How I Met My Daughter is a snapshot of a modern Australian family that is so unconventional that “the family court has not even envisaged the scenario they’ve created”.
Kerrie Hancox and George Deka came forward to Australian Story following its broadcast of How I Met Your Mother, the “back to front love story” of Aminah Hart, donor recipient, and Scott Andersen, sperm donor, who met when their daughter Leila was 12 months old.
Aminah and Scott’s story is now being pursued by Hollywood, but it turns out they may not have been the world first everyone thought. It has emerged that as Aminah and Scott were finding love, there was another couple in the same shoes living – incredibly – not that far away in Melbourne.
Like Aminah, Kerrie Hancox went looking for her baby’s sperm donor not long after the birth. She met George Deka, an introverted middle-aged IT expert for the weather bureau who had given up on finding a partner and having a family of his own.
His baby daughter Clare was the first child he ever held, and despite their personality differences he and the out-going Kerrie clicked. Twelve months and twelve days later their daughter Ella, conceived naturally, was born.
“They were in a relationship for a while and then all of a sudden she goes I'm pregnant. We go What? You've been back to the sperm bank? And she says: No, George and I have um got pregnant naturally.” Mish Inifer, Kerrie’s friend
But although they consider themselves very much a family, the couple don’t cohabit. They cheerfully maintain separate households.
While Ella’s arrival completed their family, it’s highlighted the unintended consequences of the reproductive revolution, where George now finds himself the biological and social father of two young girls – but the legal father of just one.
“That's the underlying assumption – that there's something wrong with what we're doing, and we're just somehow not doing it the right way.” George Deka
As the couple attempt to chart their way through the unprecedented legal territory, Kerrie laments that “we may be the first, but I we won’t be the last. I’m sure of that.”
Australian Story – How I Met My Daughter
Monday March 2, 8pm on ABC