TVScope: Marion Kerr reviews One Life - I'm the Daddy BBC1, 11.10pm, Wednesday, May 17th
Let me start by telling you that this edition of One Life resulted in me having vivid dreams about eggs.
But what, I hear you ask, have eggs got to do with the programme? Well, as it turned out, everything really.
One Life told the story of Ian Mucklejohn, now aged 59, who became the first British man to have a biological family on his own. Using his own sperm, eggs from a donor and a surrogate womb, he became father to triplets Ian (jrn), Lars and Piers. They are now five years old and the programme followed them as they travelled to America to meet their biological and surrogate mothers for the first time.
In preparation for this meeting, Ian repeatedly told the boys the unemotional facts of life, ie an egg mixed with some seed produces a baby. In fact, eggs were mentioned so often that, halfway through the episode, I had to check if I had inadvertently tuned into a culinary programme.
Ian gave a sketchy account of his motivation for creating a family in this way. At 53, a single man and only child, he found himself caring for his disabled, elderly father following the death of his beloved mother. The thought of ending his days alone prompted him to explore the option of having a family, but without the messy emotional ties associated with actually having a relationship with the child's mother. So, using an agency in the US, he found a woman willing to sell him some eggs - no strings attached.
According to Ian, he chose 25-year-old Melissa for her intelligence, kindness and blonde looks. Next he had to find a surrogate willing to carry the fertilised eggs. Tina agreed to have four fertilised eggs implanted in the hope that one would make it. Against the odds, three survived and were carried to term. At a cost of almost £50,000, the triplets were delivered in 2001.
The creation of a family in such a sterile and emotionally detached way gave the whole story the air of an experiment. Ian said he sees no need for a mother except as someone who will donate genetic material - and, of course, her photograph will come in handy when the boys are teenagers and they want to make their friends jealous by showing what a glamorous mother they have!
In a stiff-upper-lip school-masterly sort of way, Ian came across as coldly affectionate towards his children. Suffice to say I've actually seen pet-lovers lavish more warmth on their dogs. These three boys are being reared in a home where the rules specify they may access only certain rooms. They are not allowed to touch the walls or windows, and running in the house is prohibited. Admittance to their father's bedroom is by invitation only; the living room, adorned with a 1959 Georgian blue Cadillac and designer furniture, is off-limits.
The treasures stored up in these precious rooms will be for the boys in the future - provided of course that they stay on good terms with their father. Now there's unconditional love for you.
The boys' visit to see their biological and surrogate mothers left this viewer feeling cold. "Say hello to your mother, boys," Ian prattled, as the poor kids looked on, dazed and confused. At another point in the programme, the triplets were brought to the fertility clinic to see the examination couch used when they were implanted into Tina's womb. And if that was inappropriate, how about the next scene when they were introduced to their prospective siblings in the form of fertilised eggs kept in cold storage?
Ian's bizarre suggestion that, should the boys have difficulty fathering children of their own, the eggs could be implanted into their wives' womb - allowing them become the surrogate father of their own siblings - was even more surreal. No wonder the programme gave me nightmares.
Marion Kerr is an occupational therapist and freelance writer.