Two mums and four donor children: Helga and Maria's story – Part 1

A newspaper article gave life to the dream

“We have always wanted to have children. When we worked together at a day nursery for children in Oslo, we both realized how much we wanted to have children, and we got confirmed that wanted to have them together. Though, at that time we didn’t know how we were going to fulfil our dream of becoming mums. At least not until Helga stumbled upon an article about a couple who had used a fertility clinic. The article made us dream about the future, and the hope about realizing our dream to become a big family grew bigger.”

Planning the pregnancy

“Right from the beginning, we had a desiring wish to give birth to two children each. We were convinced that Maria would give birth to two girls and that Helga would give birth to two boys.

In the summer of 2001, we went to Copenhagen to look at the fertility clinic. Both of us remember how we visited the clinic and afterwards went to the city hall square where we found a calendar and began to plan the next years of our life. Who was going to be pregnant first, and what would be the best timing considering our studies and maternity leave?”

The sperm donor was chosen

“By now, we had known each other for many years and we really just wanted to get going with project baby. Quickly, we decided that it was Maria who should carry our first child. We arranged a meeting with the fertility clinic and by the time we left the clinic, we had decided on a sperm donor and scheduled the insemination. Back in 2001, it was only possible to be inseminated with sperm from an anonymous donor (ed. Non-ID Release Donor), but we had the possibility to influence factors such as height, weight and hair colour, and we chose a donor who matched Maria.”

Pregnant in the first attempt

“We knew that there was a risk that it was going to be a long process to get pregnant. We had prepared as much as we could, and we had read loads of articles about pregnancy. Maria was inseminated in October 2001, the week after we had come out as a lesbian couple. It was crazy, but at the same time, it just felt incredibly right.

The days went by and we took a lot of pregnancy tests. Maria got pregnant in the first attempt and we were so happy. We were some of the first among our friends to soon become a family, and we got so much support and that was an amazing feeling of happiness.

The months passed and the pregnancy progressed as planned, but the delivery wasn’t as easy. Little Ida was facing the wrong way, so we ended up having an emergency caesarean and 16 days of hospitalization.”

Could the same donor be used for siblings?

“After Ida was born, we started thinking about if perhaps there was more donor sperm from our donor? We couldn’t give our children a father, but we could give them a common origin by using the same donor, and we thought that was important. We thought that later in life it would mean something for our children and their sense of connectedness if they had commonalities in relation to their thoughts, interests and way of being.

Luckily, there was more donor sperm from the same donor, and as a blessing in disguise we had just gotten a serious check from our insurance company due to water damage, and we spent every single penny on sperm from our donor. All 28 straws were waiting for us – there was no guarantee that the following inseminations would go as easily as the first one so we thought that it would be good to have a little stock.”

Pregnant in the first attempt – again!

“After about a year, we took a look at our calendars again and decided that it was about time for Helga’s insemination. This time, the insemination was a bit trickier since the logistics with having to match train times to Copenhagen with Helga’s ovulation made it difficult. We were told at the clinic that we had been lucky the first time and that women often have to be inseminated 5, 6 and maybe even more times before getting pregnant.

We took many pregnancy tests after the insemination and it was positive again. For the second time, we had succeeded with getting pregnant in the first attempt, and Helga gave birth to our son Elias 9 months after. We followed our plan – two children with two years in between.”

The chance was the same as if two planes crashed

“After another year, we decided that it was time for us to go to the fertility clinic again. We were very excited and thought; why not take another pregnancy in the first attempt, but they were not as optimistic at the clinic. They said that the likelihood of getting pregnant in the first attempt again was the same as if two planes crashed! But, the days went by and yet again we spent a fortune on pregnancy tests and on the 16^th day after the insemination we could happily announce that Maria was pregnant, once again in the first attempt. We called the fertility clinic, and they were very astonished and so were we. 9 months after little Julie came to the world by a planned caesarean.”

The last piece in the puzzle fell into place

“After the birth of Julie, we took a long break from pregnancy, birth and breastfeeding. That was not part of our plan since we wanted a 2-year gap between all our children, but the timing just wasn’t right for us at that point, so we postponed it a bit. In fact, 6 years ended up passing by before we felt ready again. We had our two girls and a boy, and to fulfil our plan we just needed the last boy.

Helga was inseminated in 2012 and this time we also hit jackpot in the first attempt. In January 2013, we held our last piece in the puzzle in our hands – our little Emmelie.

Helga & Maria

 

This was the first part of Helga and Maria’s story. You can read the second part here, where Helga and Maria among other things tell about how they talk with their children about having two mums, and about being brought into this world with help from a sperm donor.