The Donor

Chapter 1

Camila's POV.

Something that I had always feared was my child crying themselves to sleep and I never knowing. Every parent would fear this happening. It's a parent's duty to protect their child, to know how they're feeling and to fix them when they're sad. If you don't know that they're sad, how are you supposed to help them? It turns out that my 4-year old daughter had been crying herself to sleep for the past couple of nights unbeknownst to me.

When I found out I was pregnant, my best friend Dinah and I moved into a fairly average apartment in New York, paid for initially by my father and, almost 5 years on, we are still repaying him in a small instalments. The both of us work at a local café with alternate shifts so there is always someone to look after the little ones. You see, Dinah moved in with me for moral support and to help look after my daughter.
But before my daughter Emelia was even born, Dinah also fell pregnant. It's now just the four of us. Dinah, her daughter Khiara, Emelia and I. And it's kind of perfect. With our shift patterns, our incomes as well as financial support from Khiara's father, and a babysitter whenever one is required, we care for our daughters very well. Or so I thought.

Dinah normally has the night shift at the café and it's just the girls and I for most evenings which we love, even if we do miss Dinah. The youngest girls treat each other like sisters, like Dinah and I do, and the bond between us all is incredible. Tonight however, Dinah had pulled a sickie. She wasn't actually sick, she just didn't want to miss our Disney Movie marathon. Khiara's father also came over to watch the movies. He tried to see his daughter as much as he could but with his other family, they didn't spend as much time together as each would like. The truth is, Jonathon, Khiara's father, loves her to bits. He and Dinah were only a one-time thing, and despite the pregnancy, a relationship would never work. Jonathon already had a girlfriend and a son. Dinah, of course, was pissed at his revelation but she was always going to go through with the pregnancy. Even though Jonathon couldn't spend too much time with daughter, he did try, and he supported both Khiara and Emelia with child support – he really was a great father. It rolled around to the girls' bedtime and we put them both to sleep, each into their own beds which are placed alongside each other in their little pink and yellow room.

Initially, the girls went down fine, like every night. Emelia was always a little quiet when Jonathon had been over though. He did the typical 'Dad' things. He played with the girls, made stupid jokes, did everything he could to make them smile and he always bought them new toys. He did this with both girls but ultimately, he was Khiara's father, not Emelia's, and both girls understood this so Khiara always got more alone time with her daddy.

Emelia had never asked her about her father so I never felt the need to explain the situation. It wasn't a dramatic story where her father had left more or something terrible had happened which led to my pregnancy. Starting a family was the only thing I desired. I had no real aspirations at school to start an incredible career, I just wanted to enjoy life, and that started with having a baby. At 23 I decided that a child was the only thing that would make me happy but I was single and I am a lesbian so my options were kind of limited.

Dinah helped me look through profiles of sperm donations but I never wanted it to be an arduous process. When you meet someone and fall in love, you don't sit there and think about their medical history or the colour of their eyes to decide whether you want to have a baby with them. I never understood why people saw that to be the case for sperm donation. My daughter was going to be perfect no matter who she shared DNA with. One of the first profiles I looked at had very little information about them: brown hair, green eyes, Cuban-American and no hereditary illnesses found in the family.

So I just went with it. Other than Dinah, nobody knew of my plans. Once I was inseminated and the five pregnancy tests I had taken showed to be positive, I told my family and they were less than happy about it but once they had overcome the shock, my parents were happy to be grandparents and my little sister was happy to become an Aunt.