Disabled Rowen Jade is to become a parent despite her lesbian partner being refused artificial insemination treatment.

Oxfordshire Health Authority turned the gay couple down because it said its policy was not to give NHS treatment to homosexual partners.

But now, after 11 attempts through a private Harley Street clinic, Rowen's girlfriend Jaz Ishtar, 34, is pregnant and expecting a baby in November.

Rowen, 29, who lives with Jaz in Greater Leys, Oxford, is confined to a wheelchair and has been unable to sit up since the age of 14.

She decided against pregnancy herself because she felt her body might not be able to cope.

The couple had also applied to be foster parents and respite carers in the county but were again refused.

Rowen told the Oxford Mail: "We both see the future as very positive. We've decided that I will be called Mummy and Jaz will be Mum."

She added: "If people knew the reality of my life, they would be jealous." The couple said they knew they would face prejudice but they didn't see things the same way as other people.

Rowen said: "I was thinking yesterday how people look at me and imagine that my life is a problem. Yet I was on the way to my well-paid job, where I am respected, I have a wonderful relationship, a baby on the way, a book about to be published and have made great plans for the summer. I thought if people knew the reality they would be jealous."

The couple, who live in Coltfoot Place, Greater Leys, were introduced by a mutual friend and have been together for four and a half years.

Rowen said that after they were refused turned down for treatment and refused as foster parents their GP offered to back an appeal.

"Our GP was very supportive and offered to back us if we wanted to take the case to the heath authority's ethics committee, but we didn't want our child to be conceived among a political battle," she said. "I contacted all the surrounding health authorities and they were all exactly the same," said Jaz, a trained reflexologist.

"The ironic thing is that the same places would have treated Jaz as a single woman but because she had a partner who was a woman, they wouldn't do it," added Rowen.

The Harley Street clinic they chose - for anonymity of the donor and for health reasons - also had to choose them. "You have to go through a standard assessment procedure to be accepted. It means assessment by both a nurse and a psychologist. Both of them said that any child born to us would be a very lucky child," said Rowen.

Rowen has co-edited Bigger than the Sky with Michele Wates, a mother-of-two who lives in Oxford and has multiple sclerosis.

It is an anthology of 42 short stories told by disabled women about parenting and Rowen wrote one of the stories herself, entitled 'Insemination'. It tells the moving tale of Rowen and Jaz's attempts to become parents. "It was written when we'd been trying for a year, so I didn't know what the outcome would be then. It just so happened that I had written my piece there wasn't a story for the book from a non-biological parent who was parenting with her partner.

"There also wasn't anything about conceiving with the assistance of fertility treatment and as that was my experience, it seemed appropriate for me to fill the gap," said Rowen.

"There is a real stigma about disabled women being sexual, let alone parenting. It's such a huge subject. A lot of disabled women think they have no opinion on it and that it isn't relevant to them.

"But when we talked it through with them they were stunned to find out that it was their upbringing which led them to believe they could never have children rather than any physical or medical reality preventing them," said Rowen.

It took more than a year to gather together the material used in the book, which was submitted by women across the world.

The book may be enlightening for all able-bodied people and it may be very readable, but Rowen and Jaz are both aware that they, and their unborn child, will be subjected to prejudice. Rowen, who has her own business, Different Perspectives, which offers consultancy work and training on disability and equality, came out as a lesbian five years ago and, two years ago she decided to put her old life away and changed her name from Sharon Mace to Rowen Jade.

"Rowen, spelt as Rowan relates to the Rowan tree. It's a very strong tree, but it doesn't look very strong, like me. It grows where other trees won't grow and, traditionally, it is thought to ward off evil spirits. It also is about giving support to others .

"Jade is a stone which is well-balanced, energetic and self-healing."

As they look forward to the birth, they take one day at a time.

"We both know that there is still a lot of prejudice in society but it is important for a child to have two loving parents," said Jaz.

Story date: Saturday 20 March

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