that mentions “overturning FDA approval of mifepristone, to ripping away access to contraception,” per U.S. Sen. Pat Murray’s website. “By insisting that life begins at conception, Project 2025 would encourage HHS [The Department of Human and Health Services] to find ways to outlaw and restrict IVF,” the site adds.
If other states adopt Alabama’s ruling, it can impact single mothers by choice, where IVF is in many cases their only chance to motherhood. Psychotherapist Jane Mattes, founder of the nonprofit Single Mothers By Choice, told The Story Exchange that the Project 2025 plan is “outrageous” along with the fact it wants to control people’s ability to have children.
“SMCs and married couples could no longer choose whether or not to have a child,” Mattes says about IVF restrictions. “For a lot of people, that’s the only option.”
IVF, the Lifeline to Conception
Since launching in 1981, the nonprofit Single Mothers By Choice has grown from nearly a dozen members to more than 30,000. While there is little data reported on single mothers by choice, the American Society of Reproductive Medicine found in 2020 that the number of single women using IVF increased from 0.8% between 2001 and 2008 to 4.6% between 2016 and 2019.
In recent years, several celebrity women have opened up about becoming single mothers by choice through IVF, including Australian singer Natalie Imbruglia, who says she used a sperm donor to have her first child at age 44 in 2019. More recently, TV host Eboni K. Williams, 40, who is currently pregnant, talked about starting the egg retrieval process at age 34.
Without IVF, Tanika McKelvy wouldn’t have been able to conceive her son, Phoenix, who she calls her “little miracle baby.”
McKelvy, 53 of New York City, became a single mother by choice after watching a YouTube video in 2017 documenting another single woman’s journey. Following a series of fertility treatments — which cost her between $30,000 to $35,000 — McKelvy gave birth to her son Phoenix, now a jubilant one-year-old, in June 2023.
“Having him here has been fantastic,” McKelvy says.
IVF was McKelvy’s last option to conceive a child of her own. Before she had her son, McKelvy had to take mifepristone — an abortion pill with limitations in over a dozen states — after her fetus’ “heart never started beating,” she says. McKelvy has had three miscarriages on her IVF journey, and calls potential IVF restrictions, a “very, scary proposition,” she adds.
In the process of conceiving her child, Bauman connected with a freelance sperm donor — a donor where mothers can access, meet and “develop relationships with them,” Bauman says. And like McKelvy, the IVF process wasn’t seamless. Last year, Bauman suffered a miscarriage, which left her in a state of depression and prompted feelings of suicidal ideation.
“It’s been a very long and emotional road,” says Bauman, who spent an estimated $20,000 to $25,000 out-of-pocket over the course of three years on IVF treatment and medication.
Marika Lindholm, a sociologist and founder of Empowering Solo Moms Everywhere, an online platform providing support and resources for single mothers, says she “totally understands” why women are making the decision to become single mothers by choice. Factors include being on a biological time clock, challenges with dating and the current political climate threatening their reproductive rights.
“Women are mad right now,” Lindholm says.
Facing Criticism and an Unknown Future
Kathleen Curtin, Single Mothers By Choice’s current executive director, says solo motherhood “is more accessible, happening more, [and] talked about more — which we think is great.” But she also says the feedback from people online are “not always positive.” The organization had to turn off commenting abilities on its social media posts due to “very negative” responses from trolls, who are mostly men, she says.
Curtin says there’s also many stigmas about single mothers by choice, including beliefs that their children will have a more troubled upbringing, or that women who make the decision are excluding themselves from partnership all together. According to a 2021 paper published in the Journal of Family Psychology, criticisms of single mothers by choice reached its peak in the U.S. during 2009, when “Octomom” Nadya Suleman gave birth to octuplets via a sperm donor.
Alexandra Hopkins, 35, of Norfolk, Virginia, is one of many single mothers by choice who experienced negative reactions online. Many Black men on social media have told Hopkins, who is Black, that “I don’t value men” and that kids need a two-parent household, she says.
“I’m more bothered by the fact that someone who doesn’t know me…feels like they should take time out of their day to be rude to me,” says Hopkins, who conceived her two young daughters, Sloan and Sidra, with the help of IVF.
While Hopkins says she wants a boy, she’s “very scared” of having a Black boy in the U.S.
Hopkin’s fear hasn’t stopped her from enjoying being a mom. She wants to take her daughter Sloan to Tokyo Disneyland, the same place she visited with her military parents when living in Japan.
“I think she would have so much fun with all their…little characters and how animated and everything it is there,” Hopkins says.
As for McKelvy, she has five embryos left and wants to have another child before her 54th birthday in 2025. Due to her age and news reports of possible IVF bans, she is now “speeding up my process” of conceiving, she says.
McKelvy believes the government is “overreaching” by implementing reproductive restrictions. She has a clear message for lawmakers: “Mind your own uterus,” she says. ◼
