News YISKAH ROSENFELD never had baby fever. She didn’t long for a child or hear her biological clock ticking in the giggles of other women’s newborns.
Yet, by 42, Rosenfeld, single with a full and happy life, decided it was time. If she didn’t at least try to conceive, she’d regret it for years to come.
“I realized that for me part of what it is to be human is to be a parent,” says Rosenfeld, an Albany poet and educator who is pregnant from artificial insemination through an anonymous donor. She is due this week. “I bought into the myth that you only have a child if you have a partner. It took a while to overcome that fantasy.”
Rosenfeld accepted that Mr. Right may not show up in time. And since adoption can be a long, challenging process with no guarantees, particularly for single parents, it is estimated that 50,000 women a year start families on their own, according to Mikki Morrissette, founder of the Minnesota-based online forum Choice Moms. It is an estimate, because the fertility industry is not required to report on these statistics.
Many single women use known or anonymous donors through sperm banks such as California Cryobank in Los Angeles, the nation’s largest. Scott Brown, the bank’s director of communications, estimates that within 20 years, single heterosexual women will represent more than half of its clientele. Brown says about 10,000-12,000 single women a year visit a sperm bank. Those numbers are reflected in two films this year, last April’s “The Back-up Plan” and “The Switch,” which opens Friday.
The trend has roots in the 1970s feminist movement, which opened doors to better, higher paying jobs for women and the means to support a family, says Jane Mattes, a New York psychotherapist who founded the support group Single Mothers by Choice in 1981. It is the first and oldest organization of its kind.
“Besides the economic aspect, it was also the message that women were competent individuals and could support a family,” says Mattes, a single mom who had her son in 1980.
Sperm banks proliferated in part as an outgrowth of the feminist movement, Mattes explains, and by the early 1980s, many were open for business. Those like Berkeley’s Sperm Bank of California, which originated in Oakland, made it their mission to provide services to women who could not receive them elsewhere because of discrimination based on marital status or sexual orientation, says Executive Director Alice Ruby.
Before that, doctors would perform artificial inseminations on single women in secret.
“The biggest challenge was not in finding sperm but that physicians were somewhat slow on being willing to inseminate single women and lesbian couples,” Brown says. “That remains an issue today. I get calls from women in certain parts of the country, like the South, who cannot find physicians willing to help.”
Whether they use sperm donors or become pregnant by chance, these single mothers still face raised eyebrows and other obstacles, including infertility and lack of resources in a prenatal health care system geared toward couples. Even arriving at this decision — grieving “happily ever after” — can be a long, emotional journey, says Collin B. Smikle, medical director of Laurel Fertility Care in San Francisco.
“The first fallacy is that they have control in this matter,” Smikle says. “Typically these are career track women who postponed marriage and pregnancy hoping that Mr. Right will show up, and he doesn’t. Because they were successful in building a career, it’s hard for them to accept that no matter what they do, the biological clock doesn’t stop.”
Fertility declines with age, but not all women older than 40 have trouble conceiving. Rosenfeld got pregnant with ease at 43. Another myth is that all “choice moms” are older than 35. But, there are women as young as 25 who “already know this is what they want,” Morrissette says.
“This generation has had a lot of independence, and having a lifetime partner is not necessarily a must for them,” says Morrissette, author of “Choosing Single Motherhood: The Thinking Woman’s Guide” (Be-Mondo; 2006). “Perhaps they’ve come up through a single parent household. Or they don’t want to compromise when choosing a partner.”
Last week, Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly blasted Jennifer Aniston, who plays an artificially inseminated single woman in “The Switch,” for similar comments on single motherhood. “They (women) don’t have to fiddle with a man to have that child,” Aniston said. “They are realizing if it’s that time in their life and they want this, they can do it with or without that.”
O’Reilly called her words “destructive to our society,” concerned that Aniston was spreading a message to young girls that they don’t need a dad.
Research is still developing on the welfare of donor-conceived children, but it is commonly believed that they fare well, if the mother is in good mental health and can financially support the child, says Judy Levit, an Oakland marriage and family therapist.
“As long as there is not only a male role model in the child’s life but also a social network or community to support the family so that they are not isolated,” Levit adds.
However, a June report titled “My Daddy’s Name Is Donor” by the Center for Marriage and Families at the Institute for American Values surveyed 485 adults ages 18 to 45 who said their mother used a sperm donor to conceive them. Among other findings, the report states that young adults conceived through sperm donation experience profound struggles with their origins and identities and that their family relationships are more often characterized by confusion, tension, and loss.
Their future child’s emotional welfare is just one issue for “thinkers.” They also agonize about the financial side of getting pregnant, especially if they are faced with fertility challenges or want to have more than one child, Morrissette says.
That’s understandable. A vial of donor sperm costs up to $600, and experts recommend multiple vials when trying to conceive. Most banks provide a short donor profile and essay, but additional items such as a baby photo or audio interview can cost extra. These costs do not include insemination, which ranges from $700 to $17,000, depending on whether it’s an intrauterine or in vitro procedure.
Considering the financial and emotional tolls, it is no surprise that these single moms are often told they are “brave.” Rosenfeld, of Albany, isn’t fond of that term.
“Anyone who decides to bring a child into the world is brave,” she says. “I’m just single. These are the circumstances of my life.
Plan B: Three women’s stories
Kathleen Murphy always thought she’d meet someone with whom she could start a family. But, by age 35, the Oakland writer had not. And she wanted to be a mom.
