LF: Lesbian couple spend £13,000 on mail order Danish semen and fertility treatment so their child will look like a Viking - because British sperm 'doesn't cut the mustard'

Title: Lesbian couple spend £13,000 on mail order Danish semen and fertility treatment so their child will look like a Viking - because British sperm 'doesn't cut the mustard'
Source: Daily Mail Online
URL Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art ... sperm-doesn-t-cut-mustard.html
Published: Mar 31, 2015
Author: Emma Glanfield for MailOnline
Post Date: 2015-03-31 09:16:48 by cranky
Keywords: None
Views: 19065
Comments: 88

A lesbian couple have spent £13,000 having Danish semen and fertility treatment shipped to their British home so their child will look like a Viking.

Kelly and Anna Cooke, both 34, have chosen to buy sperm from Denmark because they want their child to have blonde hair and blue eyes and because British sperm 'doesn't cut the mustard'.

The married couple, from Camberley, Surrey, used Kelly's eggs for the insemination after receiving £300-a-time vials of Danish sperm in the post and later successfully conceived via IVF.

Anna put herself forward to carry the child so that they both had an input into the pregnancy and, after a heart-breaking miscarriage, she is now five months pregnant.

Kelly, a buildings manager, said: 'Danish sperm is the best in the world and such high quality.

'I suppose he would look a bit like a Viking, but we want our son to look like us.'

The pair, who got legally married in February, ordered their Danish semen from Cryos International - the world's largest sperm bank which has a motto of: ‘Congratulations, it’s a Viking’.

However, after inseminating Anna with four vials of Danish sperm, she had still not fallen pregnant so they forked out £5,000 for a round of IVF treatment.

That worked but she miscarried, so they spent another £5,000 on IVF and have so far bought ten vials of Dutch sperm.

Anna is due to give birth on July 23 but the couple want to keep the sex of their fair-haired baby secret for the time being.

Anna, a chef, who dyes her hair brown, said: 'We are just so pleased that after spending £13,000 we finally have a little one on the way.

'It doesn't matter that we have rinsed our savings and scrimped and saved for years to get where we are.'

Her partner added: 'With my eggs and Anna carrying the baby, he or she really is ours and we couldn't be happier.'

CONGRATULATIONS IT'S A VIKING! WHY WOMEN FLOCK ABROAD FOR SPERM

Danish sperm now accounts for a third of the total used by British fertility clinics.

Women from all over the world are choosing to go Scandinavian when they need a sperm donor, with shortages of homegrown sperm and better service cited as the main reasons for doing so.

According to Dr Alan Pacey, a fertility expert at the University of Sheffield, people prefer going abroad because of a lack of British sperm donors.

He said: 'We don't have enough donors in the UK to meet the national need. We don't have the clinic infrastructure sufficient to recruit enough donors - even when men want to donate.

'Often there simply isn't the size and scale within small NHS clinics to consider having a donor recruitment programme - plus if you're not confident that sufficient men are going to ring up and become sperm donors, the economics of it simply aren't going to work.'

Danish clinic Cryos International – which is the world's largest sperm bank – is also popular because of its customer service, according to experts.

Laura Witjens, CEO of the National Gamete Donation Trust, said: 'It's much easier for a British clinic to order sperm from Denmark which is Fed-exed the next day than to try and recruit their own donors and all the hassle that goes with them.

'The Danish model is customer service driven. It knows how to deal well with customers, it has a good website, and that's what we could do in the UK as well - it's not rocket science.'

Choice: Denmark's sperm banks, among them Cryos, deploy excellent customer service to help boost sales

Dr Pacey added: 'Denmark is geographically close to the UK. I think there's some sort of philosophical and intellectual bond that we have with Denmark.'

Most women flocking to Denmark for sperm are lesbians or single women in their 30s and 40s who do not see why a lack of partner should be a barrier to motherhood.

It is only in the past few years that there has been a 'Viking invasion' of Britain, due to changes in the law that banned anonymous sperm donation in Britain, leading to a rapid decline in donors.

A British sperm donor has to be prepared for the fact that any resulting child will have the right to trace them at the age of 18.

However, Danish sperm donors aren't anonymous and the detail given about the donor is extensive, which is part of the attraction.

With a British sperm donor, you get a number and choice of hair colour, while Danish sperm donors offer detail you can imagine including family background, job description, education and pictures of the man as a baby or child.

