An improbable possibility. This is surely a love story for the modern ages.
It’s an unusual tale of how a family came to be. A donor father meets the woman who was impregnated with his sperm and falls in love.
What are the chances that these two who together had brought a little girl into the world would fall in love when they met?
Aminah Hart had her third child at the age of 42. She was giving it one last shot after tragically losing her first two babies.
It is hard to imagine bouncing back after losing two babies but Aminah did just that.
Her first two babies – both boys – born with donor sperm passed away. The first baby, Marlon died at 14 weeks in 2005. He was born ‘floppy’ – but at the time a diagnosis was never made as to the cause of his death.
Her second baby – again using donor sperm but from a different father – was born in 2008.
According to Australian Story, he too was blue and floppy at birth. When he was just 17 days old he was diagnosed with X-linked myotubular myopathy. The little boy named Louis lived to 14 months.
“[It’s] a condition where the muscles don’t have any contractile ability so they can’t breathe properly, they can’t swallow, all their muscles are very floppy. And that is catastrophic.”
It was then realised that Aminah carried the gene for this condition which does not manifest in girls.
Aminah told Australian Story that she wrestled with the notion of being a mother without children. At the age of 42, she decided to try again. Aminah had a chance to use gender selection which can be used legally in situations of genetic disorders.