After giving birth to her daughter Leila by an anonymous sperm donor, Aminah Hart set out to track him down. She found him, she fell in love with him and in December 2015, they got married. That’s not all. Aminah and Scotts Andersen’s incredible love story has now been turned into a book called How I Met Your Father and is also set to be made into a film.
At the age of 42, Aminah decided to go through IVF using an anonymous donor, after she tragically lost her two young sons Marlon and Louis (at just 14 weeks and 14 months respectively), due to a genetic disorder called x-linked myotubular myopathy.
She was ‘relieved’ and delighted when she gave birth to baby girl Leila on August 14, 2012, but, as she herself had grown up without a father, she decided she wanted Leila’s dad to play a part in her life. So, she set about tracking him down.
Luckily, Scott had told the fertility clinic that he was willing to meet a child born from his sperm. On August 18, 2013, a year after their daughter was born, Aminah and Scott met for the first time in Melbourne.
“It was much easier than I’d anticipated. I was nervous … I was walking in to meet a complete stranger and I had his genetic child in my arms,” Aminah says.
There was an instant spark and, over the following months, the two gradually fell in love.
In December 2015, they exchanged vows in a ceremony on the beach in front of 130 of their closest friends and family in Sorrento, Victoria.
“It was utterly spectacular overlooking the sea, but it was blowing an absolute gale,” Aminah recalls.
Their daughter Leila was a flower girl, although she initially wasn’t that fussed. ‘She wasn’t interested at first and kept saying “you can’t marry my mum” but she ended up getting caught up in it all and was the most divine little flower girl,’ mum explained.
For advertising executive Aminah, it was a day to cherish after years of struggling to overcome the death of her two young sons. She had travelled to London in her twenties to find her father Tony, only to learn he’d died a couple of years before. She stayed in London for many years, marrying and having a son, Marlon, who sadly died at just 14-weeks-old as the result of a congenital disorder.
Returning to Melbourne after the end of her marriage Aminah had another baby boy, Louis, who tragically died of the same congenital disorder at 14 months. At 42, she bravely decided to give motherhood one last try. Little did she know that an anonymous sperm donor would eventually give her both the large family (Scott also has three boys and a girl) and the happiness she was searching for.
“It really felt like the beginning of something incredibly beautiful. You could see the happiness and pure elation in the room. The band knew how to work and audience and got everyone on to the dance floor – even Scott who is not one to dance” Aminah described her wedding day- even Scot who is not one to dance.”
Source: MetroUK