Single mum to premature twins after conceiving with sperm from Facebook stranger
- last year
Meet the mum who is raising her premature twins alone - after conceiving with sperm from a stranger she met on Facebook.
Sarah Mangat, 34, had been single for nearly eight years when she decided to embark on solo motherhood in July 2020.
She had planned to use a sperm bank but found the process ''too impersonal’' so instead found a Facebook group for sperm donors.
After hitting it off with someone, Sarah underwent 14-months of fertility tests at Victory Reproductive Health Fertility Clinic, Ontario, Canada, where they medically monitored her cycle.
When the time was right, she used the stranger's sperm and was shocked to discover she had not only fallen pregnant on the first go but was expecting twins.
Despite her joy, she had a difficult pregnancy and was told her short cervix could cause premature birth or miscarriage.
Doctors performed a cervical stitch to stop it opening too soon, but the procedure failed after two weeks, and Sarah went into premature labour in April 2022.
Her daughters, one-year-old Elora and Addison, arrived at 27-weeks on 30 April 2022 at Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto, Canada.
Elora was born at 6.38pm weighing 2lb 20z and Addison arrived shortly after at 6.42pm weighing 1lb 9oz.
The pair suffered a catalogue of health issues including a bleed on the brain, heart defects, jaundice, and infections.
Despite the odds stacked against them, Elora spent 70 days in hospital and Addison was in for 79 days, until they were all able to go home.
Sarah, an HR business partner, from Toronto, Canada, said: “I had tried every dating app under the sun and wasn’t meeting someone.
"You can't wait forever for the right person to come into your life.
"If you're thinking about doing it alone, I say do it.
"It's the best decision I ever made.
“I nearly had a heart attack when they told me there was two.
"But I can't imagine my life without my daughters."
Sarah Mangat, 34, had been single for nearly eight years when she decided to embark on solo motherhood in July 2020.
She had planned to use a sperm bank but found the process ''too impersonal’' so instead found a Facebook group for sperm donors.
After hitting it off with someone, Sarah underwent 14-months of fertility tests at Victory Reproductive Health Fertility Clinic, Ontario, Canada, where they medically monitored her cycle.
When the time was right, she used the stranger's sperm and was shocked to discover she had not only fallen pregnant on the first go but was expecting twins.
Despite her joy, she had a difficult pregnancy and was told her short cervix could cause premature birth or miscarriage.
Doctors performed a cervical stitch to stop it opening too soon, but the procedure failed after two weeks, and Sarah went into premature labour in April 2022.
Her daughters, one-year-old Elora and Addison, arrived at 27-weeks on 30 April 2022 at Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto, Canada.
Elora was born at 6.38pm weighing 2lb 20z and Addison arrived shortly after at 6.42pm weighing 1lb 9oz.
The pair suffered a catalogue of health issues including a bleed on the brain, heart defects, jaundice, and infections.
Despite the odds stacked against them, Elora spent 70 days in hospital and Addison was in for 79 days, until they were all able to go home.
Sarah, an HR business partner, from Toronto, Canada, said: “I had tried every dating app under the sun and wasn’t meeting someone.
"You can't wait forever for the right person to come into your life.
"If you're thinking about doing it alone, I say do it.
"It's the best decision I ever made.
“I nearly had a heart attack when they told me there was two.
"But I can't imagine my life without my daughters."