Donor mum: The children I've never met

Documentary about about egg donors and sperm donors making contact with their genetic children. 'Donor Mum' can be seen tomorrow: BBC1 10.35pm Tuesday 30th August.
In 1991, Sylvia was one of Britain's first anonymous egg donors. After donating as a one-off at the London Fertility Centre in Harley Street, all she asked to know was whether her donation had been successful. But she soon found out more than she had bargained for.

Sylvia was struck to discover an article in the Daily Mail six weeks after she donated, telling the story of a woman called Joan who had successfully become pregnant using en egg donor. The clinic, the dates and the fact that they were twins, coincided exactly with Sylvia's story. She felt sure that Joan was her recipient.

Joan had a tragic story - her two boys were killed in a car crash when they were on holiday in Crete, and in her mid- 40's she desperately wanted to start another family. When she successfully used an egg donor, there were countless press reports that covered her moving story of tragedy transformed into happiness, and even a BBC documentary in 1994 that showed the twins as toddlers.

Sylvia felt tormented by seeing children who were genetically hers, but were in fact strangers who she wasn't supposed to know. She was tempted to make contact, but terrified of upsetting a family who had already suffered so much. But once the twins turned 18 she felt it was right to take the bold step of contacting them.

Alongside Sylvia's story is the story of her son Eliott. Sylvia wanted a child when she reached 33 but hadn't found Mr Right, so she decided to go it alone. Eliott was conceived with the help of an anonymous sperm donor, and was born six months before Sylvia donated her eggs. Now 19, Eliott is ready to search for his sperm donor father.

For Eliott, born in 1991 when all donors were anonymous, his only hope is to search through DNA testing with the help of an organisation called UK Donorlink.

For Sylvia, contact with her recipient is at her fingertips. The film follows her turmoil as she decides how and when to make contact with Joan and the twins - and the extraordinary consequence of her decision.

Donors is a warm and moving film about a new kind of family emerging from the interventions of science. This film is also a snapshot of a future following the removal of donor anonymity in 2005, where more and more people will discover who their donors are after they turn 18.

Manchester Pride Big Weekend 2011

Come and join Manchester Pride's Big Weekend - one of the biggest parties in the UK. From Friday 26 to Monday 29 August, tens of thousands of people descend upon Manchester's world-renowned Gay Village to celebrate the climax of the Manchester Pride’s ten-day festival.
By day, there's three stages packed full of world-class entertainment as well as hundreds of Market & Lifestyle Expo stalls.

By night, Manchester's exciting gay bars and clubs take you through to the early hours of the morning with events that will make you wish the Big Weekend never came to an end.

GAYDAR MAIN ARENA This year will see some big names and fantastic entertainment including Pixie Lott, Pan Amm and Blue headlining the Gaydar Main Arena. Located on Sackville & Bloom Street, right in the heart of the Gay Village, you'll be sure to have an amazing time in the company of some of the world's most-loved artists. Check out who we've got lined-up so far...

SACKVILLE GARDENS A visit to the Sackville Gardens stage is a great chance to socialise with people who share a common interest while being surrounded by local bands, local groups and local entertainment. It’s your community, and this is your stage. On Sunday, the stage plays host to the very popular Women's Stage from 4PM. Find out what you can expect to see over the weekend.

VILLAGE SQUARE Fancy relaxing over the Big Weekend but not shying away from having a drink with some fantastic entertainment? The Village Square is the perfect area for you. We have some fantastic up-and-coming musicians from the LGBT community lined up as well as comedy, drag and activities from dancing to basketball from some of Manchester’s much loved community groups. Have a look at the full programme for the weekend.

LIFESTYLE EXPO The Lifestyle Expo is an undercover outdoor exhibition space designed for you to access resources and information about community groups, your health, sports clubs, legal advice, travel and much more. There are usually over 55 exhibitors so make sure you put aside some time to visit the area. Pride Angel will be holding a stall at the lifestyle expo, so why not have a chat about gay parenting options.

VILLAGE MARKETS Looking to pick up a souvenir to remind you of your Manchester Pride visit? There's over 40 traders on site at the Village Markets selling everything from the latest fashions to rainbow flags. You're sure to find something there to take home with you. Find out who'll be there over the weekend...

