Family Building, Fertility & Insemination
LGBTQ-Centered Conception Support
For many families, the childbearing year begins long before a positive pregnancy test. Our fertility care spans from individuals just beginning to explore their conception options to those seeking holistic fertility support to regulate cycle and determine optimal conception timing and families ready to conceive through IUI at home.
We approach fertility care from a Health At Every Size (HAES) perspective, and we specialize in working individuals with PCOS and transgender people who have previously used hormone affirming therapy. We provide home IUI within 30 minutes of Philadelphia and office IUI for folks outside our service area. We also offer virtual family building consultations and fertility appointments for clients outside the service area.
Family Building Consultations
Are you looking to have a baby as a queer person, single parent, or trans person and don’t know where to start? Let us guide you through your options, break down the acronyms, and talk about the pros and cons (and success rates) of donor options, health care providers, and conception tools. We can help you understanding your priorities in building your family, and be able to make informed, empowered decisions on your path to parenthood.
Consultations are 45 minutes for $100. If you decide to become a Refuge client, you’ll get $50 off your preconception visit with us.
Empowered Preconception Care
At your 60 minute fertility consultation, we will thoroughly review your medical history, screening for common causes of infertility and working together to create an individualized plan to optimize your fertility through nutrition, lifestyle changes, supplements and herbs. We can review your charting if you have already started, and we will help you learn about detecting and tracking fertility signs in your body to optimize intercourse or insemination timing. We can also order any relevant lab work.
Following your visit, we will be available to you for three months over phone and email to review your cycle charting, follow-up on lab work, and checking in about your personalized fertility plan. We charge $200 for preconception visits.
Before accepting clients to work with us for preconception and IUI, we start with a free consultation so you can learn about our model, how it differs from the medical model, and confirm we are a good fit to work together.
Home IUI
Intrauterine insemination (IUI) is a simple procedure where washed sperm is placed in the uterus to achieve pregnancy. IUI increases the chances of conception when using frozen sperm.
Families choosing home IUI get all of the perks of home birth midwifery – a personal relationship with your midwife, the comfort of being in your own home, and care uniquely tailored to your family’s needs. A preconception visit is required to utilize home IUI services. The cost of home IUI is $300.
Who Chooses Midwife-led Fertility Care
“Older” parents, transgender parents, queer families, single parents, non-traditional families, individuals whose needs aren’t being met by mainstream approach to fertility and conception, and everyone in need of respectful fertility care.
Are you a provider looking to offer fertility care and level up your queer family building skills?
For the past two years, Ray has trained hundreds of midwives, doctors and NP’s in providing queer centered fertility and IUI care. They are currently transitioning their live IUI provider course into a pre-recorded, self paced series for 2026, and the class is available for presale discount through the end of 2025.
Ray also offers an ongoing Queer Fertility Masterclass series to help midwives, doctors, AP providers, and birth workers to level up their queer family building knowledge.
Baby Making For Everybody
Baby Making for Everybody—Fertility and Family Building for LGBTQ+ and Solo Parents, co-authored by Ray Rachlin, is a midwifery how-to guide of how to create families outside of the traditional heterosexual-nuclear-family model. Combining a step-by-step guide from choosing a donor to insemination with personal narratives, this book offers prospective parents a blueprint for how to grow their families and to feel supported in the process.