We Were Desperate To Be Mums

Hayley Bensberg Hickmott, 32, and her wife knew it wouldn’t be easy – but they wouldn’t give up

- James Hanman

Pushing the pram, my face broke into a grin as I could hear my boys getting excited. Me and my wife, Kirsty, 31, had taken our twin sons, Stanley and Dylan, two, for a day trip to a farm. With me working as an A&E nurse, and Kirsty a paramedic, the different shift hours didn’t always make it easy for us all to enjoy a day out. So this was a treat, especially as the twins loved animals, and we’d just reached their favourites.

‘Goats!’ exclaimed Stanley joyfully. Kirsty and I couldn’t help exchanging wide smiles, it was at times like this that we still couldn’t quite believe that we were parents.

Exploring the options

I first met Kirsty in 2013, through my work at King’s College Hospital in London. We were both passionate about helping people, and family was really important to us. Even early on in our relationship, we discussed how we both wanted to be parents one day. ‘I’m desperate to be a mum,’ I said honestly. As a gay couple, we knew it wouldn’t be a straightforward process, but there were some options we could explore.

Kirsty proposed in August 2014, and we got married in Ibiza surrounded by 55 of our friends and family in September 2015.

Once we returned home, Kirsty and I began to look seriously into having a baby. When I’d studied Midwifery in 2009, I’d learned about ‘shared motherhood’, an option for female couples that uses an anonymous sperm donor to fertilise eggs taken from one woman.Then the other partner carries the baby.