OUT IN THE PAST HERITAGE TRAIL Manchester Pride will be running the Out in the Past Hertiage Trail tours again this year. The trail, running since 2003, charts over 200 years of Manchester LGBT history.

BARS & CLUBS Manchester's Gay Village is known worldwide for it's fantastic atmosphere and diverse bar and club scene. Many venues host specific events over the Big Weekend to keep you entertained. Check out what they've got on offer this Manchester Pride.

Gay magazine looking for gay and lesbian couples who have become parents through Pride Angel

QX Magazine is looking for gay couples who have become parents through Pride Angel to talk about their experiences in a feature about gay parenting. Although they are a magazine predominately targeted at homosexual men they would welcome lesbian couples to reply as well, given that this seems to be a widespread issue affecting all gay people. They would also like to talk to gay male sperm donors who have had children with lesbian couples and retain some modicum of parenting contact.
If you are willing to take part then we will send over a brief interview via email. QX magazine are basically looking to assess how easy you find it to be a gay parent in Britain in 2011 and whether you have ever encountered any prejudice from other parents? What was it like making the decision to have a child and how easy was the procedure of going about it? Any other issues you think we should be aware of we'd be grateful to hear about.

Men suffer from 'baby fever' as well as women, study reveals

A new study has revealed that men - as well as women - suffer from 'baby fever', the overwhelming desire to have children.
The emotional and physical phenomenon is usually associated with women, who can be subject to sudden and extreme maternal urges. Gary Brase, associate professor of psychology at Kansas State University, and his wife Sandra, a project co-ordinator with the university's College of Education, have spent nearly 10 years researching baby fever.

After releasing their findings yesterday Professor Brase said: 'Baby fever is this idea out in popular media that at some point in their lives, people get this sudden change in their desire to have children.

'While it is often portrayed in women, we noticed it in men, too.' The couple's interest began shortly after the birth of their second child, as Mrs Brase explained: 'Although one hears about people having baby fever from friends, family and in the media, I was curious if there was a scientific explanation for the presence, or lack of it, in both women and men.'

While some research has looked at the demographic and sociological aspects of having children, there had been no study from a psychological perspective, she said. The researchers started by applying three theoretical viewpoints about baby fever.

One is the socio-cultural view: People want to have a baby because they are taught gender roles. Women think they should have children because society dictates that is what they are supposed to do. A second reason is the by-product view: Humans have an engrained desire to nurture - when they see a cute baby they want to take care of it, and that makes them want a baby of their own.

The third is the adaptationist view: Baby fever is an emotional signal - like a suggestion sent from one part of the mind to the other parts - that this could be a good time to have a child.

The researchers then carried out studies to understand people's desires, particularly the wish to have a baby.

Professor Brase said: 'Sometimes you may have a desire to have a baby, sometimes you have desires to have money or be famous or have sex. 'We asked people to tell us where these desires ranked.'

The researchers found that baby fever existed in both genders. But while women more frequently desired having a child than having sex, men more frequently desired sex than having a child.

To read more go to http://bit.ly/qHUtzp

Canadian couple fights to bring their son back from India following surrogacy mix up

A single piece of paper held the key to their lives, their future, and now it was being questioned.
As the couple and their two children lined up to clear immigration at the New Delhi airport last Saturday, they handed their documents to the officer — Canadian passports for themselves and their daughter, an entry visa for their son.

The next few hours were a blur as immigration officers examined the paper while others bombarded the couple with questions. Why didn’t the boy have a passport? Why just an entry visa? Who was he? Who, indeed.

Their story began in 2005 when they travelled to India to hire a surrogate after years of unsuccessful fertility treatments. The eggs were donated by an unknown woman and fertilized by the man’s sperm. Soon, the surrogate was pregnant with twins. In March 2006, the babies, a boy and a girl, were born.

The couple went to the Canadian High Commission in New Delhi to apply for Canadian citizenship for the twins to bring them home. DNA tests were requested. To the couple’s horror, the boy was found to be genetically unrelated, suggesting a mix-up at the Indian fertility lab. They faced the choice of returning to Canada with their daughter and leaving their son behind, or remaining in India.

At the airport, they were finally cleared. As they settled in their seats and the plane took off for Toronto, the couple shed some tears, laughed a bit. “We dreamed of this day every day but never thought it would happen,” the man says. On Sunday, the family of four arrived at Pearson airport. They were finally home.

