The challenges of being single mothers by choice

More than 50% of women who use sperm donors are single and intend to raise their child aloneaccording to the latest data from one of the world’s largest sperm banks, Cryos International.

Data from Cryos, which supplies donor sperm and eggs to more than a hundred countries around the world, shows a steady increase in demand by single women over the past seven yearspeaking at 54% in 2020.

Globally, there more than 100 million mothers raising their children alone, according to UN Women. Although there is not enough data on how many of them are single mothers by choicewomen who choose it often face social, cultural and even legal challenges when they form a family on their own terms.

The BBC spoke to four women about their personal journeys into motherhood and how they feel about raising children single-handedly.

‘The best decision of my life’

Mam Issabre, from France, always wanted to be a mother. After years of thinking about it, she finally decided to go it alone two years ago. “I decided to talk to my mother about it and she told me that maybe it was a good time to try it, since I was 38 years old“, remember.

“I made my decision in December and by February I was pregnant”says the woman, who is also a radio presenter. Nine months later, Mam gave birth to a healthy girl named Imany.

It sounds simple, but first he had to overcome a big hurdle: fertility treatments were not available to single women in France at the time. Her doctor had recommended traveling abroad for the insemination, but Mam was able to find another doctor willing to perform the procedure.

She says that she did not know it was illegal, but simply thought that it was not possible to perform the procedure in the country.

In June of last year, France passed a law allowing single women and lesbian couples to receive fertility treatmentpreviously only available to heterosexual couples, after two years of debate in Parliament and massive protests.

A year later, Mam reflects on becoming a mother. “The first time I held my daughter in my arms was when I really realized that she was a mom,” she says. “I cried a lot that day.”

“It was a very emotional moment. It is the best decision of my life,” she adds.

Mam opted for an anonymous donor because she wanted to protect her daughter from possible rejection. “I don’t want her to have that image of a father when he just sees himself as a giver, and that’s it,” she explains.

“I hope it’s a good decision for me and my daughter, but I’ll explain everything to her when she’s old enough,” he adds. “My dream is to have four or five children‘, he says, ‘but I’m getting older, so maybe a child is a very good gift from God.’

‘I felt that he was my whole world, and I was his’

For Anne-Marie Vasconcelos, a 44-year-old woman from New Jersey, USA, the road to motherhood was long and difficult. Ten years ago, Anne Marie was diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome, a common condition that affects the function of a woman’s ovaries and can cause fertility problems.

The diagnosis, coupled with the then recent loss of her father, pushed her to make a decision that would change her life. “The endocrinologist said, based on the laboratory tests, that he would have problems having children and that, if he wanted to have them, then he should get to work,” says this federal government worker.

But, as a recently single 34-year-old woman, motherhood seemed like a long shot. “I told her that she was not married and she replied that she did not need to have children. She had never thought of it like that,” she recalls.

As a practicing Catholic, Anne Marie says that becoming a single mother through artificial insemination raised certain moral issues that she needed to overcome. Talking to her priest helped.

“He assured me that if I continued down this path, my babies could still be baptized,” she says, “so even though she couldn’t support fertility methods, she wouldn’t judge me or my family.”

The emotional toll and financial burden came to a head after a couple of years of trying to conceive. “Five artificial inseminations and two fertilization treatments were needed in vitro to have my eldest son,” she says.

“It cost me $95,000 because my health insurance didn’t cover any of that, so I pooled all my savings, took out retirement loans, and remortgaged my house.”

In 2016, Anne Marie’s first child, William, was born, and she then had a second son, Wyatt, a couple of years later. Both were conceived through fertilization in vitro with sperm from the same donor. Both pregnancies were fraught with complications, and both children were delivered prematurely by caesarean section.

“[William] he was not born alive,” he says, “he had to be resuscitated and receive immediate blood transfusions, so my delivery was very traumatic.” After nine days in the hospital, they were released to go home. “I felt like he was my whole world, and I was his,” he says with the biggest smile.

‘I just knew it’

Sarah (not her real name) always wanted to be a mother. “I don’t think I’ve ever had a moment in my life where I doubted whether I would be or not, I just knew,” says the 36-year-old art curator.

For her, the coronavirus made it clear that he had no reason to wait any longer. In August, Sarah found out that she was pregnant after her first try. “She was outside, it was hot, she felt it and she knew it,” she adds.

Now six months pregnant, she recalls how her childhood influenced her decision. “I grew up in Lebanon during the civil war. I was born in 1985 in the middle of the hardest period of the war”, she says. “I had a happy childhood, but it was also imbued with a lot of trauma.”

His parents have been married for almost four decades, but “lived separately but under the same roof” for a long time. “They don’t have a great relationship,” she thinks, “I would say they’ve had a pretty toxic relationship, and that influenced my decision a lot.”

“I think my parents’ relationship traumatized me,” he analyzes. Sarah says that the state of her country and the death of her loved ones had a big impact on her decision.

“I think there was a call of life after a series of tragic events that have been happening to my people, to my country, to my community for the last two years, and the pandemic was just the icing on the cake,” he says.

For Sarah, becoming a single mother is not a brave decision: “I think there is nothing special or heroic in what I did, because women in partnership or even married very often take care of children alone.”

He does credit his family for being “brave” in accepting his unconventional choice.

“I was very surprised that they didn’t ask who the father was. I think they understood that I wasn’t ready to talk about it at first,” she says. “It’s something I told you recently.”

“But honestly they were very happy for me, and I think they have been very brave to announce it to other members of the family,” he adds with a smile.

‘I need someone to love’

The rise in women choosing to be single mothers may signal a change in attitudes towards the two-parent family structure, but 37-year-old security guard Nyakno Okokon says she didn’t have much of a choice.

“I say ‘single mother by choice’ very loosely, because it wasn’t really a choice”, he maintains. “It was my destiny and I had to learn to accept it.”

Nyakno grew up in a family of 20 children with a polygamous father; his mother was his fourth wife.

“We had to struggle to survive on our own, so we don’t really get the best education, just elementary and junior high school.”

“But I can’t blame them. [porque] that’s their mindset,” he tells the BBC.

Nyakno moved from Nigeria to Dubai six years ago in search of a better life.

She normally works 12-hour shifts and says she doesn’t have time to meet and connect with new people. Despite this, she decided that this year she will do “whatever it takes” to have a child.

“I realized that there was nothing stopping me from becoming a mother if I could provide for them, give them love and a good education,” she says.

“I need someone to love,” she adds, “and if I don’t have a child, I think I’ll be very bitter.”

“In Africa we don’t really have nursing homes, so our children help keep us going when we get older and weaker. So this child means happiness and hope for the future”, he explains.

Nyakno plans to conceive naturally; but, if that doesn’t work, he will try fertilization in vitro or surrogacy. However, she does not plan to tell her biological father of her plans until she is pregnant.

“It’s fair, because I’m not going to give him any responsibility,” he says, adding that otherwise the man would be “scared, because he has his own life and plans.”

Nyakno says that her family accepted her unconventional plans and will support her as a single mother.

“In the past, when you got pregnant out of wedlock, it was taboo, you were looked down upon and people thought you were irresponsible, but not anymore,” she says, adding that what matters to her is what her life will be like at 50. “My family supports me, because they know that I am not getting any younger, and this will bring me joy.”