Scottish mother: I will never know the DNA of my children after I used donated embryo

Lisa and her family. Picture: Contributed

Lisa and Jamie Kitching spent more than £50,000 at the Embryo Adoption Programme in Barcelona and now have two boys Joseph, aged six and three-year-old Leon.

Lisa, 35, who works as a personal trainer was taken aback when little Joseph recently announced that he wants to live in Spain.

She said: "There was something about the way he said it that was striking.

"It wasn’t as though he’d mentioned it because we’d been on holiday there or because we’d talked about it, but because he felt something deeper — a connection that he couldn’t quite explain."

The fact is Joseph and Leon, have an important connection to Spain. While Lisa gave birth naturally to both, with Jamie, 39, at her side, the couple have no genetic relationship to their sons.

They are the result of human embryo donation and were created in a Barcelona laboratory from anonymous egg and sperm donors.

"When I look at my boys, I want to say to them: “Oh my goodness, you have no idea how you came to be,” says Lisa. ‘"Joseph is dark with olive skin and brown eyes, while Leon is blond and pale like me.

‘We’ve started to explain to Joseph about the “special man and lady who gave us seeds to put in mummy’s tummy” and we’ll keep telling the boys as they grow up. It’s fascinating to think they were created thanks to the kindness of people none of us will ever meet."

Since the first procedure in Australia in the 1980s, human embryo donation has been a controversial fertility treatment with the procedure raising ethical and moral questions.

Should the child have a right to know their biological parents? What is to stop them meeting a genetic sibling one day and unknowingly falling in love? Do donors ever regret never knowing their children — or get a shock when unknown offspring later track them down?

Embryo donation involves couples ‘releasing’ unused embryos after their own fertility treatment is complete or, in some cases, egg and sperm donors donate separately and an embryo is then created in a lab. In the UK, no payment is offered, although egg donors can be paid ‘expenses’.

Before 2005, donors in the UK were allowed to give sperm, eggs or embryos anonymously. But a change in the law aimed at protecting children’s rights means donation here is no longer anonymous. The number of UK donors is no longer enough to meet demand, prompting families to go abroad where treatment is expensive and donors are usually anonymous.

Lisa and Jamie had been trying for a baby for over a year when tests showed a problem with Jamie’s fertility. ‘He was devastated,’ says Lisa. ‘But I reassured him that I loved him. I knew so little that I thought all he would have to do was take some medication to fix the problem.’

Doctors recommended IVF and the couple embarked on a three-year struggle with sperm donation, egg retrieval and painful procedures. Only once did it result in a pregnancy but, sadly, Lisa miscarried. It was then discovered there was also a problem with Lisa’s eggs.