The Mom Who Moved in With Her Sperm Donor

Because no two paths to parenthood look the same, “How I Got This Baby” is a series that invites parents to share their stories.

Ashley grew up in a small town in New Jersey where most of her friends married their high-school sweethearts and had children very young. She wanted a similar life, but by age 25, Ashley had yet to find herself in a serious relationship. Ever an optimist, she decided to buy a house — in Pennsylvania, where she could afford one — that was larger than she needed, hoping that eventually a family would fill it. She commuted an hour each way to work as a commercial insurance agent, vowing that by the time she reached age 30, she would be married and pregnant. Five years came and went. She briefly considered adopting and fostering, but she wasn’t sure either option felt right for her. She also thought about seeing a fertility specialist to look into IVF with donor sperm, but the money was a big obstacle. So she set a new deadline: If she wasn’t partnered up by 35, she would have a baby on her own.

In the meantime, she got ready. She moved in with her grandmother — who was battling cancer and needed her care — and rented out her Pennsylvania house to earn extra income. She started dieting and working out, and at 32, had gastric-bypass surgery and lost over 100 pounds. “The surgery totally changed my life,” says Ashley. “It pushed me to work out and better myself overall.” Then, with new confidence, Ashley signed up for a few online dating services. 

She explains what happened next.

On dating

I was on all the sites, from Plenty of Fish and OKCupid to Tinder. Even though I had been polyamorous in previous relationships, I made it clear in my profiles that I was looking for a serious relationship with a man and that I wanted children.

I went on some dates, but nothing seemed promising. I met one guy through a local Facebook group, and I thought we might have some things in common. I told him I was going to make Christmas cookies if he wanted to join me. So he came over and we made cookies, but he was very pushy and handsy. A couple months later, I saw him on the news. He had gotten arrested because he tried to hire a hit man to kill a woman he had met on a dating site. Luckily, it was an FBI agent who was posing as a hit man and the woman was safe. That took me out of the dating game for a while.

After being on the apps for a year, it was clear I really didn’t like online dating, but I continued and dated here and there. People would send me messages all the time, but I ruled out anyone who didn’t want children.
This one guy in particular, Andrew, kept reaching out to me on all the apps for a couple of months. He was totally the kind of guy I would go for, except for the fact that all of his profiles said, “Not looking for anything serious. Don’t want to have kids.” I wrote him back many times that I wasn’t interested because we didn’t want the same things.

On deciding to swipe right on Tinder

One day I came upon Andrew on Tinder and he just looked so cute. So I sent him a message and he was like, “Wow, you shoot me down everywhere else except for on here.” After talking a bit, he said, “You should really just go out with me.” So I said, “Fine, I’ll have dinner with you.”

Dating that first year after gastric-bypass surgery was hard because I couldn’t eat like a normal person. You can only have very small portions compared to everybody else. It makes dating a little awkward, especially when you first go out with someone. Of course, Andrew wanted to go to the place with all-you-can-eat sushi. I told him I was only going to have three pieces.

As soon as I saw him, I thought, I love this guy already. He was totally my type. He looked like his profile picture, but he was even cuter in person. I think that’s partly why I didn’t want to meet him to begin with, because what was the point in going out with somebody that I knew didn’t want the same things?

But we had a great time together.

On getting to know Andrew

We wound up getting together a few more times. He was still married, but he was separated and getting ready to sign the divorce papers.
At first, he was vague about their split, telling me that things “just did not work out.” But eventually he went into more detail: His ex got off birth control because they wanted to start a family, but stopping the pill triggered a severe bout of depression. She underwent electrotherapy, which caused memory loss and wiped out her recollections of a big chunk of their relationship. They tried to work through it, but she wound up cheating on him.

I thought, This poor guy. He’s had such a traumatic relationship. I understood why he wasn’t looking for a relationship.

For about two years, he dated people and I dated people, but we still saw each other too. I’m polyamorous, and that was more my style of relationship anyway. Andrew would just sort of date whomever. I mean, to be honest, he and I have had one hell of a friendship, relationship, whatever you want to call it. We’ve done swinger parties together, all kinds of stuff like that. So I don’t really get jealous.

On asking Andrew to be her sperm donor

I turned 35 in the summer of 2020 and stuck to my plan: I started researching fertility specialists and what it would entail to have a child on my own.

