A father’s gift

Going solo: Katie Elfar with her sons Oscar, 5, and Beau, who was born in February, three years after his father, Karim, died of cancer. Photo: Edwina Pickles

When Katie Elfar's partner Karim was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2009, she was devastated. Not only did she have to confront the loss of her partner but the couple's first child, Oscar, was just two weeks old. Her dreams for the future - a large, happy, rowdy family - were shattered.

But before doctors began aggressive treatment on Karim's cancer, the couple attended an in-vitro fertilisation clinic in Sydney. The couple had decided to conceive a second baby with Karim's frozen sperm.

IVF technology, which was first used successfully in the late 1970s, is not just for couples struggling with infertility. As long as a man consents, Australian law recognises a woman's right to have her dead partner's baby.

"I knew with all the treatment he wasn't going to be able to conceive naturally, even if he survived," says Katie. "He was happy because he knew what our plans were. [The first time] I fell pregnant naturally within a minute. So I thought it would be easy."

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It wasn't. Seven months after her partner's diagnosis, Katie began fertility treatment. As she underwent cycle after cycle, 50-year-old Karim grew sicker. In February 2010, when he was given just two weeks to live, the couple married in a small ceremony in their courtyard.

Karim's cancer spread from his kidneys to his lymph nodes, then attacked his bones and bone marrow. Oscar learnt to crawl in the chemotherapy ward. Meanwhile, Katie's IVF treatment kept failing.

"Karim was very supportive, but he was in hospital all the time," says Katie, who works as a real estate administrator in North Sydney. "He wanted a family, but that wasn't his priority any more. He just wanted to get better, so I was doing the fertility treatment by myself."

A few weeks after Karim passed away in November that year, Katie discovered she was pregnant. Amid the grief, the new life gave her hope. But, tragically, the baby was born prematurely, at 23 weeks. Katie called him Karim. He lived for three hours and was buried with his father.

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A father's gift