Retail expert Mary Portas made an emotional admission about her brother’s sperm donation being her 'greatest gift'.
The 65-year-old recently appeared on Jamie Laing's Great Company podcast, where she explained to fans what her family arrangement is, given that her younger brother Lawrence is the biological father of her son, while her now ex-wife Melanie Rickey carried the baby.
Mary and Melanie were among the first couples to marry after same-sex marriage became legal in the UK in 2014.
During the chat, Mary explained that when she sat down with Melanie to figure out who the biological father of their child was going to be, she wanted a 'bloodline' and was also keen on their kid to be related to her other children, Mylo and Verity, from her first marriage to Graham Portas.
Advert
"Did he come round and s**g my ex-wife? No," the TV presenter explained. "So, Mel decided she wanted a child, and I was very clear that I wanted to have a bloodline.
"If I were going to have another child, I wanted to make sure that it was related in some way and biologically related to my other kids."
The Mary, Queen of Shops presenter then explained that due to the 'particular bond' she shares with Lawrence, and knowing he 'didn't particularly want to have children', she asked him to be her sperm donor.
"He looked after me," she said. "It was a real symbiosis. And Lawrence turned up to the old donor place and said, 'Done it, sis!'"
She also added that her son Horatio, who was born in 2012, is the spitting image of her side of the family.
"Lawrence lives abroad now, but he rings us regularly and they talk about football," she added. "God, it's so boring!"
Mary became emotional as she recalled the moment Lawrence held Horatio for the first time, telling Jamie: "The most beautiful time is when, you know... he came into the world, and I rang Lawrence and Lawrence turned up and picked him up.
"And it was like, it was his gift to me. God, I get emotional. It was his gift. And it was the greatest gift."
"Why the greatest gift?” the Made in Chelsea star asked, to which Mary responded: "Oh my God, you know, like because of the years that we helped each other.
"You know, I was always his big sis, and then he was able to give me this gift."
Now, purchasing donor eggs or sperm is not uncommon for those struggling with infertility. But, if the donor is a sibling or cousin, just like in Mary's case, the process is called familial gamete donation.
If you’re in a same-sex female couple and use your partner’s egg and, say, your own brother as a sperm donor, then you’ll have a child that shares your gene pool.
If same-sex couples have two children, the other partner will frequently use a familial donor for the second child so that each child will have both parents' genetics.
A good example: In a same-sex female couple, partner A would use partner A’s family tissue for the first child, and partner B would use partner B’s family tissue for the second child.
Such a process is not incest, however, with Psychology Today explaining: "A sister, for example, may give eggs to her sister who has her own partner or sperm donor, and a brother may give sperm to his brother who has his own partner or egg donor, but a brother may not provide sperm to fertilize his own sister's eggs, and a sister may not provide eggs to be fertilized by her own brother's sperm.
"In other words, the familial donation would never duplicate incest by putting a brother’s and sister’s gametes together."
Rhiannon Ingle