Desperately wanting a baby but with no man in her life, one woman tells Róisín Ingle how she had twins by using donor sperm.
Like many women Sandra Robinson always took it for granted that at some point in her life she would have babies. She presumed that one day she would meet and fall in love with a man who would father those babies. It would happen. These things just did.
When in her mid-30s she still hadn't met the right man, she began to think about alternative ways to fulfil what had become an intense desire. Last September she gave birth to twin girls, Sarah and Grace, after importing donor sperm from the US and availing of assisted reproduction techniques in the UK.
It was a gradual decision taken after months of researching and soul searching. "I didn't just wake up one morning and decide I was going to get pregnant by a sperm donor. I had a few relationships and when they finished I went speed dating and joined dating agencies. But I just didn't meet anyone," she says, sitting in the kitchen of her south Dublin home, the babies gurgling away happily in the next room.
It was the birth of her niece four years ago that made Sandra realise just how important becoming a mother was to her.
"I loved the bones of her, I felt like she was my own child," she says. "Until I reached my 30s I'd always just presumed babies would happen and not worried too much about it. But then when my niece was born I knew I didn't want to go to my grave without experiencing that. I wanted to be a mother. It was at the core of my being a woman. Not having a partner was not going to get in the way of that."
It was at her niece's christening that she first heard about artificial donor insemination, when someone told her about a woman who was attempting to get pregnant by this method.
"I just thought, uggh, I have to admit," she says. It was shortly afterwards that she began to think about the possibility of adoption and even put her name down with the local health board. But the waiting lists were long and the more she thought about it, the more the idea of having a baby by a donor began to appeal.
She sent an e-mail to a couple of Irish clinics but was told the service wasn't available to single people here. Undeterred, she Googled "single woman and donor insemination" on the internet and found a clinic in London which treated single people and homosexual couples. The London Women's Clinic on Harley Street, where she became a patient, treats around 500 single women a year. After being processed Sandra went through what is called "implication counselling", a requirement laid down by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) which governs the area in the UK.
She was aware that what she was doing was controversial and agonised over the fact that her children would have no father. She remembers hearing an Irish radio commentator condemning the website Man Not Included and, despite her own experience, sympathising with his outrage.
"I could understand why he was so upset at the idea," she says. "I find that 'man not included' label abhorrent because I would have loved a man to have been included. It would have been a lot less expensive and a lot more fun to do it the conventional way. Even when I was having the treatment I was thinking, I shouldn't have to do this but I do."
As part of her research she bought a book called Single Mothers by Choice. "The author says the fact that you are reading the book means you have given up your dream of having children in a conventional family setting," she explains. "That's exactly what I had to do. I am a traditionalist. I would have loved to have met somebody and got married but it just didn't happen. I was running out of time and I decided to do it on my own."
It was important that she had the support of friends and family. When she told them about what she was doing their first reaction was shock and disbelief. "It was the same reaction I had myself when I first heard about it," she says. "But they came around quickly. In general everyone who I told was very good and I only had truly negative reactions from two people.
"Men were great," she adds. "I have lots of male friends and they were delighted for me. The twins will have strong role models including my brother and my brother-in-law."
After being assessed and approved by the clinic, the next decision she had to make concerned the origin of the sperm. Her clinic had a sperm bank but under its system the only details she would learn about her donor was basic information such as hair and eye colour. After more research she decided to import sperm from a bank in the US which allowed her access not only to detailed information about the donor but about three generations of his family.
Sandra fetches her laptop and shows me the website where she was able to choose a donor from a list of men. Apart from his name and address, there is little she doesn't know about the man she eventually chose to be the biological father of her children. The detailed biography contains the medical records of three generations of his family, the donor's academic achievements and hobbies, as well as an incredibly detailed account of his physical characteristics. His cheekbones are high and his eyes almond shaped while his ancestors are of Irish and British origin.
The donor is also fluent in Spanish and plays piano and guitar. This appealed to Sandra because languages and music are subjects at which she never excelled. His favourite song is American Pie and his favourite film Twelve Monkeys. He is also a sporty type, having been both swimming captain and cross-country running champion at his high school.
The sperm bank even carries out a personality test so Sandra knows that the donor is an extrovert, which she is happy about. It's eerie listening to a recording of an interview carried out with the donor. Cheesy piano music plays in the background as he is asked questions about his values and ambitions in life. The sperm came from an anonymous bank but the donor has said he is open to being contacted when any children he has fathered are 18.
"Of course he could change his mind," says Sandra.
Scanning the personal details of donors on the internet feels a bit like doing your supermarket shopping online, but on the other hand it's probably more responsible than going out, getting drunk and having sex with a man who you know nothing about in order to get pregnant.
"Some people suggested I should tell people that I had become pregnant because I was 'caught out' but I found that really offensive. I'd have been mortified if anyone thought I'd got pregnant accidentally. I was 37 for goodness sake," she says.
Choosing a donor was the relatively easy part. The trips to the UK every second month for artificial donor insemination (ADI) were "extremely stressful", she says. "My job was quite stressful at the time anyway and sometimes, depending on whether my cycle was delayed, I would have to stay longer than the agreed time". At the clinic she was offered access to a network of women who had undergone the same process and Sandra was interested to note several Irish women on the clinic's books.
She did four natural and one stimulated cycle of ADI before finally requesting that she be given in vitro fertilisation (IVF). The day she learned she was expecting twins was "the happiest of my life," she says. "The first thing I did was go to my mother's grave to tell her". The babies were born two months premature in Holles Street, and her sister Jean was her birth partner. "She was an incredible support," she says.
While the entire procedure cost €50,000, Sandra says she wouldn't like this to put women off who are interested in going down the same path.
"It was more costly for me because I did IVF," she says, adding that she remortgaged her house and used savings to fund the process. "I'm proud of what I did. I am not ashamed of it and the reason I wanted to talk about it was to give hope to other women who are in the same situation".
One friend told her that becoming a mother alone was a brave decision. "But I would have been more fearful of not doing it," says Sandra. "Fearful of being in my 40s with no possibility of having a child. That would have been very brave."
I put it to her that bringing children into the world knowing they won't have a father could be construed as a selfish act. "It is selfish," she agrees without hesitation. "Every woman has a child for their own benefit. They are not doing it for altruistic reasons. It just so happens I want to have a child as well but I don't have a partner. One thing I didn't want was a reluctant or indifferent father. That would be worse than no father at all."
There are good days and bad days, as there are for any new mother. Last week all three of them were sick and Sandra found it tough, but she has a "deeply supportive" network of family and friends. She looks slightly weary but the smile on her face as she jiggles the babies on her knees says it all. She plans to return to her job as a systems analyst in September.
"Grace looks like my mother around the eyes and Sarah looks like my brother so he is delighted because none of his children look like him," she says. "I am privileged to have these children. My girls will always be number one."
