AFTER blowing out the candles on her 18th birthday cake, Ann Barter was already searching the web for the perfect present – but it wasn’t a new car or the latest fashion item.
The teen had been scouring Facebook for a DIY sperm donor to father her first child – and has since revealed she’s ready to start the process all over again, as her first child nears 10 months old.
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Ann, from Halstead, Essex, who is mother to baby girl Anela, first became obsessed with having a baby at the age of 16 but was not planning to wait around to find her Mr Right.
Instead, in 2017, the part-time barista looked online for a sperm donor – and having found her ideal ‘blonde, lean’ man, proceeded to go ahead alone and fall pregnant using a DIY insertion kit.
Believed to be the youngest woman ever to fall pregnant using a sperm donor, Ann is open about having ‘no regrets’ over her daughter’s unorthodox conception.
And despite the worries of family and friends over the method, the 19-year-old has admitted she is already planning to have more children using another donor while Anela is still young.
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She told the Mail Online: “Having Anela using a donor was easy, and in the next 12 to 18 months I hope to find another donor using the Facebook groups I am members of.
“I may eventually meet and fall in love with a man, but until then I want to ensure my family grows the way I want. I know I can rely on myself to properly parent.”
Ann had spent more than two years researching through private clinics and the NHS before falling pregnant with her daughter in December 2017 after turning to a Facebook forum.
She said: “For years I’d felt totally ready to be a mum – it was what I was born to do – but I didn’t have a boyfriend, let alone a man willing to start a family.
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“When I realised the NHS wouldn’t even consider helping someone my age to get a donor and the cost of going private was too much, I knew finding a willing donor was up to me.
“I made sure I was using a reputable Facebook page and spoke to other women who had done it this way. Then I started messaging a number of men to start the process.
“Some had fathered dozens of children, others were very clinical and cold. Others tried to push natural insemination on me but I really didn’t want that.
“In January 2017 I started messaging Tom*. He was a 31-year-old university graduate from London with blond hair, blue eyes and a great physique. I thought he looked like Thor!
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“We took it slow. I asked questions about how he saw it working, why he was donating his sperm, what his background way – he always answered politely.
“He told me he had successfully fathered three girls and one boy and didn’t want to be involved in their upbringing, he just wanted to help women or couples have children.
“I met him at a hotel in London in December 2017, he showed me his ‘all-clear’ STD paperwork, went to my hotel room and deposited his sperm and left.
“I rushed back to the room and used the syringe as quickly as I could and then lay down with my legs up for about an hour. I didn’t think it would work first try.”
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Three weeks after her artificial insemination, Ann took her first pregnancy test and discovered she was pregnant – news which saw her ‘cry with joy’.
“I sat my mum down and told her,” Ann continued. “She was furious. We argued about it a lot with her saying it wasn’t safe or right, but I was having none of it.
“My relatives were also shocked, and some even told me I was stupid to trust a total stranger, but I explained to them that I’d done all the necessary checks on my donor.”
Ann gave birth to baby Anela, who weighed 7lbs 10oz, on August 21 last year, and despite Tom meeting his daughter once, the sperm donor is not involved in the baby’s life.
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Ann explained: “Tom doesn’t see himself as her dad and neither do I. He met her shortly after she was born, which was nice, but it was more to congratulate me than anything else.
“I could have waited for a boyfriend or a husband, but that could be years. And while some say I’m selfish because Anela doesn’t have a dad, I think this is better than having parents who argue.
“Having a baby this way makes me independent. I am setting the rules for my family structure and being a single mother – even at my age – is inspiring.”
Ann’s case may not be so rare in the future, as an investigation in 2012 found that a quarter of women registering on sperm donor sites were under the age of 25.
And Ann concurs, admitting she’s had hundreds of young women contact her asking for advice on artificially inseminated pregnancies and how to find a reputable donor.
She told the Mail Online: “So many girls my age come from broken families, divorce and have been victims of child battles – they don’t want that for their kids.
“Being a proper solo parent like I am is something many other girls my age want to do. While people may think it’s ridiculous to use a Facebook sperm donor and a DIY artificial insemination kit at just 18 but I have no regrets. I am proud of my decision.”
* Names have been changed
