I suddenly realised that it’s not fair on a child to do this all on my own
having a child – I just don’t feel like time is on my side.’
She adds: ‘I wouldn’t want to rush a relationship for the sake of having a baby, and I know health risks for the child and the mother can get more complicated as the mother gets older.’
Sarah, 38, feels the same pressures.
‘I wanted to meet somebody and fall in love… but it hasn’t happened,’ she says. ‘I’m very aware that I’m running out of time.’
While would-be parents can go it alone with sperm donation (see box) surrogacy or adoption, co-parenting offers the support of a partnership, which was the attraction for Trinity, 39, from Essex who turned to co-parenting after seven years without a partner, and having lost both her parents.
‘I’m 40 this year,’ she says. ‘Two or three years ago I started looking at sperm donation and then I got sick with pneumonia, and I suddenly realised it’s not fair on a child to do this on my own, there needs to be someone else that can support me.’
Co-parents decide exactly how their arrangement will work. Some might move in together, especially in the early days, while others will share custody, much as divorced parents might, with a child splitting their time between two homes. And with the parents of an estimated one in four children in the UK living apart, any babies born as a result of co-parenting are hardly going to be unusual.
‘For some people it may work beautifully but my legal firm has to deal with the fallouts from these scenarios all the time,’ says specialist divorce lawyer Vanessa Lloyd Platt.
‘My very strong recommendation is if you are going to co-parent, draw up a deed of agreement between you where both parties agree what you are going to do. When the relationship breaks down – which often it does – and there’s nothing in writing about when you’re supposed to see the child or what payments you are supposed to make, it becomes the subject of potential litigation.’
Despite potential minefields to overcome, men too feel their dreams of parenthood need help. Nigel, 47, who also features on the C4 show says: ‘One of my goals in life is to be a father but I can’t just sit around forever, saying “Oh well, it will happen one day.” You’ve got to go out and look for what you want.’
Strangers Making Babies is on All4