That’s brotherly love.
Adam Zayden, 25, loved his sister Jade, 29 so much that he gave her the gift of their own family — by donating his sperm to his sister-in-law.
The prospects of a donor daddy were slim for Jade and her wife Eefje, 30, who had been trying to get pregnant since 2018. Meanwhile, Adam was there to provide support, hearing the couple’s increasingly dire efforts to start their family.
After three years of listening to their struggle, Adam made them an offer. “They’d become so frustrated with the donor process — it just felt like the right, and ‘easy’ thing to do,” Adam, a social media influencer from Newham, London, told South West News Service. “This whole process has made me so much closer to my sister and her partner.”
Jade, a researcher and developer, and Eefje, a veterinarian, had been determined to have a biological child.
“They essentially started ‘dating around’ for a donor,” Adam recalled, explaining that their insurance policy in Amsterdam, where the couple is currently based, doesn’t cover artificial insemination — making the search for a father “quite extensive.”
Making matters worse, many of the available donors were insisting they conceive the “natural way,” i.e. sexual intercourse as opposed to intracervical insemination (ICI) when a woman inserts a man’s sperm into her cervix with a syringe-like device.
One such candidate even reneged on his donor contract.
“He literally turned around and said he wanted to do things the ‘natural’ way,” Adam said. “He wanted to sleep with my sister-in-law — which was never in the realm of what they wanted.”
Jade described the search as an “emotional rollercoaster.”
“You’re opening yourself up in the most vulnerable of times,” she told South West News Service. “You’re welcoming, essentially, strangers, into your life. You’re then dependent on strangers to help fulfill one of your biggest dreams.”
Added Eefje, “You’re also being exposed to a lot of potential hate. Whether that’s from sharing your experience, or just in general while searching for a donor.”
Tired of being jerked around by unserious donors, the couple finally approached Adam with their plea.
“They’d joked before about me giving them mine, but I didn’t realize they were actually open to that,” Adam remembered.
He called it one of the easiest decisions he’s had to make.
“It really wasn’t that big of a deal. I’m a queer person myself, and I don’t really see myself having kids,” he said.
The trio of siblings works for months — between December 2021 and June 2022 — to get pregnant.
“Every night during that one-week period, Jade would take the dog out for a walk,” Adam said of that time. “I’d go upstairs, do my thing, and hand Eefje the sperm.”
In June 2022, Eefje’s pregnancy test finally came back positive. Their baby was born on March 18, 2023.
“I am his uncle, but I’m known as ‘bibi,'” Adam — now also the baby’s biological father — explained. “He’s a very happy, jolly kid.”
Jade has said she’s thrilled with the outcome of she and Eefje’s donor search.
“It was great having someone you really know and trust, because it’s such an emotional time,” she said.