One expert said: 'Donors write personal messages about why they are a donor. You even get to hear their voice.'

The Cryos clinic has been running for 25 years and boasts 30,000 babies born worldwide. But a Viking baby doesn't come cheap, with Danish sperm bought over the internet and delivered to an address in Britain costing £460.

It's a novel way to continue the Viking legacy. Time was that a Dane had to row across the North Sea and indulge in rape, along with the usual pillaging and burning, in order to "deliver the package" to British girls. But now it can all be done by Royal Mail. Convenient.

One thing hasn't changed: the Brits still pay the Danes who impregnate them, one way or another.

I come by it honestly. I'm part Danish, part Irish. (And being Irish means, inevitably, a second part Danish...the Irish are all involuntary Scandinavians. History...what a bitch). They...er we...(it's so confusing) came to England for the money. They came to Ireland for the redheads. We came to Normandy for both, and ended up getting, well...Normandy, which is to say, a rainy cow pasture. So we learned French and learned how to ride in armor, to use lance and shield, and we went back over to England from Normandy, for the money of course. At least some of us. The wiser half decided that, really, being French is better than being English, and became things like Vicomtes and the like. Turns out those Norman cow pastures produce really, REALLY good cheese and butter, and the orchards produce the world's best cider, and Calvados. It's a shame John Calvin wasn't born about 50 miles west, because then he would have been a Norman instead of a Flamand, and he would have had better things to drink and would have stayed Catholic. (The French Protestants came out of the parts of France that have no red wine. It is not an accident.)

IT is always a temptation to an armed and agile nation to call upon a neighbour and to say:-- "We invaded you last night--we are quite prepared to fight, Unless you pay us cash to go away."

And that is called asking for Dane-geld, and the people who ask it explain, that you've only to pay 'em the Dane-geld and then you'll get rid of the Dane!

It is always a temptation to a rich and lazy nation, to puff and look important and to say:-- "Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you. We will therefore pay you cash to go away."

And that is called paying the Dane-geld; but we've proved it again and again, that if once you have paid him the Dane-geld you never get rid of the Dane.

It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation, for fear they should succumb and go astray; so when you are requested to pay up or be molested, you will find it better policy to say:--

"We never pay any-one Dane-geld, no matter how trifling the cost; for the end of that game is oppression and shame, and the nation that plays it is lost!"

I wouldn't want to delve into my background too deeply. That Sicilian side is sure to have...Arab blood somehow, someway down the line. Sicily has arguably been the most invaded island in history..as evidence by the common incidence of red hair, blue eyes, and darker olive skin. AND, occasional nasty disposition (so I hear ;-)

You know, the Normans got to Sicily too. Created the "Kingdom of the Two Sicilies" and all that.

Going North to South, my peeps come from the Lappland, from Denmark, Holland, Scotland, Ireland, Normandy, Alsace and the Basque country.

Some were Protestant. Some were Catholic. Some milked reindeer. Some rode horses and were lords of the manor. Some ate haggis and other squidgy things. (I actually like haggis, which is odd. I also really, truly like English food, which is blasphemy.) But did they have anything, anything at all in common (other than me, but I didn't exist yet...imagine THAT family reunion!)?

Yes, all of that welter of nations, that range of Gentiles, has one center axle on which it turns, one polestar to which all of those different, foreign-from- each-other eyes eagerly turned:

Maybe it would, eh? Heh! (I'm half Sicilian heritage. Mom side. She was a real b*tch on wheels. Unfortunately for me, those wheels were a BULLDOZER's :-(

You know, the Normans got to Sicily too. Created the "Kingdom of the Two Sicilies" and all that.

Didn't know this particular history. Even YOU guys stormed the island? It would explain the red hair and blues eyes attributes of some Sicilians, wouldn't it? (I'd presume the anger-management problems and passions are the result of Arab/African DNA.)

Going North to South, my peeps come from the Lappland, from Denmark, Holland, Scotland, Ireland, Normandy, Alsace and the Basque country.

That's quite a cocktail of DNA. (Among other traits) It might explain your instinctive sense of dairy use that has caused you to consider commercializing deer milk (which I think is a great idea.)

Ugggh -- haggis?? Was in a small town at a local pub. Was told the "beef pie" was the pub specificity. I feared...that haggi/organ pie. What I got was THE best beef pie ever. Other than that, the rep of English food is deserved. Your heritage -- how far have you been able to trace it?

