At my wedding to my first husband, a rumor began to circulate amongst the guests that I was pregnant. When a friend told me about the person who was spreading it I laughed out loud — because the only other options was to cry. I was a 23-year-old marrying a man who, according to his doctors, had less than a month to live.
Even if we’d wanted to conceive it wasn’t physically possible for him to "perform" by that time.
After my first husband — then my fiancé — was diagnosed with malignant melanoma at the age of 34 (I was 22 at the time), we had chosen to freeze his sperm, knowing chemotherapy was likely to impact his fertility but, naively, we assumed we’d take the next step together.
We were living in Dublin because he was Irish and wanted to start treatment close to his family and under the health care system in Ireland at the time, the fertility clinic we visited would store his sperm for free for up to five years before charging us a yearly fee.
On a rainy morning in November 2006, when I went with my husband to deposit his sperm, we made light of the experience.
Fourteen months later, after I watched my husband fall into a coma and pass away, nothing seemed funny anymore — especially my future.
As I tried to cling onto a man I could no longer touch, I remember going online one night to type the question: "Can I use my dead husband’s sperm?"
The answer was no at the time.
In the UK where I was living, the posthumous use of sperm is only allowed if the man has already given his written consent before his death. It’s the same in America where "posthumous retrieval" is only seen as "ethically justifiable" if written consent is given by the deceased beforehand.
We didn’t even consider consent at the time, as we clung to the belief that we could beat the doctor’s dire prognosis.
It has been ten years since I was widowed in my early twenties but, in the past month, I’ve become an accidental spokesperson on this topic thanks to a new study claiming that sperm donations from dead men should be allowed (without consent).
According to the report, published in the Journal of Medical Ethics, "post-death donations" could be a "morally permissible" way of increasing low stock supplies. The theory: men could donate sperm in the same way people donate organs and anyone, not just their partner, could benefit from it.
My first thought when I read the news was positive: I have seen the devastating impact of infertility on so many people I love.
But, then I thought back to my younger self and the grief-driven decisions (many of them regrettable!) I made after becoming a widow.
Would this have given me more options -- or only left me more vulnerable?
Everyone’s situation is different but I was so young when I was widowed, I knew I had to look forward and, eventually, build a life with somebody else. Yet, at my lowest points, I did wonder if having a tiny carbon-copy of my first love might ease my aching loneliness.
As I stumbled through my twenties, there were moments I would have done anything to feel whole — and having his baby might appear a tempting Band-Aid. And, this is my concern. How many young widows, like me, might be fooled into thinking that procreation with a deceased partner is a quick fix for heartbreak?
And, who would dare tell them they might regret it?
As a journalist and author, I have been (very!) honest about the impact grief had on my life choices — both positive and negative. In my first book, Wife Interrupted, I chronicled the unconventional way I tried to recover from heartbreak in the only way I knew how — by being promiscuous. Young and lost, I put myself in a lot of risky situations and hurt a lot of people — including myself.
I would never have wanted a child, conceived in grief, to become part of my train wreck.
Even if my late husband had given written consent to the use of his sperm posthumously, I’d still question the morality of going ahead with it. How could he have foreseen my emotional state after his death, and whether I’d make a good parent while I was grieving? I appreciate that, at 23 years old, I was not in the same position as someone a decade older who might not have as much time to find a new spouse and start over. Or a widow already raising the offspring of their lost love who would like a sibling.
Everyone’s circumstances are different.
I’m not saying this option shouldn’t be available to some widows, but measures would need to be put in place to protect the vulnerable: screening, counseling and a waiting period between a partner’s death and insemination. I’m thankful for the laws around posthumous conception that caused me to hit a roadblock the night I Googled my options. If a child had been born, they would have been a blessing but I think my recovery, which was already slow, would have been even more complex.
In 2016, I remarried again and we now have two children and another on the way.
Today, my life is full and happy but I can still be floored by old memories.
It’s been a decade since I listened to my first husband vomiting after chemotherapy, but it’s still the reason that, if my current partner takes too long in the bathroom, I hover outside the door, waiting and listening. In a split second I can be transported back to my former reality, as I wonder — not for the first time — how I’ll break down the door and carry out an unconscious man.
Until I was asked to write an article on this topic, I hadn’t thought about the fate of my first husband’s sperm donation. My guess: is an unopened letter in a house we no longer live in, informing us that — as we haven’t renewed our storage arrangement — our donation will be thawed and discarded.
A decade ago, this thought would have send me into a grief spiral.
Today, I’m able to let the realization wash over me and accept its fate. For me, starting a family has been healing. My children are the product of hope after loss and evidence, evidence of the self-work I’ve done, and the fresh start I chose to pursue.
I can look at their smiling faces and only see the future — not a ghost from the past.
This essay was written by Amy Malloy, author of The World is a Nice Place: How to Overcome Adversity Joyfully and the children's' book How to Recycle Your Feelings and was republished with permission. You can follow Amy's journey on Instagram or on her blog.
