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Australian Story: Mar 2

Australian Story presents another mix of donor recipients, romance and the changing conventions of family life.

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On Monday Australian Story presents another mix of IVF, donor recipients, romance and the changing conventions of family life.

How I Met My Daughter is a snapshot of a modern Australian family so unique and 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.

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.

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.”

8pm Monday ABC.

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