One day I just said to Andrew, “I’m going to go to the fertility doctor because I really want to have a family and I’m not getting any younger. I’ve looked into getting sperm donors, but all of that is so expensive and there’s still no guarantee. Would you think about doing that for me?” I totally expected him to say no. But he said he needed to think about it.

Eventually he got back to me and said, “Yeah, I’ll do it.” We signed a donor contract. I found a template for one online that stated the sperm was a one-time donation and that the donor did not have to be involved beyond that and then we had it notarized. I couldn’t afford to hire a lawyer to have a contract drawn up. I had no intention of ever suing Andrew for child support and never planned on him being a dad, so this was more of a cover-my-ass type of thing and a show of good faith.

On starting to try for a baby

Since we were already hooking up anyway, we decided that we would try on our own first. I knew the doctor was going to ask if we had been trying. So we tried for six months and nothing happened.

I ate well. I bought fertility-testing strips. I was working out. I was trying all these things to make it work. It was time to go to a doctor.

On seeing a fertility specialist

When I went to the reproductive endocrinologist’s office, they told me that my health insurance didn’t cover IVF. All my insurance would cover was artificial inseminations known as IUIs. And so I was like, well, if that’s all they’ll cover, then that’s what I have to do. When we did the first couple of IUIs, Andrew was very excited. When I didn’t get pregnant, he was like, “We’ll just keep doing it until it happens. We will keep trying.”

We did three months of IUIs and nothing happened. It was disappointing.

On getting expanded insurance

In the midst of all this, my company was acquired by a larger one, and management wound up moving us onto the bigger company’s health-insurance plan, which included IVF coverage.

I told Andrew that I was going to switch to IVF. I said, “Look, you can completely decide that you’ve tried and it didn’t happen. You could choose to just walk away at this point.” But he said no. He was like, “I’m going to see this through.”

Although we were just casually dating, it was a little weird because he was more than casually dating one person. In fact, he was living with a girlfriend, and she had no idea this was happening.

On her first IVF attempt

The following January, Andrew went to the doctor’s office and gave a sperm sample.

I started getting ready for my first egg retrieval, but soon learned that my body hadn’t reacted to the medication the way the doctors expected it to. I only had two mature egg follicles, which wasn’t enough to warrant the surgery. The egg retrieval had to be canceled, and I wound up just doing another IUI, which I knew wasn’t going to work. With the new fertility coverage, Andrew’s sperm had finally been analyzed and we found out that he had slow-moving sperm, so it was unlikely that his sperm would meet my egg in time.

It was terrible, because even though I had IVF coverage, it only covered up to $25,000, which goes very fast when it comes to fertility. The medication alone for my first egg retrieval cost $20,000, which meant I only had $5,000 left for my procedures. Essentially I took $20,000 worth of meds to have an IUI, which I could have done with $10 worth of meds.
My nurse felt really bad for me. She told me that sometimes people donate medications they no longer need to the clinic and that they sometimes get samples. She rounded up enough so that I could have another round of IVF for free. It was a lifesaver, because I wasn’t sure how I was going to be able to do it.

On trying IVF again

I decided to sell the house in Pennsylvania so I could put some of that money toward fertility stuff. But I didn’t want to use all that money on having a baby. I went back to my reproductive endocrinologist and they tweaked my medicine a little bit. The change worked — my follicles grew. And I wound up going for another egg retrieval.

After the procedure, they brought me to recovery. They gave me my snacks and my little juice. Then the nurse said, “We’ll start getting you ready to leave.” I stood up and instantly there was blood everywhere.
They rushed me back into the operating room. Turns out, the doctor had nicked an artery during the procedure.

Apparently, this almost never happens, but, of course, it happened to me. It was terrifying because I was all by myself. I wasn’t allowed to have anybody there with me in the recovery room. My friend that brought me had to stay upstairs the whole time and sit in the waiting room.

On the follow-up

I was told that they had retrieved eight eggs. That sounded good to me. Because I was older, the doctor suggested that I pay the extra money to have genetic testing done on the eggs. I agreed.

Everything after that was a waiting game. I had six that fertilized, so I lost two. On Day Five, you find out how many of the embryos are still alive. I had two that were still left, so they sent them off for genetic testing. Two weeks later, I got my test results back.

I had no normal embryos.

