'We just want him to stop'

Netflix docuseries The Man with 1000 Kids’ explores the case of a sperm donor who was banned from fathering any more children. Two mothers at the centre of the controversy talk to Kevin EG Perry about how their lives were upended

- Kevin EG Perry

In 2010, a Dutch woman named Natalie decided she wanted to have a child. “It’s not easy if you’re a lesbian,” she recalls with a chuckle. “I can’t just go out and have some fun and become pregnant. It takes a little bit of planning.”

After ruling out male friends, Natalie went online and weighed up her options. At first, she considered a donor clinic, but was put off by the Dutch law that prevents donor-conceived children from learning the identity of the donor until they turn 16. “I was afraid there could be an identity crisis lying ahead,” she explains. “That’s something I don’t wish for any child.”

Instead, she turned to a website called Longing for a Child. There, she found dating site-style profiles for a number of potential donors. After an unsuccessful meet-up with a man called Leon, she landed on what she’d been searching for in a good-looking, curly-haired young man called Jonathan Jacob Meijer.

“He was perfect in every way,” remembers Natalie. “The looks were there, the intelligence was there, the way he talked was there. Everything that for me was important, was there.” When they met, they spoke about why Meijer had decided to become a sperm donor, and he said he’d been inspired by a college friend who was infertile. “He told me he wanted to help five families, and that I would be number three,” says Natalie. “That was his story back then.”

With Meijer’s help, Natalie had a son. “The first eight years were perfect,” she says. “There was nothing to worry about.” Then one day, Natalie’s partner Suzanne was enjoying a morning coffee and reading the newspaper when she came across a story about a Dutch sperm donor who had fathered hundreds of children, far more than the 25-child limit imposed by national law. The man matched Meijer’s description. “That’s how we found out that he donated way more children than we ever imagined,” says Suzanne.