Mum's online search for sperm donor
09:09, 30 October 2009
updated: 09:09, 30 October 2009
A mother who risked everything to have a child in a desperate internet sperm donor search says she is prepared to go through it all again.
Seyi Joseph spent her life savings, lost her home, and suffered repeated heartache in a six-year fight to start her own family.
But the 32-year-old, of Butcher Walk, Swanscombe, said she now has plans to give nine-month old son Alex a brother or sister via the same route.
The schoolteacher signed up to a donor website aged 26, having been turned down for adoption and by NHS donor clinics, and made contact with a NASA rocket engineer from Boston, USA.
Miss Joseph conceived with the first frozen sperm batch sent via UPS, but she lost her baby six weeks into the pregnancy. Three unsuccessful samples later, she flew to Boston to meet the donor and try a fresh sperm sample to increase chances of conception.
But three failed visits cost her £6,000 in life savings and her home in Bradford, so she put her fight on hold.
However, in 2007 another internet site, co-parentmatch.com, put her in touch with a donor from Luton, and in April 2008 she conceived with one of his samples.
She said: “When I gave birth to Alex I just burst into tears. All the years of heartache were worth it.”
She added: “I see Alex’s father every two weeks and he helps me financially. He didn’t just want to be a donor, he wanted contact with the child.”
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