At this point, I’d had one failed IVF treatment and one horrific egg retrieval. I’d spent $25,000 with no baby and no embryos. I felt like I should  give up right then. What was I going to do? Do that again? I’d be nuts. I thought about it for a while and decided, I have to do it again. I really want to be a mom.

On Andrew’s decision to move out of state

As this was all happening, Andrew also had stuff going on. His relationship wasn’t working out. And his dad, who lived in South Carolina, had been diagnosed with liver cancer, so Andrew was going back and forth to spend time with him. Years earlier, Andrew had bought the property next to his dad’s house. And now his dad had decided to gift him a home for it. They picked out a modular house and had it delivered.

One day Andrew called and told me that he was moving to South Carolina to start fresh and that we could keep in touch. I told him, “I’ll be fine. You did your job. You did what you could to help me have a baby.”

On going for her third egg retrieval

I used almost all of my savings to pay for the third round of IVF. Trying to have a baby was my whole life. I was driving an hour each way to the fertility clinic three times a week. All that for a five-minute blood draw and a quick ultrasound.

At my third egg retrieval, they retrieved 11 eggs and seven turned out to be fertilized. I was thinking to myself, I had eight eggs retrieved last time and none turned out normal. Should I really chance going without genetic testing?

On why she skipped genetic testing

I thought about it long and hard. When the fertility clinic called me with my day-one report, I told them I wasn’t doing genetic testing this round. I didn’t pass on the testing to save money. With the second egg retrieval, genetic testing found that I had two abnormal embryos. One had Trisomy 18, which is a common chromosomal issue that most often results in babies being stillborn or not surviving to term. The other abnormal embryo had Down syndrome. Unfortunately, the fertility world doesn’t like to recognize the fact that people can live with Down syndrome and that there’s nothing wrong with that. I would’ve been perfectly happy knowing that my kid was going to have Down syndrome. But my doctor wouldn’t let me transfer that embryo. Once embryos are deemed abnormal, you can’t do anything with them. You can’t even make that choice yourself. It has to do with statistics. I mean, when you look at any fertility clinic, they all talk about their statistics and how they have the most live births — and it’s all because of their embryo screening processes.

About two seconds after I got off that phone call, my reproductive endocrinologist called and said, “You need to rethink this decision.” I said, “No, I’m not rethinking it. I’m not testing.”

When my day-five report came back, I only had one embryo left, and I was like, Thank God. I didn’t say, go ahead and test it. Because what if they tested it and it came back abnormal again? And testing is not necessarily 100 percent accurate anyway.

My embryo transfer was scheduled for the following month.

On getting a positive pregnancy test

After my transfer, I bought pregnancy tests in bulk. And four days later, I started testing. I saw a faint positive. I was beyond excited. I called Andrew in South Carolina and told him the news. He was thrilled. Sadly, his dad had passed away right before I had the embryo transfer, so he never got to tell his dad.

Andrew was concerned that there might be something wrong with the baby. But I just felt deep down that there was nothing wrong. And I was like, I swear to God, it’s a boy. I feel like it’s a boy.

I had early prenatal testing done and it all showed that the baby was fine. And we also got confirmation that he was a boy. I was like, “See, I told you he was a boy. I knew he was a boy.” My dad was so excited when he heard I was having a son. And he was even more excited when he heard I was giving the baby my last name.

On getting through her pregnancy

Because I had gone through IVF, I had to do a bunch of extra testing, including an extra cardiac screening before the baby was born. Throughout the pregnancy, the doctors had been unable to find the baby’s nasal bone, which can be a sign of Down syndrome or another chromosomal anomaly. They sent me to a pediatric specialist and were trying to talk me into getting an amniocentesis, which is when a needle is inserted into the uterus to withdraw amniotic fluid to test for genetic conditions. I was like, “No. You keep your long needle away from me.” The doctor said, “But there’s very little risk with the procedure.” I replied, “Yeah, but I’m like the poster child for having a problem.”

So instead, the doctors just kept checking me throughout my entire pregnancy. And even though they still had trouble seeing the nasal bone, everything else looked fine.

Andrew wasn’t sure if he was going to come up for the birth, but a friend of mine who was a nurse said she would be my birthing partner. I had everything planned out. I was going to have the baby at a birthing center and have a water birth. It was going to be great.

