And baby makes two

"Knock Yourself Up" author Louise Sloan explains that becoming a single mother isn't always easy but ultimately defies every right-wing stereotype.

By Katharine Mieszkowski

Read more: Sperm, Pregnancy, Katharine Mieszkowski, Life, Salon Conversations

Oct. 19, 2007 |

On Labor Day weekend, a midwife's favorite holiday, Louise Sloan, a 41-year-old lesbian, had semen Fed Exed to her mother's summer place in Kennebunkport, Maine. Sloan, a magazine writer and editor, had always imagined she'd become a mother as part of a couple. Instead, here she was, a single woman accepting delivery of a stranger's sperm at the summer home of her 70-year-old Republican Southern mother, then informing the prospective grandmother that she was headed upstairs by herself to "baste." (Think: turkey baster.)

Sloan interviewed dozens of self-described "single mothers by choice" -- both straight and gay -- for her new book, "Knock Yourself Up: A Tell-All Guide to Becoming a Single Mom." Like many of them, for Sloan, fulfilling the dream of having a child meant more than holding out to find a life partner to start that family with. In her early 40s, she writes, her biological clock had begun to sound like a "car alarm." So she decided to try to have a baby, while it was still a possibility for her, and hope to meet the love of her life later on.

In the book, Sloan weaves together the experiences of other mothers who made the same choice she did, ranging from a Navy officer stationed in Georgia to a Manhattan nonprofit manager who has twins. She briefly surveys the limited research on how such children fare, but mostly she dishes up advice to potential single mothers on everything from cyber-stalking your sperm donor -- not recommended -- to deciding if you should list your child in the Donor Sibling Registry, where kids can meet their biological half-siblings on the father's side.

Of course, a book with the cheeky slogan "No man? No problem!" emblazoned on its pink cover above a rubber ducky is bound to raise the ire of social conservatives. Remember the Dan Quayle vs. "Murphy Brown" imbroglio, in which the vice president sanctimoniously scolded the TV character for bearing a child alone? Yet, ripping on the moral character of such moms did not go out of fashion with the Bush-Quayle administration. In 2006, syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker accused such mothers of treating men as "only as good as their sperm count" and children "as accessories to adult lives." In 2007, columnist Mark Davis wrote that any justification for purposefully bringing a child into the world without a father amounts to so much "selfish twaddle."

But what's most heartening about the women's stories in "Knock Yourself Up" is how often disapproving ideology melts away when doubting family members, friends and acquaintances encounter a happy, thriving child. Sloan's own blue-blooded mother spent eight weeks with her daughter and then newborn grandson, Scott, teaching Sloan all the words to "Tea for Two," and offering a grandmotherly heap of unsolicited parenting advice. What could be more traditional?

Salon spoke with Sloan, now 44, by phone from her home office in Brooklyn, N.Y., where she lives with her 15-month-old son, about what single motherhood by choice means for the moms and their kids. (Listen to the interview here.)

How did you decide to have a baby on your own?

I wanted kids when I was 28. I had a partner, and I was very seriously planning on having kids in the next year or two. And I kept on being put off by my partner for two more years, two more years, two more years. Then we broke up after an eight-year relationship. And in every relationship since then the idea of kids has been a big part of the discussions, but those relationships did not survive either.

What did you have to go through to get pregnant on your own?

I ended up having really bad luck with a sperm bank. It turns out that the first donor that I used had sperm that just wasn't working for anybody, and I used that donor for eight tries. I ended up getting pregnant with the second donor on the second try.

That was actually try No. 10, and I had a miscarriage. Then I got pregnant with my son, Scott, on the second or third try after the miscarriage.

In what form did you receive the sperm?

Mostly I did inseminations at the doctor's office, because an intrauterine insemination is more successful statistically than using frozen sperm at home. But there were times when my doctor's office was closed for a holiday, and I did home inseminations.

The sperm comes in a liquid nitrogen tank that kind of looks like a bomb. I had one experience where I had to go pick it up from a Fed Ex office, and the woman there starts lugging the tank back from behind the counter, and saying, "It's always you semen people who have late deliveries." She was used to getting shipments to veterinarians and animal breeders, and so she assumed I was breeding animals, not myself.

Do most single mothers by choice use a sperm bank, or do most use a so-called known donor, like a friend?

Most use a sperm bank, and the reason is that using a known donor is much more legally and emotionally risky. It's actually what I wanted to do. I wanted to have a father figure for my child. I did ask a couple of close friends, but they didn't agree to it. They felt like they would be creating a distant father experience for the child. One of my friends felt like he would feel responsible if I fell on hard times with the baby.

How much were you able to find out about the donor you did use, and how much did you want to know?

I wanted to know everything. I would have wanted to meet him. There are some egg donors with whom you can arrange a coffee interview before you sign up to use their egg. That's not the case with sperm donors, although I just heard that somebody is talking about doing a bank that has identity-release donors, where you have their adult picture.

What identity release means is the donor has agreed in advance to have his identity released should the child request it at age 18. I wanted that option for my child, and at the time that I was looking at sperm banks that was not at all standard. There were only a few sperm banks in the country; most of them were pretty small sperm banks that offered the open-identity option. Those sperm banks happened to be ones that had fewer other products. With some sperm banks you can get an audio interview with the donor. You can get a long essay that he's written. You can get various adult photos, childhood photos. I didn't have access to most of that kind of information.

I had a two-page form that he had filled out with really only two lines for each question. And then I had a rather lengthy family health history that he had filled out with the help of someone at the sperm bank. And I also had two photos of him when he was probably 7 or 8, so that was great.

But I felt like I knew hardly anything about this guy, and it was very difficult to make the decision to go ahead and to have a child who would be 50 percent from the genes of someone that I hadn't met, and that I knew so very little about. I had a conversation once with one of the women who worked at the sperm bank, who happened to run into him in the coffee break room the day before, which she recounted, and he sounded very charming. That was one of the most valuable pieces of information.

How many different women can a single sperm donor give to?

It's not regulated, so it depends on which sperm bank you use as to what their policy is. The sperm bank I used allowed 15 families.

Next page: "I went into that single-mom workshop expecting to see a bunch of losers"