To not help my friend- passport fraud

[Ravenblue]

My friend and me are quite close. Two years ago she wanted a new baby and found a sperm donor on a website. This bloke got her pregnant but then he wanted access. She didn't want him to but the courts gave him access and now he has the kid a couple of times a month. My friend is now married and she changed her kids name to her new husbands name. The father has found out and is now going back to the courts. She also got a passport in the new name and the father nows this. The father is now going to the police as he says its passport fraud. I dont believe him as she has the right to change her childs name but it says not in the court order. Its like she cant do anything without his permission. Its not fair on her.
She wants my help in trying to get her out of this but I dont know how and also I don't think shes in the wrong.

AIBU?

Hopefully, the father will also seek full custody. The friend does not appear to be an good mother.

Good grief. Girlfriend is lying to you op.

firstly that’s not how sperm donors work, she’s fallen pregnant to a guy she was seeing, he’s not wanted to be with her, she’s had the baby anyway, so he’s now wishing to be involved as she did proceed and have the child. the woman isn’t being honest with you.

She’s lying through her teeth.

He isn’t a donor, even though it suits her to pretend he was, he is a man she had a brief sexual relationship with, she wanted more, he didn’t, she fell pregnant, he didn’t want the kid or her to have it, she proceeded and now the child is here he is stepping up. The fact he even went to court to get access and on the birth certificate shows the likely hood of him being some weird donor you shagged as incredibly low. Sperm donors provide a cup of semen. They don’t have repeated sex with you till you conceive and have discussions on a relationship.

and no, you can’t just change a kids name, both parents have equal rights, she can no more do it than he can. They are equal parents in thr eyes of the law irrelevant of the custody arrangements.

If he’s on the BC the. She can’t change the child’s surname without his consent. So the passport in another name won’t be possible. She’ll get herself into a world of pain if she carries on like this

I can’t see what on earth you would do to help!

She needs to get legal advice (should have got it before getting the passport really).

It may well be fine - I wouldn’t have thought he had any legal rights in this scenario - but it’s as well to get proper advice.

Maybe she just means help like a listening ear or the suggestion to get legal advice!

Edit - sorry hadn’t read the updates. He’s not a sperm donor he’s a casual relationship. It sounds much less likely to be fine with the updates but advice still stands that she needs legal advice!

I struggle to believe this is true. In two years she has had a baby, met a new man, married him, changed her child's name (something I didn't realise you could do unless you were an adult or an adopted child). Such a busy friend.

Sounds like your friend wants you to pick up the pieces from her incredibly bad decision making.

Two years ago she wanted a new baby and found a sperm donor on a website.

I find this quite disturbing, children are not a commodity.

TBH I'd start limiting contact with this person until the friendship fizzles out.
She sounds absolutely awful, stay away from her drama.

There's nothing you can do. Change of name does need the permission of both people with parental responsibility, she will just need to go through with the court process. A good solicitor may help but ultimately the judge will decide what is in the best interests of the child.

Yeah... Doesn't sound real to me.

I know it sounds unlikely but its unfortunately true. She told me about the sperm donor website but she did want a relationshipwith him and also met his family. Ive been with my husband for 7 years and my friend and I met through a baby group. She does make bad decisions and has told me she lost friends due to a joke she tried to play on the father. She doesn't seem to have many people which is why ive stuck around. She did say that he signed a contract through a website but they the judge ignored it. In the time Ive known her shes had a number of men in her life. I don't agree with it but its her life. She just seems defenceless and she won't listen. I didn't sign the passport form as I knew it was wrong. I try and help people where I can but given the replies on here I didn't realise quite how serious it is. The only issue with the dad is she doesnt like him. she throws away anything the dad gives the kid. Theres sonmuch other stuff shes done but i cant help but feel sorry for her.

So she had a private agreement with a man not an official 'sperm donor' channel as licensed sperm donors have no legal rights to the child.

I have several friends who have gone down the private sourcing route (they wanted to meet and know the person who would be making up half their childs DNA) and too be fair all have the fathers have been involved post birth (several actually 'co-parent', while others just have the donor as a 'family friend' or 'uncle' type relationship who comes along to events like the kids birthday).

Legally she will not be able to take the kid abroad if its been a nasty custody battle. My mother couldn't get me a passport without my deadbeat fathers permission either even though he had one and buggered off on holiday when ever he fancied.

Your friend sounds like an incredibly dim and awful person.

• Met up with a stranger - who could have been absolutely anyone - on an unregulated website and had sex with said stranger, repeatedly, until she was pregnant, then continued to do so. Presumably he was having sex with other women from this website too.

• Decides she wants a relationship with this person, despite him obviously not be interested.

• Lies about the parentage of the child to try and prevent the father from being on the birth certificate, having parental responsibility and access, to the point he has to get a DNA test to prove this.

• Just over a year after the child is born, having apparently had multiple 'relationships' in between, she's now married and decides unilaterally to change the baby's name to her current partner's surname.

And you think the father, in objecting to this, is somehow being fair to her?

