News, views and top stories in your inbox. Don't miss our must-read newsletter Sign up Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

Pregnant Holly Ryan looks like any other working mum raising her young son alone.

While Holly isn’t in a relationship with the dad of three-year-old Johan and her unborn baby, there are no hard feelings and she thinks he’s a “kind, generous” man.

In fact, Holly has never met her children’s father.

She doesn’t even know his name.

Holly, 41, is part of a growing number of women who travel to Denmark every year to get pregnant by a sperm donor.

Latest figures suggest there are more than 6,000 fatherless British-Danish children living in the UK, with semen from Denmark making up almost half of all non-British male reproductive material imported into the country.

These so-called ‘Viking babies’ are so popular, Holly says, because of their famously good-looking, hunky genes.

Blue-eyed Johan, with his thick blonde locks and cheeky smile, has certainly taken after his Scandi father – whoever he may be.

But this isn’t the only reason why hopping on a flight to Copenhagen every few weeks in a bid to get pregnant is so appealing to British women.

The UK is facing a sperm donor crisis.

While 13,500 fertility treatments in the UK use donated sperm or eggs every year, there has always been a dearth of British men willing to donate.

Changes to the law in 2005 — which decreed that a child would have the right to trace any donor when they turned 18 — was the final nail in the coffin, with men reluctant to face the prospect of a knock on the door years later.

In 2010, the last year for which figures are available, just 480 British men signed up to become sperm donors.

Attempts to revive the industry have failed.

In 2015, a national sperm bank was set up in Birmingham with the express purpose of recruiting more British donors, but closed after two years when only nine men walked through its doors.

It’s thought there has long been a stigma to sperm donation that doesn’t exist overseas, with people not quite seeing it quite as simple as donating, say, blood.

But now, the UK’s newest sperm bank is aiming to remedy the shortage of sperm donors with a state-of-the-art central London clinic.

The CEO of the European Sperm Bank, near Chancery Lane, says she wants British men to follow her country’s lead.

Annemette Arndal-Lauritzen tells me: “The use of donor sperm is on the rise and many UK women would love to use local sperm.

“At our clinics we meet many women who tell us having a UK sperm donor is their preferred option. In Denmark men are proud of being donors and donation is part of our culture.

“We aim to remove the stigma surrounding sperm donation in the UK and let British men know why being a sperm donor is so important. And if the Brits don’t man up, we can’t give women what they want.”

She adds that Brexit threatens to “dry up” the market – so it’s important that it becomes a home-grown industry in the UK in its own right.

I am given a tour of the shiny new lab, filled with tiny ‘Give Life’ baby grows and bikes planted outside the consultation rooms, cupcakes decorated with swimming blue sperm logos, liquid nitrogen containers used to freeze the semen deposits, sperm-shaped balloons and – of course – the “masturbation rooms” for all the donors' "deposits", complete with a generous selection of pornography and detailed hygiene instructions (“Wash your penis with water only in order to avoid unwanted bacteria”).

It is a truly surreal experience, but as I chat with Holly, from London, in one of the refreshment rooms over a cup of decaffeinated coffee – she takes her pregnancy nutrition very seriously – it’s easy to see why women like her are so drawn to sperm donation.

“My body clock is ticking and I never got round to meeting the right person,” she tells me.

“I knew I always wanted to be a mum. I was brought up by my dad in a single parent family and he ran his own business, so I thought maybe I could do that too. And I wanted this enough to embark on parenthood by myself.”

Holly, who is 21-weeks pregnant with her specially-selected donor’s second baby, travelled to and from Denmark 12 times for intra-uterine insemination (IUI) treatment, spending around £1,000 for every trip.

She estimates it cost her around £6,000 to get pregnant with each baby, which she paid for out of her own agency director wage.

How did she go about choosing the donor whose sperm she was paying so much for?

“Well, how do you choose a boyfriend?” she laughs.

“It was just based on instinct, just a feeling of ‘he’s my man’. It was as basic as finding a man who I thought I would like to have three pints and a game of pool with down the pub.

“It was important that Johan’s sibling – I haven’t found out whether they are a boy or girl yet, I am going old school – had the same DNA. I want to extend the family tree in a different way.”

And the sperm donors I speak to who have travelled from Denmark to help recruit more British men seem to agree it’s a great job.

All donors in the UK are compensated £35 per donation to cover any out-of-pocket expenses, such as travel to and from the clinic.

But one of the Danish donors I meet, 27-year-old Lucas – not his real name – insists he doesn’t donate for the money, although it has helped him pay off his student fees.

“My cousin had problems getting pregnant and it made me think everyone should get that chance – and that I could help someone like her,” he tells me.

“If I don’t have children of my own, too, it would be nice to know that my genes are out there. I suppose it’s a selfish reason, but it’s comforting.”

His girlfriend doesn’t seem to mind too much, either.

“I have an ongoing joke with her that whenever we walk down the street she goes: ‘Could that be your kid?’ And I’m like: ‘No!’

“You know, it might be, but you can’t live your everyday life wondering, it’s just how it is.

“It’s not like I have 1,000 kids out there.

“She accepted that I am sperm donor right away, it’s just part of who I am.”

He laughs: “We do have the rule that we can’t have sex 48 hours before I donate, but I don’t plan my every day life around it. It’s not inconvenient for us.

“I do hope to have children of my own, a lot of children.”

Lucas, who has been donating sperm for four years, doesn’t know exactly how many children he has fathered already but, as an open donor, his kids can choose to contact him when they turn 18.

In Denmark, donors can choose to stay anonymous or become open donors, in contrast to UK law.

Open donor Sebastian, not his real name, says he wanted to donate because he hasn’t found the right woman yet.

The 33 year old, also from Copenhagen, tells me: “Somehow it’s great to know that even if I don't have kids in the future, there will be part of me out there in the world.”

In fact, Sebastian’s decision to become a donor seven months ago was because his ex-girlfriend didn’t want to have children – so he thought it was a good way of ensuring he had sown his wild oats.

“I am an open donor because I hope one day to meet my children, and see if they are like me,” he adds. “It’s a little experiment of mine.”

(Image: iStockphoto)

Sperm donation facts

• The European Sperm Bank opened in Denmark in 2004, and has produced more than 25,000 children around the world. The UK is one of its biggest markets. Although donors in Denmark are allowed to be either open or anonymous, more than 60% of men choose to be open donors.

• Of all the people requesting sperm, 20% are heterosexual couples, 45% are lesbian couples and 35% are single mums.

• The highest IUI birth rates in the UK were in patients under 38 years of age. The rates of successful treatments reduce for patients who are 42 or older.

• In the UK, the donor’s sperm can only be used to create up to 10 families – the limit is 30 in Denmark. Donated sperm for siblings does not count towards this number.

• Around one in seven couples in the UK experience difficulty conceiving, which equates to 3.5m people across the country.

• You can apply to be a sperm donor if you are between 18-14 years of age, in good health and have no family medical issues. Before donating sperm, donors are required to undergo certain screening tests in order to reduce the risks of passing on health issues. Only 5-7% of sperm is accepted.

• Sperm donation in the UK is regulated by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA). Donor-conceived children can apply to the HFEA when they turn 18 for information about their donor including full name, last known address and date of birth.