I'll have two babies with the same dad but I don't know what he looks like

Key Highlights

• In 2022 - the most recent figures available - the number had risen to 5,084, an increase of over 60%. Nina Barnsley, director of UK-based charity Donor Conception Network, says one of the biggest factors for women choosing the solo route is time, "both in fertility and wanting children at a certain stage in life".
• Open conversation Barnsley says choosing proactively to be a solo mum can come with additional emotional, societal and practical challenges.
• Many women can expect questions around who the dad is and while it's "usually well meaning, it can feel intrusive". Lucy says she's been open from the start about how she had her son. She has already begun explaining his conception to him using language she describes as "simple but honest". Most importantly, she wants him to "develop confidence in talking about it"."I don't want him to think his family isn't as acceptable or as solid as someone who has two parents."Lucy ignores those who call her decision selfish."A child's happiness isn't about having one parent or two, it's about love, care and time."Getty ImagesLucy's parents died when her son was 18 months While Lucy knew that choosing this route meant she would be a single mother, she never felt alone as part of the plan was for her parents to be heavily involved. During her pregnancy in 2023, her mum became seriously ill, a turn that reshaped not just her parenting plan, but her world. Last year, when her son was 18 months old, Lucy's parents died within six weeks of each other."There were times when I thought, how am I going to do this but it was a case of just having to navigate it because there was no choice."Yet, in those months of illness and loss, her son helped, she says."He made everything better because it was a huge distraction."KimKim, 30, says his mum did a great job at raising him on her ownKim, who is now 30, is the grown up child of a mum, who like Lucy, chose to become a solo mother via sperm donor. He was born in the North West in the mid-1990s, conceived through donor insemination, when fertility treatment was less advanced and sperm donors could remain anonymous.
• There was no photo, no profile, no possibility of contact. He says the absence of a father never felt.