The couple’s misadventure in the uncharted territory of commercial surrogacy, unmatched DNA and lost children is gut-wrenching but not unique. Canada’s Assisted Human Reproduction Act makes it illegal to pay sperm donors, egg donors or surrogates.

When the act was passed in 2004, experts worried it would force Canadians to travel abroad to pay for those services, resulting in complications — like the one the Toronto couple became caught in. If a child born through surrogacy has a genetic link to one Canadian parent, Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) grants citizenship. If a genetic link cannot be confirmed, the child is not automatically a Canadian citizen. There is no policy to address a situation where an error has occurred.

Sherry Levitan, a Toronto lawyer specializing in fertility law for the past 20 years, says she has heard heartbreaking stories. “Reproduction tourism is very hot,” she says. “If Canadian couples are going abroad, what are the Canadian requirements to bring babies back . . . Should there be a policy change?” Candice Malcolm, a CIC spokeswoman, says she doesn’t foresee any change to the policy. Meanwhile, families continue to pay a heavy price.

In April 2010, the Star wrote about another Canadian couple, both doctors, who travelled to western India in search of a surrogate. She bore them twins. When the couple went to the Canadian High Commission in New Delhi for travel documents, DNA tests showed both babies were unrelated to either the couple or the birth mother. They were the product of fertilized eggs from an unknown couple. The doctors left India devastated. The twins most likely went to an orphanage. Stories like these are not uncommon from India, where about 350 fertility clinics flourish.

To read more go to http://bit.ly/rcZZ0A

Sperm and egg donor's views wanted

The National Gamete Donation Trust wants to listen to sperm and egg donors!
People think really carefully before they make that first enquiry about becoming an egg or sperm donor. It’s often prompted by the infertility of a close friend or family member. Most donors have thought about it on and off for several years before they contact a clinic.

There’s a big emotional investment, so the way the clinic behaves, especially with that first phone call or email, really matters, just as it matters to be treated decently when you get there.

The National Gamete Donation Trust works with donors on a daily basis and we get to hear lots of donor's stories. Too often the feedback is not good, and yet small changes in the way donors are treated could produce some big improvements.

To carry weight with the people who can make a difference, the Trust needs to prove that changes are necessary. We’re running a survey to gather evidence of what works and doesn’t work, and we need your help.

We want to hear both from donors who have completed their donation cycle and from people who enquired but did not donate. It’s important that donors are treated with respect; it’s also important to acknowledge the kindness that motivates enquirers.

We’ll use what donors tell us to make recommendations on how to treat donors through the whole process of donation, from that first phone call or email to sharing the outcome at the end of the cycle.

When you’ve known people with fertility problems finally achieve their much loved and hoped-for child, it is hard to understand why the people whose precious gift made that possible are sometimes treated so poorly. The minimum donors should receive for this unpaid act of generosity is to be treated well.

Australian Judge suggests three parents to be named on a birth certificate

A NSW judge has suggested allowing for three parents to be on a birth certificate after his landmark decision to remove a sperm donor's name from his 10-year-old daughter's certificate left the man devastated.
NSW District Court Judge Stephen Walmsley said yesterday he had no choice after a 2009 retrospective law gave the birth mother's former partner - they separated in 2006 - legal parenting status and state law allowed for only two parents to be registered.

The 58-year-old Sydney man is not a legal parent, regardless of being on the birth certificate and having regular access rights, because the child was conceived using artificial insemination.

Judge Walmsley said he had considerable sympathy for the father. ''He has had a close and loving relationship with [the girl] all of her life. So have his mother and his sister … Over the years he has contributed tens of thousands of dollars to [the girl's] upkeep and has performed acts of great generosity to [the birth mother],'' Judge Walmsley said in his judgment.

The case highlights the inadequacy of laws dealing with multi-parent families, with Judge Walmsley suggesting changes to allow sperm donors to be also listed on a birth certificate.

''No doubt a provision for registration of a third parent for a situation such as this one might be a neat answer to the problem this case presents,'' he said. ''I do not find it surprising that he sees it as unjust, that almost 10 years after his name was placed on the Register as the father, his name may be removed and replaced with the name of [the birth mother's] former partner.''

A spokesman for the NSW Attorney-General, Greg Smith, said he was ''considering the judgment''. The girl's father said yesterday he was ''absolutely outraged''. ''My daughter deserves to have an identity, my daughter deserves to have a father,'' he said.