On going into labor

About three weeks before my due date, my blood pressure was high and my doctor told me it was time to stop working. I immediately went into work and told them that it was my last day. Then I made myself a huge list of things I was going to get done the next day: a pedicure, a haircut, cleaning, packing, vacuuming, and more.

The next morning, I woke up at 5:30 a.m., thinking I had peed the bed. But I was also pretty certain that I hadn’t peed because I still felt like I needed to pee. I texted my friend, the nurse, describing what had happened and she wrote back:  “That sounds like your water broke.”

Every time I walked, more fluid would come out. She told me, “It’s not like in the movies. It doesn’t just gush out. I’ll get dressed and come right over.”

I tried to get as much done as I could before she got there. I packed the rest of my bag to go to the birthing center, vacuumed my whole house, and got my pet lizard set up.

On going to the hospital

My friend came over and brought her blood-pressure monitor because she said we needed to keep an eye on mine. For four hours, we kept checking in with my midwife, who was also concerned about my blood pressure. Finally my midwife said, “I’m sorry, but you’re not going to be able to go to the birthing center. You need to go to the hospital.” I was pissed, because that had not been my plan.

We got to the hospital and I was in severe pain. The nurses just kept telling me, “Oh well, you’re a first-time mom. You don’t know what to expect. This is what it’s like.” I said, “I really feel like this is not what it’s like.”

They had all these monitors on me and my son. They agreed to let me take a shower, but then the monitors kept losing the baby. Then the next thing I knew, I had an oxygen tube up my nose and they told me that they were going to give me magnesium to bring my blood pressure down. After they gave that to me, I wasn’t allowed out of the bed.

At that point I figured, if I’m not going to be allowed out of the bed, just give me an epidural. So they gave me one, but I was still feeling pain. They tried readjusting things, and the nurse said, “I swear it’s there.” I told her: “I still feel everything and everything does not feel right. There’s definitely something wrong, and it’s either wrong with me or wrong with him. Let’s just do a C-section and get him out.”

But they would not listen to me.

On having an emergency C-section

Finally, hours later, the doctor came in and said, “You’re going to get your wish. You’re going to get the C-section. The baby is in distress.” I only remember bits and pieces from the operating room because that magnesium screwed me up so bad. But I do remember the doctor saying, “Thank God we are doing a C-section. The cord is on his neck.”

On seeing her baby for the first time

I woke up in recovery a couple hours later. The nurse showed me my baby, but I was not really there. I was very loopy. The magnesium had put me on another planet.

He was perfectly healthy and he didn’t have Down syndrome or any other condition, though he was smaller than anticipated — just five pounds, 13 ounces. He was just a little peanut. I didn’t think he looked like me at all. I thought he looked like his dad. I named him Liam. I sent Andrew pictures and he said, “Oh, he’s so cute!”

I just loved, loved, loved having him right there with me all the time. He pretty much stayed with me the whole hospital stay, though I did send him to the nursery once because I needed sleep. He was a screamer.
I spent four days in the hospital. It felt like the magnesium took a good 24 to 48 hours to clear my body.

On her first weeks at home with Liam

When we got home, I was just like, “Wow. He’s really all mine and we’re all by ourselves. This is kind of cool.” I was still really sad that the birth didn’t go the way I planned, but Liam was just so perfect.

I absolutely loved being a mom. I don’t really feel like it was that hard for me to adjust. I adapted well and enjoyed taking care of him. I mean, some of my friends would say I was already a mom because of how I treat my pet lizard. I used to dress Spike up and take him everywhere. Spike has adjusted well to the big-brother role.

On Andrew’s first trip to meet the baby

Andrew came to town two weeks after Liam was born for a quick weekend visit. I don’t think he expected to feel the way he did when he saw him. On the phone, he had mostly talked about all the things he could teach Liam when he got older. But once they met, he told me, “I just held him and I fell in love with him.”

Later, he told me that he knew driving home that everything had changed.

On visiting Andrew in South Carolina

Andrew asked us to come visit, so while I was on maternity leave, Liam and I took three trips down to South Carolina to see him. The first time, we spent almost two and a half weeks there. The next time, we spent a little over a month. We’d stay at Andrew’s house. The guest room became our son’s room.

On the weekends, Andrew and I would take Liam hiking or we would go to festivals. During the week when Andrew was at work — he works for a company that makes electrical parts for data centers — Liam and I explored the area. Sometimes I went for easy hikes with him strapped to me. At night, we’d make dinner and play with the baby.