My family trees are unified by herring. Sild er lykke. (Herring is happiness.)

Lol...distilled down to herring? As is "happiness"?? For a complicated guy you sure can simplify things :-)

If we're going to define our happiness by food and catch, my DNA won't allow me to pin it down to one thing (that's the "curse" of growing mangia-ing on TWO different styles of Eye-talian cuisine.) Right down to their basic meatball and gravy (Sicilian utilizes fennel, more cheese and pork; Naples is beefier, less complicated with a lighter gravy.)

Every year there is a huge convo of Celts from everywhere (with "everywhere" meaning all the Celtic countries: Galicia, France, Wales, Scotland and Ireland). It's in the springtime and called the "Printemps Celt" - the Celtic Spring.

It's a massive music-and-food fest. When I went it was in Paris at the Stade de France, the huge world-cup soccer stadium. There were stages all over the place, and music skreeling around, everything from fiddle to harp to rock-n- roll. Asteryx and Obelisk were over there with a bunch of other guys who all looked like Gregor Clegane throwing rocks around.

It was sort of like St. Patrick's day, with a lot fewer drunks and lot better music. And food.

There was a huge food stand, and the food that day was haggis. You got a big plate of it. I think it came from Auvernge, so it was was French haggis. It looked godawful (or God!...OFFAL!) but it tasted very nice.

Perhaps Scots haggis tastes different from Gaulish haggis. But really there's only so much you can do with stomach and intestines.

My heritage on the Norman French and Dutch side comes pre-traced back about 700 years thanks to nobility. Prominent families tended to marry other prominent families back in the day, so if you happen to be descended from them those filaments of ancestry are essentially matters of public record.

The Dutch came over to Nieu Amsterdam in 1630. Dutch woman married Swedish Dane. Their child comes to America with a huge land grant. It's good to be those people.

The Norman French ones of note, married with Basques, came over to New York in 1677. Unfortunately if I wrote the family name it would be instantly traceable.

The Scottish side has a family name that's terribly recognizable too, but as it was borne by the distaff side three generations ago, it has been submerged by generations of male names. The Stuarts came to Virginia for reasons well known to history. Did a good turn riding horses there too - though ultimately as successful in their profession of Cavalier as they had been in Britain.

So, that's the set that would get me into Slytherin House...if this were the world of Harry Potter.

On the "mudblood" side of the House, we've got two families of Irish, one coming over to Halifax, the other coming from Dungarvan to Quebec in the 1850s. Something about potatoes. Irish boy meets Irish girl in Canada, they take the train down to the US, settle in Midland, Michigan and have 17 children through the late 1800s. 13 of the children live to adulthood. TWO of them, only, have any children of their own.

And then we have the final arrival on these shores: a pair of Alsatians of considerable means. He was a commander of cavalry under Napoleon III. The war for the defense of his homeland did not go well in 1870, and so this Alsatian family found their home passing into the German Empire, while in Paris Napoleon fell and the Commune raged. Finding this situation utterly intolerable, they got on a ship in 1872 and sailed to America. They proceeded at once to an old French provincial city that had been founded by the French back in the 1600s, and that still (at that time) had a distinct French population: Detroit.

Hard to think of Detroit like that, but in 1872 the motorcar hadn't been invented yet, and Michigan weather is pretty grim for farming. Americans largely bypassed Michigan, preferring the easier, and warmer, farming on the plains.

So the French cavalryman and his wife settle in Detroit and purchase some large tracts. They have twodaughters and give them each three houses: a house to live in, eventually, when they are married, and two houses to rent, for income that will belong to them personally, so that they will not be dependent upon a husband's income (and can, therefore, preserve their own independence and dignity, once married). Only one marries, and she marries a Virginia Stuart cavalryman (horse people attract horse people). He converts to her Catholicism and has daughters in Detroit. One daughter marries the son of the Irish folks, and they have daughters. One daughter marries the heir of the Scandinavian/Dutch/Norman lords, and they produce me.

And those are the lines. Nobles and royals are easy to trace far, far back. Commoners are easier to trace in France back to the Revolution, harder to trace in Ireland and the Basque country, harder still in Denmark and Sweden, and impossible in the Lappland.