The women, who did not want to comment yesterday, had advertised in the gay press for an ''uncle figure''. The man agreed to pay for about $10,000 in pre-birth treatments and for a midwife. The women sent him an invitation to hear the baby's heartbeat. But the relationship broke down soon after the child was born.

Janet Loughman, principal solicitor of Women's Legal Services NSW, which represented the birth mother's former partner in the case against the NSW Registrar of Births Deaths and Marriages, said ''not being listed on the birth certificate is not a barrier to known sperm donors having a relationship with a child''.

The donor father has consent orders for fortnightly visits through the Family Court but told the District Court the women had not been adhering to these and he had not seen his daughter in several months.

"Contrary to popular wisdom birth certificates do not make you a parent, they are just proof, like a driver's licence,'' she said. ''They record legal parentage, not genetic parentage. It is the legal parents who need that proof as they go about the daily business of raising the child.''

Dutch sperm donor with autism, has 20 children after lying about his health

Heartbroken women in The Netherlands have given birth to numerous children with Asperger's Syndrome after a sperm donor lied to them about the state of his health. For 18 months the man's semen has been used despite the fact that he suffers from the hereditary autistic disorder. Incredibly, he is still active as a sperm donor, but not at an official clinic. Dutch media said the man has fathered at least 22 children and several of those are already showing symptoms of autism.
Asperger's Syndrome is a type of development disorder retarding in the development of many basic skills, most notably the ability to socialize with others, to communicate, and to use imagination. Symptoms include children losing language or social skills, an inability to make friends easily, and developing unusual behaviour patterns, such as spending hours lining up toys or developing odd repetitive movements.

Despite passing on his syndrome and lying about his health, the man is still an active sperm donor Asperger's syndrome was named for the Austrian doctor, Hans Asperger, who first described the problems 1944, but it was not recognized as a unique disorder until much later.

The Dutch sperm donor is aged 30 and comes from the port city of Rotterdam. The woman who had babies as a result of his sperm only found out his true identity in the past month. As well as carrying the Asperger's gene, Dutch newspapers said he had also been treated for depression in the past. The women contacted the man via the Internet; this has become a popular method in Holland due to the long waiting lists at offical sperm banks and the high prices they charge.

Waiting periods vary from six months to two years and prices are usually between 500 and 1,000 pounds. The long waiting lists have also led hospitals to give preferential treatment to heterosexual couples. As a result, many single women and lesbian couples find it is much faster and cheaper to find sperm donors via the internet. 'There is a perceived added value in that the women get to meet the potential sperm donor, but the risks are also considerably higher,' said the Dutch newspaper AD. 'Some of the unofficial donors are reportedly only after sex or out to have as many donor children as possible.'

Identified only as Paul, the newspaper claimed he was a 'pathological liar.' Women have come forward to say that they had intercourse with him, or artificial insemination, after meeting him on websites like Verlangennaareenkind.nl and Bam-mam.nl. Those two sites have since banned him but there are fears he will continue to infect women with the autism gene by changing his identity and advertising elsewhere.

Erika co-founder of Pride Angel, the leading parenting connection website added 'This incident emphasises how important it is to personally meet and get to know your sperm donor, finding out as much as possible about their medical family history.' 'Fertility clinics can only perform limited screening tests, therefore personally getting to know a donor before taking them to a clinic for fertility treatment, is the safest form of sperm and egg donation'.

Brighton and Hove pride to go ahead this Saturday 13th August

The Brighton Pride 2011 Parade, Park event and Street Party WILL GO AHEAD AS SCHEDULED on Saturday.
Pride in Brighton and Hove are delighted to announce Alexandra Burke as headliner for the Preston Park 2011 event. The x-factor winner and chart topper will be bringing her inimitable R&B dance sound to the Pride Live stage on August 13.

Following the sell-out success of her debut concert tour ‘All Night Long’ earlier this year, Alexandra will remind crowds once again why she won votes, and hearts, with her live performances on x-factor.

With a new album in the pipeline, which promises to get ‘down and dirty’ as a ‘fiercer’ rival to her number one debut ‘Overcome’, Pride is proud to showcase a vamped up version of the pop superstar. From the reggae infused dancehall number ‘Start Without You’ and the record-breaking ballad ‘Hallelujah’, to the club ready ‘Bad Boys’, crowds can expect a varied and vigorous set from the x-factor star.

