Leading pushchair brand iCandy is celebrating the many and varied journeys to parenthood by listening to and sharing the stories of a number of same-sex couples and their journey to having a child.
With so much discussion in the news about what a family Christmas may look like this year in light of Covid-19 restrictions, iCandy is reflecting on the journey to creating a family for different people and the routes they undertake to have a child, whether facing infertility, in a same-sex relationship or choosing to have a baby alone.
iCandy parent and Emmerdale star Michelle Hardwick welcomed her son Teddy in October with wife Kate. To mark National Fertility Awareness Week, Michelle recently shared a series of personal photographs via Instagram, adding that her IVF journey with Kate had been a ‘rollercoaster of emotions’.
iCandy parent and actor Kieron Richardson welcomed twins via surrogacy in 2017 with his husband Carl, and last year iCandy interviewed Amber Wilde, founder of ‘Meet the Wildes’ – a UK-based family and parenting blog with a particular focus on motherhood in a two-mum family. Amber told iCandy, “My favourite comments are from LGBT people, usually young women, who say that we give them hope”.
Martin and Graham Boyle, iCandy’s md and head of buying respectively, also chose surrogacy and shared their journey to parenthood on the iCandy Life blog, saying: “You cannot go into this blind, you have to do your research… We spoke to our local adoption providers, we had consultations with surrogacy agencies, mostly US- based, and started to form a plan and an idea of how we wanted to proceed.”
You can read Martin and Graham’s full interview at the iCandy Life blog.
