An Australian man revealed in a blog post that he and his sister are making a baby together.
At first glance, this story sounds like a plotline straight out of the sitcom “Friends” (remember when Phoebe gave birth to her brother’s babies?). However, a closer look reveals the sweet reasons behind the unusual arrangement.
“Funnily enough, there’s actually nothing remotely incestuous about my sister and I planning to have a baby together,” Samuel Leighton-Dore wrote in a Mamamia blog post.
Turns out, the Sydney-based writer is gay. He and his partner, Bradley Tennant, decided they wanted to have a child with both their genes. To make this possible, the couple turned to Leighton-Dore’s sister, Bronte, for help.
“The only possible chance my partner and I have of waving our respective biological flags in our future kid's DNA is if my sister donates an egg for my partner's sperm,” the 24-year-old explained in his blog. “No, she won't be carrying the baby—just offering up the bun for another yet-to-be-determined woman's oven.”
Although the couple isn’t planning on having a baby anytime soon, they wanted to be prepared and plan ahead.
Realizing the request might make for an uncomfortable conversation, Leighton-Dore asked his sister “while we were both a little drunk at a family function.” Luckily, Bronte was instantly on board and “squealed in delight at the prospect.”
Since revealing his unique plans to have a baby, the 24-year-old writer has received backlash. Some believe he and his partner should adopt instead, while others believe Leighton-Dore’s sister will regret her decision to donate her egg.
In response to the criticism, Leighton-Dore simply wrote: “At the end of the day, there's no right or wrong way to bring a loved child into the world.”
“I want a child who can see where he or she came from when they look up at their parents.”
He then beautifully summed up all the reasons why he wants to use his sister’s egg to have a baby.
“Call me selfish, call me vain, call me gross – but I can't think of anything more spine-tinglingly spectacular than finding cheeky glimmers of my parents in the face and personality of my child,” he wrote. “I want to see my dad's sensitive disposition and penchant for strange existential literature. I want to see my mother's fiery hard-headedness and forgetful nature. I want to see my sister's dynamite creativity and doe-y brown eyes. I want to see my boyfriend's parents in there, too. Their humble personalities and wicked sense of humour; their steely work ethic and perpetual open-mindedness.
“I want a child who can see where he or she came from when they look up at their parents.”
Despite receiving negative comments, Leighton-Dore’s beautiful story touched the hearts of many. On Mamamia’s Facebook page, his blog post garnered hundreds of likes and positive comments from readers.
Leighton-Dore and his partner are definitely taking the unconventional route to have a baby. However, this isn’t the first time parents have done this.
In the past, a number of women have given birth to their own grandbabies after acting as a surrogate for their kids, while others decided to have babies via IVF post-menopause.
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