Pride are thrilled to welcome such a huge name in UK pop to what is set to be Pride’s most exciting year yet.

Pride Angel are delighted to be attending and holding a stall at this year's Brighton and Hove Pride event, so why not call down and come and speak to us.

Your surrogate will keep the baby, won't she?

So many clients tell us that this is the question they are asked when they tell their friends – and even their fertility doctors – that they are considering surrogacy. Is it true? Are surrogacy arrangements in the UK very risky, with the surrogate mother holding all the cards and having an absolute right to keep the baby? Do those who embark on surrogacy arrangements frequently end up with the surrogate mother keeping the child in practice?
It is certainly a widespread belief, and one which in the globalised world is an important factor which drives people abroad to surrogacy destinations like the USA, the Ukraine and India, where surrogacy arrangements are legally enforceable.

But the reality is that this is in fact incredibly rare in practice. To date, there have been only two reported cases in UK legal history of the court having to arbitrate between the intended parents and a surrogate mother where a surrogacy agreement has broken down. In only one of these cases was the surrogate allowed to keep the baby, since the UK courts (far from being obliged to uphold the status of the surrogate mother) in fact have flexible powers to determine what is in the child’s best interests where something does go wrong.

So why do surrogacy arrangements in the UK so rarely go wrong? Our experience of working with families in these situations tells us that it is because surrogacy is not entered into by parents or surrogates lightly, but with the benefit of enormous care, thought and respect. Often with the help and support of long established and experienced agencies like Surrogacy UK and COTS, we find that parents and surrogates invest heavily in building a strong foundation to their relationship, and treat it with significant value.

The reality of surrogacy in the UK is that arrangements far more often end up in a lifelong friendships than in custody disputes

Hormone test to reveal when your fertility will come to an end

A hormone test may help women to beat the biological clock by predicting how long they have left to have a baby, say scientists.
The team of researchers from St Andrews, Glasgow and Edinburgh has found how levels of a key chemical change throughout a woman's reproductive life. This can reveal how many eggs she has remaining. The discovery will allow women to compare their own hormone levels with the average for their age to see whether they should be concerned about their future fertility.

Tests will indicate whether they are likely to have an early or later menopause, meaning they know whether they have to try for a baby sooner rather than later.

The process will also help young women who have had treatment for diseases such as cancer, which may have affected their fertility, to find out whether their hormone levels have been affected. It will also help older women who have put off having children to pursue a career. One in five babies are now born to women aged over 35.

This trend has raised concerns that some will struggle to conceive if they delay motherhood for too long, leading to a search for ways of predicting when women should attempt to conceive. For the latest research, the Scottish academics used all previous data plus their own latest findings on the Anti-Millerian Hormone (AMH) - a hormone produced by growing, egg-producing ovarian follicles.

They set out to map how levels of AMH vary at different points in the lives of healthy women by studying data from 3,200 women. They were able to deduce how a woman's AMH level compares with the average for her age as a result.

Findings could indicate whether they are likely to have an earlier menopause and should not delay trying to conceive, or whether their fertile life will end later. The study found that AMH levels peaked at the age of 24 but had almost halved by the time women were in their mid-30s and were almost nonexistent by their late 40s.

Tom Kelsey, a lecturer in the School of Computer Science at St Andrews, said: 'We knew that high AMH levels were good for conception but we could not back that up statistically. 'This study now provides us with the level you would expect to find in a normal healthy woman.' Professor Scott Nelson, from the University of Glasgow, said a major use of the new findings could be in helping young cancer patients wondering how their treatment may have affected their chances of having a baby. 'We can now see 18-year-old girls, know what their AMH is and put that into context,' he said.

Nelson added that if women of any reproductive age were struggling to get pregnant, the refined information could be used to indicate whether their AMH levels are normal for their age or below average. This could suggest how soon they might have to start thinking about fertility treatment such as IVF.

However, Prof Nelson said he would not recommend women in their 30s delaying having a baby because the AMH test appeared to suggest they had a certain number of fertile years left. 'It might be useful if you are much younger and in your 20s, but not in your mid-30s. For example, Down's syndrome risk is one in 250 at 35, but by the time you are 40 it is one in 100,' he said. 'If you wait those few years that risk is going to increase.'