She sounds like an absolutely train wreck, and you should take a long look in the mirror if you find yourself agreeing with her in any of this.

There was a documentary about this sort of thing on Netflix. Blokes doing this and travelling around the world, fathering hundreds (one of them was suspected to have fathered over 1000) of children and usually via PIV.

There are these websites where you can sign up to be a voluntary donor. It is sometimes referred as a natural donor. They have sex a few times too get pregnant. Sometimes the husband waits in the living room until wife is done with the donor. Stacey Dooley (i think, or other british journalist) did a doc about this. There is a guy in Netherlands who has hundreds of donations kids. There are groups in reddit, FB etc. Looking donors and looking to donate.

Problem with these is that when you don't go through the official route, the contracts you have are not binding. Like op's friend has found out.

Its very common for people to arrange the own donors, people even arrange their own egg donors (it quite common for women to ask sisters or friends etc...).

You can have IUI with any sperm, its a private procedure. IUI is more common for infertility with couples, it doesn't have to come from official donation channels. They don't force you to prove you are in a relationship (or even care), just that you both willingly consent.

You have traditional donors and surrogates too who have sex to get pregnant but still are donors/surrogates, its been going on long before IVF or anything equivalent existed. It is a far more complex legal world though.

I'd be interested in what his opinion of their original agreement was, if there even was one. Presumably men don't go on these "unofficial" sperm donor websites and then decide that they actually want to parent the potentially hundreds of kids they create.

My guess is, if she did meet him on a site like that, that he wanted to have a child in the same way that she did but not a relationship, and that's what he thought this was going to be going into it. Or, more likely, they were casually dating from some other site like Tinder, she got pregnant either accidentally or on purpose, and she got pissy when he was willing to support his child but didn't want a relationship with her.

He has already taken this to court; she needs to get a lawyer.

She's not defenceless, she's selfish and vindictive.

I know, no worry, my post was in response to @LBFseBrom
I do apologize for derailing your post a little. For what it's worth, I appreciate your friend's quandary - she wanted a child, presumably she couldn't afford a sperm bank, so she used an unofficial way.

I sympathise. She was open about what she wanted and the guy reneged on their agreement. To be fair to him it's possible he didn't realize how he would feel ahead of time.

Your friend most likely knows you can't really do anything. She's probably scared that she's going to have to navigate a relationship with this guy for the next two decades. So... What can you do as a friend ? Well, you can't make the passport thing go away. What she probably wants is a shoulder to cry on and someone to tell her it's gonna be okay.

If she was my friend I'd tell her that, yeah, this isn't what she had in mind when she did this, but this is the current reality and it doesn't have to be awful. If the guy steps up, it may even be a benefit for the child. The best thing she can do now is apologize to the guy about going behind his back, remind him that he isn't white as snow either as he reneged on their agreement, ask for a blank slate and try again. And then do it - try and co parent as well as they can and get along when needed, for the sake of the child. She can't go wrong if she puts the child first.

Your friend is going to lose primary residential custody if she keeps on behaving like this. A good friend will advise her to follow the court order and to coparent effectively. She will probably end the friendship because she doesn’t sound like a person who wants good advice, but you can’t save someone who doesn’t actually want help.

Anory 1st name Jack?

So he wasn’t a sperm donor he was a man she had an on going relationship with to the point she met his family.

She doesn’t get to just erase this man from her child’s life because she’s now met and married someone else.

This child is not an object that she doesn’t want to share, her child is a human being who deserves both parents in their life.

The kid had my friend's name but she changed all the surnames when she got married. The whole thing is a mess and seeing the responses has made me realise quite how bad ut is. She still has feelings for rhe dad and messages him when she drinks. Shes not been a great friend, she's used me before and always asking for money. I'm often left not knowing what to believe. I'm just going to not respond. My husband has complained that she just brings drama.

GRIM!
The father wasn’t a sperm donor - a sperm donor doesn't have sex repeatedly with the potential mother. It sounds like he was someone who wanted a child without the relationship with another woman. She was very very foolish to go down this route. However, that being said, it’s good for the child that he wants to have a relationship with them.
My advice to your friend would be ‘
“the courts have ordered that the father now has PR, your child will likely have a better future with knowing their father (assuming the F is decent) so it would be better to make the most of the situation. Abide by the courts decision and correct the name change”

personally I would cut contact with her, it all sounds messy and unhealthy and I feel sorry for the poor child dragged into this mess.
It also sounds like she’s bitter with the child’s father not wanting a relationship and is punishing him about it all. She essentially dated him if they met families etc. he just sounds like he ended the relationship and she’s annoyed about it.

Your “friend” is a typical example of a bitter woman using her child to harm a man. It’s the only way she has control and it’s damaging to the child.

She’s vindictive and not a nice person.

Based on your last updates, I'm not sure why you're still in touch with her ? Don't stay her friend out of pity. If it doesn't work for you then it doesn't. Frankly, after reading all of your updates, it sounds like she's the cause of a lot of her own problems. I was very sympathetic at first but less and less with each update. Throwing away her child's toys because the dad gave it to them is awful.