Confessions of a Sperm Donor - Timesonline 3/27/10

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/men/article7071161.ece

March 27, 2010
Confessions of a sperm donor
‘The nurse handed me a plastic jar and led me to a small room. There was a TV showing a porn film...’

Hospital workers hustle past, oblivious. They’ve seen it a thousand times. I’m standing outside the delivery room, a newborn swathed in a blanket in my arms. If there’s an amazed look on my face, it’s because the child is my first. The hitherto hypothetical being is now embodied in precise measurements: she weighs 8lb 1oz; she is 20in long; her head, which fits into my hand, has a circumference of 14in; she was born at 8.39pm; she is a girl. When she screws up her face against the hospital’s fluorescent lights, I instinctively shield her eyes.

Wind back three years to April 2007. I was a single guy living in a flat by the beach. I had just bought a motorcycle. During the day I worked at a magazine, while after hours I was writing a novel. One Sunday night, I came home, switched on the computer and received an e-mail from an old friend:

“Hi gorgeous family & friends,
“For the first time in my life I can’t call, e-mail or text you individually thus the group e-mail. You may or may not have heard that I’m heading to Sydney to get treatment for breast cancer on Monday. It’s stage 1 and they have caught it early but apparently quite aggressive so seems I’m in for a bit of chemo.”

Read full article here:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/men/article7071161.ece