William Marotta provided the sperm. "After meeting with them, and then going home and talking about it with my wife, do we want to go ahead and do this? We decided yes," Marotta says.
Jennifer Schreiner and Angela Bauer were going to provide everything else.
"We were ecstatic," Bauer says. "It was something we both wanted and we prayed a lot about,"
But this lesbian couple's plan to birth and raise a baby together didn't turn out the way they or Marotta had hoped.
"Jennifer and I went into this as, this is our child," Bauer says. "William just happened to be the other half of her DNA."
It turns out that do-it-yourself insemination may be cheaper and quicker than going to a fertility clinic, but state law says if a doctor isn't involved then the sperm donor is still considered the father and legally responsible for the child. That's even though Marotta signed away all parental rights.
"My first thought is that no good deed goes unpunished," Marotta says.
Marotta says he refused to take any money for donating the sperm.
When Bauer and Schreiner--who also have seven adopted children--broke up, Schreiner, who gave birth, couldn't afford to support the baby girl. She went to the state for assistance. The state then went after Marotta for six thousand dollars in child support.
Marotta is fighting it in court, and says he can't believe this happening.
"I was totally unaware this kind of thing would even be possible," Marotta says.
A hearing is slated for next week on Marotta's request to have the state's case thrown out.