Of course, we should remember that we all have multiple great grandparents. In fact, if we go back to 1000, about 33 generations ago, we all, every one of us, has about 8.6 billion grandparents, which is more than the population of the world today.

Which means that, at a certain point, everybody is related to everybody else. We're all ultimately descended from one breeding pair, so you're related by blood to everybody in my family tree, and I to yours. We're first cousins, however many times removed. That's Biblical, and its biological.

For me, I find the history of my family to overlay the history of Western Europe, and having them come from the whole Western Fringe, and being on all sides of all fights, allows me to take a neutral perspective "from the blood".

After all, had one side of my ancestry REALLY CLOBBERED the other side, and things not ended up in a series of grinding draws over time, then I wouldn't be here, would I?

To my eyes, the man who boasts excessively of his ancestors is like a potato: all his best parts are underground.

I'll close with the lyrics of an Irish song about the endless Protestant (Orange) and Catholic (Green) troubles in Ireland.

"O it is the biggest mix-up that you have ever seen: My father, he was Orange and me mother, she was Green. Now, my father was an Ulsterman, broad Protestant was he. My mother was a Catholic girl, from County Cork was she. They were married in two churches, lived happily enough, Until the day that I was born - then things got rather tough. ... One day me ma's relations came 'round to visit me, Just as my father's kinfolk were all setting down to tea. We tried to smooth things over, but they all began to fight. And me being strictly neutralized by everyone in sight! ... O it is the biggest mix-up that you have ever seen. My father, he was Orange, and me mother, she was Green."

The Panique Celtique festival sounded cool (I doubt any "Amish" or Arab "yoots" were running around?? ;-)

Yeah, it's still organ meat and god-offal! I'd have to be blindfolded and starving. I think I'd almost rather eat insects (breaded and fried of course.) I have NEVER eaten any organ meat, including liver. Now, on the Naples side when I was a kid, grandma served up a bake, presumably well-seasoned lambs' head. Uncle Petey immediately stabbed an eyeball. NOT appetizing to a little kid.

That you are able to trace your widely disseminated bloodline that far, and with such minute detail and surety is...amazing. Fascinating history, Vic.

I find I'm unable to maintain a neutrality, as most of my political and life views are based on morality and ethics which I believe have no real basis in genetics. Am I wrong? Yours is an interesting perspective, which evokes the following interesting question as to whether our personal ideology IS influenced by our DNA, rather than individually evolved spirit and environment.

at a certain point, everybody is related to everybody else. We're all ultimately descended from one breeding pair, so you're related by blood to everybody in my family tree, and I to yours. We're first cousins, however many times removed. That's Biblical, and its biological.

Well, as one who believes mankind began with Adam and Eve as you do, I also believe the above is indeed the case. Of course there are those who can't quite fathom that God the Almighty was capable of creating a "first family" out of disparate physical traits.

We are each a unique spirit. Spirit is the word "Breath". We are each a breath, breathed out by God into a vessel of flesh. The unity of spirit and body is a "soul". We ARE spirits, we HAVE bodies (and when we have them, we are souls).

God knew us before he placed us in bodies, and he shaped us individually. THEREFORE, there are aspects of us that are inborn but that do not come from our DNA or our bodies, because they came in the form of spirit, breathed out by God, and contain what God wished to breathe out.

God makes people of very different characters and temperaments. He then places them in bodies that will experience various influences, challenges and problems. Some will go back to him swiftly, having been only briefly dipped in flesh before dying, even in the womb (even as the result of their mother's murdering them in an abortion). These spirits never had the opportunity to sully themselves with personal sin, and are likely to proceed directly to Gan Eden and have very high places. God slated them for a swift death but a longer and higher afterlife - the last shall be first, and the first shall be last.

I'm not at all neutral about morality. What I AM neutral about is ethnic chauvinism and socio-economic snobbery. Let me elaborate.

I have a bunch of ethnic nationalities in my background, and having travelled much, I have seen much of the world. I've seen many places where I am related by blood, and I've been many more where I am not related in any way of which I am aware, other than through Noah and Adam.

