I birthed at 44 - without IVF

Each month a different fertility expert who works with women over 40 joins Solo Fertility 40s for an in-depth Q&A.

On Thursday 27th August at 7pm BST, Victoria from All About Embryology will help us understand what's actually happening to our eggs over 40, and what good lab support looks like. Victoria will walk us through which treatments are important at this age, and which are unnecessary add-ons - so you can advocate for what you actually need with confidence.

For 1:1 advice, an initial consultation with Victoria is £100 for 60 minutes.

This is for paid subscribers seeking deeper support. A link will be shared before the call.

Hey,

Aged 43, I did IVF cycles in Spain, and then Greece. Both failed.

The second cycle was harder than the first. Not just the outcome. But the drugs, the recovery, and the feeling of having again put everything into something that didn’t work.

I went abroad twice, alone, for sedated operations. Both times, I used donated sperm from local banks that was chosen for me. All of it was a lot to process.

I flew to India for winter to recover. That’s when another path unexpectedly opened up.

I met a guy in my local café over breakfast. He eventually learned about my fertility treatments. He saw I was struggling. He saw the bald patches on my hairline. Then he offered to help.

The rest is history.

Before any of that - back when I was going through IVF - the idea of using donated sperm didn’t sit well with me. It was so far from what I’d imagined for having a baby and starting a family.

But I knew I couldn’t put myself through any more dating app encounters. So I’d reached a fork in the road. It was a binary decision: try for a baby via assisted conception, or give up on motherhood.

Fertility treatment became a decision by default, more than a choice.

Scanning donor bank websites was the first time I felt confronted with the enormity of the process. Shopping for the father of your child. But it wasn’t the father, just a donor, a kind man (I imagined) helping a woman to become a mother. Slowly, I pieced together my feelings. I wanted an anonymous donor.

I used local donor banks in Spain and Greece. They were a fraction of the cost of the large ones, and the cost of the sperm alone across multiple cycles priced me out of the UK.

Anonymous meant I had minimal details about the appearance of the donors. The questions looped constantly: Who would the baby look like? Would I bond with it, knowing half of it came from a mystery man I’d never meet? What if it didn’t look like me? What if I’d prevented my child from knowing half its origins?

But seeing details brought other questions. What kind of person he was, why he was donating, why was he donating so young, would he regret it?

I didn’t say any of this out loud. I just went with it. Because it was this - or no baby.

I met the known donor through a chance encounter in my local cafe. He came to learn of my story. He saw the hair I’d lost from my temples. Then he offered to help.

This time, my approach was different.

It still felt strange because it was a situation I’d never imagined myself being in. But seeing the donor in the flesh, and getting to know him, brought comfort.

I was still grieving the absence of the partner I always assumed I’d be starting a family with. But the offer, out of the blue, felt like something I needed to explore.

We talked about everything: the arrangement, what involvement would look like, what we both wanted. We put it in writing. I had a witness. I knew it wasn’t legally binding, but it recorded our intentions upfront.

His sperm was tested.

And then, my gorgeous baby girl. She arrived in the depths of winter - my little light child became the new centre of my world.

The donor hasn’t been involved since I mentioned I was pregnant. That was the plan. And it has worked exactly as we intended.

Of course, I’ve heard other situations turn sour. Courtroom battles after donors decided they wanted to be involved, anxiety, expense. It’s why I never recommend using a known donor without getting proper legal advice first.

But this is my story.

(Last year, I ran a webinar with UK Family Law expert Anest Mathias at TV Edwards to discuss the legal implications of using a known donor.)

You can grieve the partner you imagined while being driven by the absolute clarity that you want to be a mother. You can find the whole process strange and uncomfortable and still choose it. You can step outside the norm when no one around you is doing the same thing, knowing it will feel lonely and peculiar, but do it anyway.

And then, when it works, you realise that motherhood built this way - on your own terms, with your own agency - can be more meaningful than the conventional script ever was.

The strangeness isn’t a flaw in the process. It’s the price of doing this alone. But the reward is huge.

Flicking through donor profiles finding a donor this way feels like a strange process. I don’t think most solo heterosexual woman imagined baby-making this way.

At the same time, having that choice is incredible. Being able to access banks, to have options, to build a family in different ways - it’s an evolution.

I never set out to use a known donor. There were risks. But I’m hugely grateful it happened this way. I have a healthy, happy baby who has changed my life for the better.

I’ve built the decision framework I wish had existed when I was deciding about donor sperm.

It’s a deep dive including six sections covering every fork: known donor vs sperm bank, the regulatory picture, what actually matters when choosing from a bank, the legal questions, disclosure, and the feelings that don’t fit anywhere else.

If you’re not a paid subscriber yet, this is a good reason to become one. The paid tier also gives you two deep dives per month and a live Q&A with a fertility expert who works with women over 40.

You’re solo - but not alone.

Sarah xo

PS. A preview of the Donor Sperm Decision Guide is on the website here.

I’m Sarah. I write about what happens when solo women over 40 enter the fertility system - the things they’re not told, the costly decisions they’re expected to navigate often without proper guidance, and what women really need to know before they spend five figures.

Subscribe to Solo Fertility 40s
By Sarah - For solo women over 40
Weekly essays for women who need a plan, not false optimism with a big price tag.