The Daily Mail has the "extraordinary tale" of a nanny who wanted a baby so bad, that she not only decided to meet a sperm donor online, but to just go ahead and sleep with the guy. The guy was apparently a doctor (of trees?) and thought that having sex was "a more 'natural' way to conceive a child. The woman, Lisa Evans, suddenly "found herself in a hotel room alone in bed with a complete stranger, and explained how the "donor" wooed her into bed:
"I had brought an insemination kit to our meeting in readiness. But John was nice, very middle class and articulate, and all I could think about was how much I wanted a child and that he could be the man to give me one. So when he said 'Well, shall we go ahead then?' I thought 'Why not?' and I had sex with him. I know it is a big risk to take, but it was my fertile time and ultimately I just wanted a baby before it was too late."
18 months ago, the law was changed so that children could contact their biological father. This caused a dramatic drop in the number of sperm donors, however, some men are still flogging their sperm anonymously online, as regulations only cover frozen sperm, not fresh sperm. (Fresh sperm is such a gross term. *shudder*) Lisa's story is described as being "unorthodox" in this article when really, they should describe it as "incredibly dangerous".
The fact that Lisa could have caught about a million different diseases from Doctor Donor, or could have been seriously hurt in her little quest to get pregnant isn't really explored. All that is said about John and Lisa getting tested for HIV and STDs before hand is that Lisa "only took John's word for it that he went ahead with the testing". Her serious lapse in judgment and logic is simply passed off as the poor dear being hypnotized by the sound of her biological clock ticking away:
"Ideally, I always wanted to have children in a conventional, committed relationship. But, despite my best efforts, I simply haven't been lucky enough to meet my Mr Right. I saw 35 as a real milestone and, while I felt I could have a relationship at any time in my life, I worried that time for having a baby was running out fast."
I love how Lisa also describes how she actually had an appointment to be artificially inseminated using frozen sperm at a proper clinic, but wanted to be able to "shop around" for the father or her children, therefore the website was perfect. Plus, there was also the fact that she would only be pending £30 to sign up for a sperm donor website and "another bonus was that the website donor would donate for free". Yeah, I bet they will.
Even more worrying is the fact that this wasn't just a one-off chance encounter, oh no. Lisa and John "met in different hotels at my fertile time twice again, so we slept together three times". The good news is that once her son, Elliot, was born she texted John to let him know, and he wrote back "Great news!" Lisa hopes to use John's sperm again for her next child, and is hoping for a girl.
Cate Sevilla is the Editor of Dollymix. Yeah, she's judgmental.
