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.
But she left it to fate.
She says that she selected the donor based on two particular words that stood out on the details provided, “happy and healthy".
Aminah told Australian Story, "It takes the romance out of it a bit, doesn't it, when you decide to take on donor sperm to try and have a baby."
But for this unusual couple the romance was to come later.
The donor was named Scott. He was a cattle breeder who coached AFL and had four older children.
"It wasn't going to be picture postcard, being single, but I was raised by an amazing single mother and she taught me that I could do it."
She told Australian Story that she cried when she was told the baby growing inside her was a girl.
The birth of Leila was unremarkable except for one stark difference - her little girl was screaming. A healthy robust cry.
The next thing she says she noticed was her blonde hair.
Aminah said her first thought was, “I can’t have a blonde baby I’m black".
But she did.
Being born to a single parent herself was the impetus she needed to decide to seek out the father of Leila.
The donor had ticked a box on the form that gave consent for recipients and offspring to contact him.
He never actually thought they would.
Scott Anderson said he was nervous at the thought of meeting his donor child. The twice divorced father had begun donating sperm in 2006 and thought of it much like donating blood.
“Why wouldn’t you help someone?” he reasoned with himself.
He never actually thought a donor child would contact him until he was elderly. But when the wheels were set in motion he set out to meet one-year old Leila. The first meeting of Leila’s parents wasn’t quite love at first sight, but relief.
“Phew, he’s a normal guy,” was Aminah’s reaction.
Together the two parents decided to increase the involvement of Leila’s father in her life. As they continued to meet their relationship blossomed and they began a romantic involvement.
For Leila meeting her Dad meant she had ready-made big brothers and an eight-year-old sister.
The unusual family continue to live a modern experience – with Aminah and her mother living in Melbourne – but travelling frequently to stay with her father who runs a cattle-breeding business near Phillip Island, Victoria.
Life which had been so desperately difficult for Aminah has now blessed her in ways she once thought never to be.
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