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.
“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!”
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.
“Your hair and skin is so dark,” she said. “But Leila is so light. I wonder what her father looks like.”
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.
This love story will melt your heart – hear the full version and more shocking and jaw-dropping real-life stories on Take 5’s Ripper Real Life podcast!