What I have seen in common is that all places have flags and national songs and national dress, and everybody is proud of them. I find the national songs to generally be similar. There are a few that have noticeably interesting tunes, but very few really stand out from the rest. The Marseillaise, I think, is particularly stirring because the beat is more urgent. Flags are flags. People have affection for theirs, they are symbols of culture and history. I like culture and history. But when things start to tip over into "Thou shall not insult the flag", what that MEANS, politically, is "Thou shall not question any important aspect of the national history." I find this stupid, and a virtual guarantee that a country will become sclerotic and self-defeating.

I have watched with interest what has happened in Thailand. Now, I have no blood tie or economic tie or any other tie with Thailand. I visited once, when I was in the Navy. Nice country. Most I've visited are. Beyond that, I have no emotional attachment. I observe that Thailand has a set of strict laws against insulting the monarch, insulting the royal family. And I have watched how, in a turbulent political situation where things are going poorly for the country, political opponents arrest and prosecute each other constantly for "insults to the Crown". Essentially, anything that questions policy, direction or history is an "insult to the Crown", because it questions some decision that "the Crown" made in the past. This is a perfect way to be sure that nobody can effectively change anything. The net result is "conservatism", of the most self- defeating basis: EVERYTHING is conserved, nothing can be challenged, so you have an hereditary monarchy, corrupt government, lousy controls, and the inability to fix anything. And things slide towards disorder, coups d'état, violence and mayhem.

The American Founders were smart to sharply limit treason. In every age in America people have always been eager to accuse their political opponents of "treason", but the Constitutional standard is so narrow and rigid that hardly anybody is ever able to make it stick. That works out to be a good thing: it preserves political freedom to suggest changes and to work for them against opposition.

So flags and music, national dress, culture and food: these things are colorful, and I appreciate the variances, but I don't look at ANY of these things that people hold so dear and see any as having any MORAL content. A flag is a flag, a song is a song, a dress is a dress and a foodstuff is a foodstuff. Everybody likes their own. That's great. But it's not a moral issue, any more than the Tigers beating the Yankees, or vice versa, is a moral issue. It's teamsmanship.

I've found that more diverse and more travelled people are, the less susceptible they are to having their moral sense of right and wrong bent away from truth by national sense, or by excessive devotion to a flag, a song, a cultural feature.

There's a famous saying by an American leader, I believe it was Stephen Decatur, who said "My country, may she always be right, but my country, right or wrong." I categorically reject this sentiment. I say right or wrong matters more than country. When the country is wrong, if it is a minor thing, one may grumble and tolerate it, but one does not defend it. When the country is really wrong on something immoral and outrageous, one may very well have the moral duty, to God, to work against the country.

Being a "Good German" in 1943 could very well land a man in Gehenna and the Lake of Fire.

I would say, all things consider, that the proper order of priority of concerns is God, Family, Friends, Country...in that order.

Which means that I place priority on Spirit, followed by blood, followed by personal obligation, with geographical affiliation taking up the rear.

Arch-nationalists correctly say that internationalists do not share their intense devotion to a particular country. That is true. Internationalists don't have the same intense devotion to a particular country because they know better. All countries have some nice features, and all countries have some appalling features, because people are people, and everywhere, people make moral compromises.

Some places are worse than others, from my perspective. Places that share my moral view of the world, which is to say, places where most people have my religion, tend to be the easiest places for me to be comfortable. This isn't nationalism or chauvinism, it is matters of right and wrong. Places where the religion is particular violent, notably Muslim places, are particularly bad, from my perspective, because they too are focused on moral issues, but they have immoral answers. So, they passionately advocate for evil things. That's the worst. Places with very lax personal morals, such as Thailand, are no more impressive from a moral standpoint than places of wrongheaded religious zealotry, but the lack of belief in anything, or casual immorality, is less offensive to ME PERSONALLY than violent-in-your-face wrongness. God may equate the two, but I'm not God, and I find the peaceably immoral to be easier to take than the militantly moral whose morals are off kilter. Widespread fornication is not good, but it's better than beheadings.

So, to return to your question. I am not neutral on moral issues. I place moral concerns above nation, and THAT may be the TRUE legacy of varied DNA: I don't value any piece of it as much as "purebreds" value theirs.

Example: the Hitlerian and Eugenics mindset was that people are divided between "Pure" and "Mongrel".

I've had brains, eyes, ears, tongue, crops and thyroids, lungs, heart, liver, kidneys, pancreas, testicles, ovaries and intestines. Also blood. And tail.

I have braised kidneys every week. Andouillette, which is tripe sausage, is really good.