“As a mom, I could give my child the experiences and support that make life so meaningful,” she says. “I always felt, What could be better than this?” She thought of adoption as a way to have a child. Her married brother had successfully adopted two children. But the process proved more challenging for a single woman. “After five years and $6,000, it still hadn’t happened for me,” Murphy says.
One night over drinks with her gay friend, Eric, Murphy blurted out, “Would you consider becoming a dad?” She was 40 at the time. To her surprise, Eric said yes. Their agreement was simple. Eric would donate his sperm. Murphy’s child would know who her father was. “No rights, no responsibilities,” she says. Getting pregnant wasn’t as simple as finding a donor. Three specialists told Murphy she was not fertile, and that egg donation was her best option.
She ignored them, and worked with a fertility acupuncturist and a particularly hopeful reproductive endocrinologist. She took fertility drugs. Using Eric’s sperm, she became pregnant with intrauterine insemination but miscarried six weeks later. Three months later, Murphy tried again. This time, she got pregnant. At the age of 41, Murphy gave birth to Auden, a baby girl Mom describes as willful and loving, like Eric.
Life with a baby was hectic, but Murphy still wanted to find love. “I was so focused on Auden and my business,” Murphy says. “My friend told me, ‘No one’s going to come across your living room floor and ask you on a date. Get out there.'”
She hopped online, and within two weeks, Murphy met Amin. Unlike the men who lost interest when they found out she had a 10-month-old, Amin took in her story. Every last detail. “Thanks for telling me,” he said. They spent the next two years falling in love.
Today, they are engaged to be married, and building a family with Auden and Amin’s children, who are 18 and 22. Eric is also in the picture. He has regular visitation rights.
People have mixed reactions to Murphy’s story. Some get excited, and cheer her on. Others say, “There’s no way I would do that.” That makes Murphy sad.
“If the pieces don’t fit exactly as planned, does that mean a person should give up on what he or she wants?” Murphy says.
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Connie Dudum of Los Gatos was married for 13 years. One reason she divorced at the age of 37 was that her ex-husband wasn’t ready to have children. Dudum was.
She dated, but most of the men she met were done having kids. And Dudum, who works in executive communications, wasn’t about to risk another broken marriage.
“Peace in my life was better than marrying the wrong man again,” adds Dudum, now 46. Six years ago, Dudum’s friends encouraged her to have a child on her own. They reminded her that she had been raised by a single mother. Dudum’s father died when she was 2.
But Dudum had cultural issues to overcome. She wasn’t sure how her traditional family, which is Palestinian, would react to her decision. So she asked her mother, “Will I bring disgrace to the family if I do this?”
Her mother, Georgette, recalls the incident with tears in her eyes. “I told her, ‘When you were 14 and cried because you wanted to be a mom to your dolls, nobody was there to hear that. When you told me you would give your own eyes to have a child, nobody was there to hear that. If they don’t support you we don’t need them. I will stand by you.”
Dudum and her girlfriends pored over lists of potential sperm donors. Dudum wanted a highly educated donor with no history of early heart disease, which runs in her family. The winning donor, a pre-med graduate student, was selected for his sense of humor. It came across on his donor audio interview.
In 2004, Dudum, then 40, did one round of intrauterine insemination with the sperm. Five months and $5,000 later, she became pregnant. That was the easy part. “I was afraid to come out,” says Dudum, who waited four months to tell loved ones. The women in her family responded well. “The men said, ‘No comment,'” Dudum recalls.
Her daughter, Rania, came into the world on June 5, 2005. “She absolutely rocked my world,” Dudum says, crying. “From the moment she arrived, I just wanted to be a mom forever.”
When Rania turned 1, Dudum decided to give her a sibling using the same donor. Francis was born in 2007. To women considering this path, Dudum says follow your heart. “Even if it means breaking traditional,” she says. “I never dreamed this for myself, but sometimes it just works out in a great way. In a different way.”
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Some might call Cathy Straus a pioneer. She had her son 16 years ago through artificial insemination. At the time, there were no websites. Organizations such as Single Mothers by Choice connected like-minded women through letters and phone calls.
In her 20s, Straus was happy and successful. She bought her first home at 26. She started her financial services firm at 29. But, by her late 30s, she felt something was missing. Straus decided she wanted to have a child on her own shortly after her father passed away from kidney disease in 1982. A decade later, Straus’ mother died.
“I realized the trick to immortality was having kids,” says Straus, now 56 and living in Danville. “I just never met Mr. Right.”
She selected her anonymous sperm donor to match her family’s tall statures, blond hair, blue eyes, and intelligence. Straus had a healthy pregnancy and gave birth to her son at the age of 41. He was and continues to be a gifted child.
“I want people to see that these kids turned out pretty good,” she says. “One good parent is better than two lousy parents, and since over half of marriages end in divorce, chances are someone in the marriage is unhappy. Kids can feel that.”
They can also sense dishonesty. So, from the beginning, Straus approached their situation with optimism and acceptance. When he asked, she was honest.
“From day one, he knew the word donor,” she says. “When he was old enough, I explained what it meant.” From school age, however, it became his story, she says. Something for him to define. “It wasn’t my place anymore,” Straus says. To the notion that single moms by choice are man-haters or believe fathers are not necessary, Straus says absolutely not.
“Many of us call our situation plan B. Plan A being the husband, white picket fence, and 2.5 kids. But it’s not like we’re men and can have our seventh child at 65. We run out of time.” Mygripe
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