Woman & her gay best friend having baby together in growing trend of platonic co-parenting

A U.K. woman penned an emotional essay about her decision to engage in the growing phenomenon of “platonic co-parenting” with her gay best friend.

While platonic co-parenting typically calls to mind divorced parents doing their best to make it all work, this growing iteration involves a platonic partnership from the beginning – two friends who decide to have a child together.

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“A successful relationship between recipient parents and donors is possible and an incredible thing when it happens.”

The decision felt natural for Nicola Slawson, who at first considered having a baby on her own in her mid-30s. But she was worried about bearing the financial burden of raising a child all on her own.

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“While many in the same boat as me throw themselves into dating, I hated the idea of hunting for a man purely to have a baby with,” she wrote in The Guardian. “It felt too forced. I heard too many horror stories of women settling and feeling deeply resentful, or if they later broke up, having to co-parent their children with someone they wished wasn’t the father. I could find romantic love at any time, I reasoned – but the same wasn’t true for getting pregnant.”

But then she heard about platonic co-parenting, and after extensive thought, she decided to work up the courage to ask her single gay best friend, Tom Hayes, if he would be interested in taking the plunge with her. To her surprise, Hayes was excited about it from the start. After much research, discussion, and contemplation, they decided to go for it.

Before they started trying, Slawson said the pair planned extensively for every possible scenario to ensure they’d be on the same page.

“We like to joke that no baby has ever been as discussed or considered as much in advance,” she said.

“There were difficult conversations where we shared our worst fears about how it could go wrong, such as the awful possibility of some kind of ugly custody battle. We discussed everything from the legal side of things to finances (we agreed to split everything 50/50). We talked about where the baby would live in their first year of life (at mine, with him here, too). We talked about our approaches to parenting; what would happen if we had trouble getting pregnant and how we’d support each other if we had a miscarriage.”

“We talked about how we would manage when one or both of us got into a relationship. We discussed how we would tell the child about how they were brought into the world (deciding that honesty was the best policy). We researched childcare options and even decided how we would spend Christmas Day (together, splitting time between our two families).”

“We planned how we would share custody equally after the first year, but because we are best friends, rather than a former couple, we knew we would do lots of things together including holidays and Sunday roasts.”

Slawson added that both of their parents have been supportive of the plan. Now, she is pregnant and due this spring.

“Neither of us can believe this is really happening after years of thinking we might never have children,” she said. “But there really is a little baby in there – and this spring we will finally experience parenthood, all by ourselves.”