Sperm produced from stem cells may help rid male infertility

Researchers may be able to produce sperm from stem cells in the battle against infertility.
If you know just one thing about embryonic stem cells, it’s probably that they have the potential to grow into any type of cell in the body. That, of course, is why scientists find them so valuable.

But having the potential to become any type of cell is not the end game -- research groups around the world are trying to figure out the precise recipe for turning those stem cells into specific types of cells that would be useful for studying or treating various diseases.

This week, a group of Japanese researchers from Kyoto University said they had figured out a way to turn embryonic stem cells into the more specific type of stem cell that makes sperm. Their findings were published online Thursday in the journal Cell.

How did they know they got it right? They took those sperm progenitor cells and injected them into the testes of infertile mice. Those mice went on to father healthy mouse pups that were able to reproduce themselves.

These experiments offer hope to men who struggle with infertility issues. But there’s a long way to go before this work can be translated into people.

For starters, the recipe used to transform the mouse stem cells into sperm will need to be modified to work with human embryonic stem cells. But infertile men who want to pass their own DNA to their children won’t be helped much by this, at least not directly. By the time a person is of reproductive age -- let alone gets past the first several days of embryonic development -- it’s too late to make embryonic stem cells with one’s matching DNA.

So the second step will be to figure out a way to make the sperm precursor cells out of induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells. These are the cells taken from skin or another adult tissue and rewound to an early state where they are flexible enough to -- say it with me -- become any type of cell in the body.

The Japanese researchers were able to make sperm progenitor cells out of iPS cells, and some mouse pups were born as a result, but the entire process worked less well than with embryonic stem cells. If these technical hurdles can be overcome, a man with fertility issues theoretically could donate a patch of skin and let scientists use that to produce sperm that contains his DNA.

Eating disorders may cause infertility a study reveals

Women with the eating disorders anorexia and bulimia may take a bit longer to get pregnant than other women, a new study has found.
U.K. researchers asked 11,088 pregnant women to complete questionnaires at 12 and 18 weeks of gestation. Of those women, 171 (1.5 percent) had anorexia at some point in their lives, 199 (1.8 percent) had bulimia, and another 82 (0.7 percent) had experienced both conditions.

A larger proportion of the women with the eating disorders took more than six months to conceive compared to those with no history of eating disorders (39.5 percent vs 25 percent). However, women with eating disorders weren't more likely to take longer than 12 months to conceive, the investigators found.

Women with anorexia or bulimia were more than twice as likely to have received treatment or help to get pregnant, 6.2 percent vs. 2.7 percent.

The study also found that 41.5 percent of women with anorexia said their pregnancy was unplanned, compared with 28.6 percent of women in the general population. This suggests that women with anorexia may underestimate their chances of conceiving, the researchers said.

"This research highlights that there are risks to fertility associated with eating disorders. However, the high rates of unplanned pregnancies in women with a history of anorexia suggest that women may be underestimating their chances of conceiving," lead author Abigail Easter, from the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College London, said in a college news release.

"Women planning a pregnancy should ideally seek treatment for their eating disorder symptoms prior to conception and health professionals should be aware of eating disorders when assessing fertility and providing treatment for this," she added.

Study to be published in: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology.

Read more about boosting your fertility at www.prideangel.com

Mother wishes to identify the father of her IVF son, conceived with a sperm donor

A single mother from north London is trying to lift the anonymity of her child's sperm donor.
The woman has been told her six-year-old son will never be able to trace his father because the child was conceived at a Spanish clinic. The case is understood to be the first of its kind and experts say it highlights the pitfalls for those who undergo IVF abroad.

It also has led to renewed calls for a system of cross-border regulations over fertility treatment. Under British law, children conceived in Britain are entitled to obtain the name and address of their biological donor when they reach 18. These details are held on a database run by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. But the HFEA has said it is powerless to act.

The mother, who is Jewish, used an English donor who was also Jewish and he provided sperm through the London Women's Clinic. But the clinic did not have any donor eggs, so the woman transported the sperm to a clinic in Marbella where her son was conceived in December 2005. This meant none of the sperm donor's identifiable details could be placed on the authority's database.

In a statement, the woman said she hoped "with all my heart" that the father of her child would still want to meet him. She said: "I still hope that one day, through my son, I may get to thank him after all for giving me this wonderful child, who brings such joy to so many people."