Excitedly Preparing to Speak at Medium Day 2024
I have given a fair number of talks in my academic and professional career, but I am not ashamed to admit that I am both excited and nervous to be a speaker for Medium Day 2024.
I think that my somewhat anxious anticipation revolves around the fact that this is the first time I get to speak on behalf of my company, BabyMoon Family, and share the writing I have been working on for the past year.
I have written about such a breadth of topics related to queer intended parenthood and assisted reproductive technology (ART) that it would not be possible to discuss them all on Medium Day.
Instead, I want to focus on the ultimate vision for BabyMoon Family as a queer intended parent matching and community platform, and how this idea has come about through my research and writing.
I have previously written about this vision, which you can read more about here (https://www.babymoonfamily.com/original-articles/queer-matching).
However, I want to take the opportunity on Medium Day to share more about how this vision has come together by discussing the challenges I have seen through my own fatherhood journey as well as found through my research and writing:
What is it like to build a family through ART as a queer person?
What are some of the challenges queer intended and new parents have to consider?
How could BabyMoon Family make this journey easier and more enjoyable?
This last point is a key aspect to BabyMoon Family’s mission and is built into the name. A ‘babymoon’ is the honeymoon-like vacation that intended parents take before the birth of their child. However, for queer intended parents, this time of family planning can be challenging from a logistical, financial, and emotional perspective, and the hope is that BabyMoon Family can provide essential information, support, and matching to help queer intended parents enjoy the ‘babymoon’ journey and collaborate with ‘chosen family’ in the LGBTQ+ community.
If you’d like to join my session, please find the full Medium Day 2024 schedule here: https://events.zoom.us/ev/AtMdU7zXofeQTmTMRWGdwOZWD_T8D-T3dk6hul2JgkSsmTwC_Z6l~AthG1PAvnl9dUpsSPBH-XzjWcm8_0ZQfOqyRBjne_tEEPOkkmXqYyoQH_w
I hope to see you there, and please remember to come with an open mind and be kind.