My heart pounded as I led my one-year-old daughter, Leila, towards the house.
I’d never met Leila’s dad before, and neither had she, so this was a make or break moment for our family. Most people don’t even get to meet their sperm donors so I knew we were lucky.
As soon as he opened the door with a welcoming smile I started to relax.
“Hello,” he smiled. “I’m Scott, it’s nice to finally meet you. Come on in.”
As a farmer, I’d been expecting Scott to be some big rough man with a large beard. But he couldn’t have been any more different to what I had pictured!
He had light blonde hair, piercing blue eyes and he was extremely kind from the start.
When I chose to have IVF and become a single mum I never expected to meet my sperm donor. But when Leila was born with a mop of fluffy blonde hair my mum became curious.
“Your hair and skin is so dark,” she said. “But Leila is so light. I wonder what her father looks like.”
She took it upon herself to do some online investigating and from the little clues in his donor bio, such as his profession and passion for football, she managed to track him down online.
“I’ve found him!” she told me excitedly when Leila was nearly six months old.
“Mum!” I exclaimed. “There are official protocols to go through.”
I originally wanted to wait until Leila was older to let her decide about contacting him but since Mum was so keen I thought I’d give it a shot.
When Scott signed up to be a sperm donor he wrote that he was willing to meet any future children of his. So I sent him an email thanking him for his donation and telling him all about our beautiful girl.
I was over the moon when he replied straight away.
“I’d love to meet her,” he wrote.
We kept exchanging emails for a few months. I would send over photos of Leila and he would send me photos of cows from his farm. I still didn’t know how involved Scott wanted to be in our daughter’s life but I was certainly getting along with him very well.
And when we met for the first time sparks flew!
We got to meet two of Scott’s children from a previous marriage and they took Leila into the garage to help bottle-feed a lamb.
Meanwhile Scott made me a cuppa and we had a long chat in his kitchen.
“My first wife left me and I became a single dad of three kids,” he explained.
“I’ve been married once before, too,” I said. “I had two sons but they both passed away.”
Even after all these years it was still hard to talk about.
When I lost my first son, Marlon, at 14 weeks old, I had no idea why he’d died. It wasn’t until my second son, Louis, was born in 2010 that we finally found out I carried x-linked myotubular myopathy, a rare genetic disorder that almost exclusively affects males. The disorder causes muscle weakness and developmental issues and after 14 months of fighting my beautiful Louis passed away.
I knew that being a single mum wasn’t ideal but I was so sad after my sons left me. I felt like a mother who didn’t have her kids. But at 42 years old IVF was my best chance so I decided to do it alone.
Only now, I wasn’t really alone. Scott was easy-going and charming and we continued to meet up every two weeks.
One day we were having a picnic when I asked, “What do you want Leila to call you?”
“Dad,” he replied simply.
Even though Scott and I got along so well I hadn’t been expecting him to want to be more than just Leila’s biological father. It shocked me that he wanted such an active role in her life.
We kept meeting up and as the weeks passed Scott and I became even closer. One day we had lunch at the pub and we both had a beer.
But Scott was a little different this time. He was still warm and friendly but this was something more.
Is he flirting with me? I wondered.
That night I texted him, warning that as much as I liked him I wasn’t ready to leave him alone with Leila yet.
“That’s fine,” he replied. “I enjoy your company anyway. And it doesn’t hurt that you look like an international model.”
My mouth dropped open in shock! Surely this was more than just friendly banter?
A few weeks later we visited him at his home. But a traffic accident blocked the road so we had to spend the night.
After Leila fell asleep we had a long talk.
We couldn’t deny the attraction any longer.
“I’d really love us to be a family,” he told me.
We had our first kiss and I knew it was serious.
We didn’t want to risk breaking up and ruining Scott’s relationship with Leila so we proceeded with caution.
But it wasn’t long before we were madly in love.
Just over a year later we were on a family holiday in Thailand when Scott told me he was going out to buy some milk. It would’ve been Louis’ sixth birthday so I was quieter than normal, reflecting on my baby.
When Scott came back it was night time and I was in bed.
He waited until the lights were off to suddenly say, “Will you marry me?”
“Are you being serious?” I asked in disbelief, scrambling around to find the light. Finally I found the switch and when I turned the light on I saw Scott was looking at me, holding a box with a beautiful engagement ring.
“I’m being serious,” he smiled. “I really want you to marry me.”
I grinned and said yes.
Nearly a year later we got married in a beautiful, low-key ceremony on a cliff top in Sorrento, Victoria.
Scott’s sons were his groomsmen and our daughters were my flower girls. It was the most gorgeous ceremony and I even got to light a candle for both of my sons.
“I’d like to thank my mother-in-law for tracking me down,” Scott said in his speech. “And I’d like to thank my daughter for introducing us.”
My life has taken many twists and turns but I’m so happy with where I am now. I’ve even published a memoir, How I Met Your Father, to document my journey.
I never expected to meet my sperm donor and it was even more unlikely that we would fall in love with each other. Scott’s given me the gift of a daughter and now he’s given me the gift of love.