With each visit, we stayed a little longer. I knew that it would be hard to keep visiting once I went back to work, because my job didn’t allow remote work. It was stressful thinking about that, so I started looking for other jobs. Eventually, I found a really good opportunity that was fully remote, interviewed for it and got hired. Liam and I went back to South Carolina in July and I hired a nanny to watch him while I worked there for a month.

On moving to South Carolina

Andrew and I had been talking about the possibility of us moving in with him once Liam turned 1 or 2. But during that July visit, Andrew just said, “You know what, you can move down whenever you want. I don’t really need time.” So we made a plan for us to move right after Christmas 2023. We officially moved in the second week in January.

Right before we left, I added Andrew to Liam’s birth certificate as the father at his request. I also added Andrew’s last name to his, so now his last name is hyphenated and he shares both our names. Andrew wanted Liam to just have his last name, but the shared last name was my idea. That way, it keeps both of our last names alive.

On adjusting to South Carolina

Andrew and I sleep off and on in the same room. But more often, I co-sleep with Liam, which I’ve done since he was born. It just feels so good knowing that he is right there.

Andrew is into music and he used to be a musician. So he’s made it his goal to teach Liam to play a bunch of instruments. Liam is almost one and he already strums on the guitar. We also got him a little flute and his dad can’t wait to get him a drum set. They drum on everything together. They watch tons of YouTube videos of little kids playing music or adults playing covers of songs. They just have such a good time together. He is a really good dad.
The hardest part of my new life is that I don’t have a big group of mom friends. But Liam has a busy schedule and we’re always doing something — I’m always taking him somewhere. We even have swimming lessons five days a week. I have a feeling that he’s going to be one of those hyper kids.

On getting to know Andrew’s romantic partner, Jessie

One night during one of my visits, I made dinner and we invited Jessie over. I liked her right away and got along well with her. She’s become someone we both hang out with. She’s kind of become part of our family. He’s romantically involved with her, but Jessie and I are just friends. She doesn’t live with us. She lives by herself an hour away. She’s not used to this kind of relationship dynamic, but we are helping to build up her confidence. Even though Andrew goes on dates alone with her, I don’t get jealous.

She really cares for Andrew and his happiness. She also believes that our family is the best thing to have happened to him. And to me, she is a great friend and confidant as she fully understands the relationship that Andrew and I have. Jessie also likes some of the same things Andrew likes — music and anime — which takes the pressure off me to try to force an interest. She hangs out with me and Liam often. She thinks he is an amazing little guy.

On her romantic relationship with Andrew and their family’s future

Andrew and I are still kind of figuring things out. We are basically dating backwards, since I’ve honestly been in love with him since I first met him. Our relationship is definitely not typical. I’m not saying that things are perfect — we have our moments — but we don’t really fight. We do disagree on some things. Politically, we are not aligned.

We’ve kept one copy of the donor contract just for historical purposes, but Andrew is legally, financially, and emotionally Liam’s father in every way. One day, when Liam is older, we’ll explain the story to him because his baby books all mention a sperm donor, but all he’s ever known is Andrew as his dad.

In a way, it’s kind of been like an instant family. We live together and have a kid. We do everything as a family. And then when we have a chance, we go out on dates together.

Andrew will occasionally see other people, but I don’t really feel like going out with anybody else, nor do I have the time or the energy. But Andrew can take as long as he needs — I don’t really feel like we need to put a definition on our relationship.

We fully intend on being together forever. We’re even talking about when we get old and retire, how we’ll give our son the house and get a condo in Florida. I feel like eventually we will get married, but that’s mostly because of our taxes. Also God forbid something happened and one of us got hurt. We want to make sure we can see each other at the hospital.

We’ve also decided we want to start trying to have another child. My new company’s health insurance has even better IVF coverage that includes three rounds of IVF as well as genetic testing so I don’t have to worry about the expense. We’re going to start IVF soon and this time, since I’m 40 and genetic testing is covered, we are going to do it.

Andrew says he’d consider getting married in about five years. And to me, that is fine. At this point, I’m not going to be a young bride anyway, so I don’t really even care if it happens. We could just do it at the town hall. It’s nice, but it’s not 100 percent necessary. I already got the perfect kid.

The names of the subjects have been changed to protect their identities.