Ali_M said:
My girlfriend's reaction was "we'll just do them on the day"
Ali, your girlfriend's sister is right, and this is worth getting exactly right. In the UK, the woman who gives birth is always the legal mother. A wife or civil partner is usually the second legal parent automatically, as long as she consents to the treatment. But because you two aren't married or in a civil partnership, your girlfriend will only be the legal parent if you both give consent before treatment, on the HFEA's WP form (completed by you, as the person having treatment) and PP form (completed by her).
The important bit is the timing. Both forms have to be completed before the insemination, and the HFEA is clear that they can't be done after treatment has taken place. If they're missing or wrong, a partner can end up having to go to court for a declaration of parentage, which is slow and expensive. Six years together doesn't change that, sadly; the law looks at the forms, not the relationship.
On whether you need fresh forms each cycle, that depends on how they're completed and whether anything changes, so ask your clinic to confirm at every cycle that valid forms are on file, and to tell you if anything needs redoing. Louise's idea of going through them in the room is a good one. I've set out the wider picture on donor conception, including who the legal parents are, in donor eggs, sperm, and embryos. For anything unusual, a specialist family lawyer is the right person.
