Michele Elizaga, now 43, from Arizona, was fed up with waiting for the right man to come along and decided, after celebrating her big day with her girlfriends, she was going to have a baby by herself. After spending years dreaming of meeting her ideal man and starting a family, Michele decided it was time to take matters into her own hands after turning 40 as she felt like time was running out.

Ashe spent all of her $5,000 funds on a single vial of donated sperm and became pregnant in June 2019. Her son Matthew is now two years old, who was born with Down Syndrome. Michele now feels it is hard for her to find a life partner because she spends all her time with Matthew. It has been such an empowering experience and I have been astounded by my strength and ability.

I want a family and how much I love being a mother and I fear that my time is running out. When I found out I could have children without a man, it surprised me. And decided to save money to make because I know doing this is very expensive.

Michele said: “The doctors told me that it would be unlikely that it would work after the first time and that I should have bought more sperm.But it was all I could afford, so I kept moving forward with the process with the faith that it was going to work out”.

After two weeks, I passed the test and discovered I had 2 lines. I can’t believe it. I’m totally shocked but I’m so happy.

Due to her advanced age, Michele had prenatal testing at 12 weeks of pregnancy, which looked for genetic disorders and identified the gender of her unborn child. It was revealed to Michele that the baby will be a boy.

However, this was also the moment that she found out that there was a nine out of ten chance that her baby was going to have Down Syndrome. Michele said: “I was devastated. I cried a tonne”. After a smooth pregnancy, Michele had an emergency C-section and gave birth to her baby boy, Matthew, on 3 June 2019

“A nurse informed me he was alive, lovely, and looked exactly like me,” Michele continued. A few hours later, I walked down to greet my newborn. I was overjoyed to see him again because it was the finest moment. Before going home, he was in the NICU for two months. The voyage has been pretty long. Being a single mother is difficult and demanding, particularly because Matthew has special needs. Matthew is a hilarious and sweet baby with the best energy

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