If Helen Archer Can Do It.........

It was September 2010, my mother and I were out for one of our precious girls' dinners. We must have been contemplating life or more likely my brother who was in the middle of a lengthy and harrowing adoption process when out of the blue my mother asked me if I'd considered having a baby with a sperm donor: “Helen's doing it darling so there's no reason why you can't do it”.

I was aghast. What on earth would I want to do that for? I shot my mother down in flames: “That's not the way I want to bring a child into the world. I want to do it properly, in the right order, with a man in a loving partnership.” My mother left the subject well alone but she'd planted a seed....