Four summers ago, 29-year-old Li Xueke decided to fulfill her wish to be a mother before she turned 30.
At that time, she experienced several emotions that ended in nothing, found it difficult to devote herself to her feelings, and didn’t want to get married in order to have children, and gradually had the idea of having children.
In the autumn of 2018, Li Xueke visited Thailand for three months and then selected a medical institution for IVF through an intermediary. Then, she took an ovulation needle and eggs, selected an Englishman’s sperm, implanted three embryos at one time, and all of them were successfully implanted. Since then, she has given more than 140 injections of progesterone in order to protect the fetus.
But all this, she secretly, dare not tell anyone. After Li Xueke returned to China, she tried out her mother’s views on IVF. The other party was worried about gossip and thought it was too hard to take care of the children alone, so she resolutely opposed it. So, she hid the fact that she was pregnant from her mother, and then went to Zhuzhou, Hunan Province, which is more than 900 kilometers away from her hometown of Heze, Shandong Province, on the grounds of work.
In July, 2019, Li Xueke gave birth to triplets by caesarean section in a hospital in Zhuzhou City. One was three catties and six taels, one was three catties and seven taels, and the other was three catties and two taels.
Mother Li Miaodan said that she usually talks about everything with her daughter. I didn’t expect her daughter to know that she was pregnant and had children when she was about to give birth. She felt both heartache and guilt. As a single mother, she knows the hardships of women raising children alone.
Li Miaodan and his daughter Li Xueke. The pictures in this article are all provided by the respondents.
In 1992, Li Miaodan divorced her husband, and three-year-old Li Xueke began to live with her mother. Li Miaodan remembers that when her daughter was a child, she was introverted and stubborn, and wanted a complete home. She often sang "Dad has a home, Mom has a home, and I am left alone …" Every time she heard this song, Li Miaodan couldn’t help crying.
Li Miaodan worked as a worker. After leaving the factory, she sold clothes and opened a barber shop. Almost alone, she raised her daughter.
Li Xueke remembers that several times, when her mother ran out of money, she called her father for living expenses. The next day, the other party’s phone was turned off. When she was in the fourth grade, she went to her father’s house for a year, when he had remarried. Once, she was doing her homework in the room late, and her father came into the room, thinking that she had been playing, and slapped her indiscriminately. She soon moved out of her father’s house and never went back.
Li Xueke said that she had cried several times and told her father to sever the relationship between father and daughter.
In order to take care of her daughter, Li Miaodan has never remarried since then. When Li Xueke was four years old, Li Miaodan sent her to learn dance. At first, Li Xueke was too timid to jump and didn’t learn well. Later, she gradually became cheerful and danced better and better.
When Li Xueke was in the sixth grade, he was 1.69 meters tall. On one occasion, Li Miaodan saw a model contest held in Heze City, signed up her daughter and wanted her to exercise. At that time, Li Xueke passed the audition, preliminary contest and semi-final, and finally did not enter the final. But it was this experience that brought her into the modeling industry. Since then, Li Xueke has participated in model competitions for many times, and went to many places alone, and won many awards.
In 2006, Li Xueke participated in the Shanghai Model Contest and won the championship.
Li Miaodan said that she didn’t have the time and financial conditions to accompany her daughter to participate in the competition in other places, so she exercised her independence.
After graduating from junior high school, Li Xueke chose a modeling high school in Qingdao, but when she graduated from high school, she didn’t get into the ideal university and gave up other schools.
That year, Li Xueke was 17 years old. After working in Jinan for half a year, he went to Shanghai alone.
She works as a model in Shanghai and earns 20 thousand yuan a month. In 2008, Wenchuan earthquake, many model competitions and exhibitions were cancelled. Having nothing to do, Li Xueke returned to Heze City and decided to hold a summer vacation model training class in his hometown.
She rented a venue and ran outside in the scorching sun to distribute leaflets everywhere.
Li Xueke still remembers that the night before the class started, she cried nervously all night. On the first day, only one student came, on the second day, three students came, and on the third day, five students came … Later, more and more students signed up. Throughout the summer vacation, Li Xueke sang and danced, and had classes for eight hours every day.
That autumn, in order to support her daughter’s career, Li Miaodan sold the only real estate in her family and turned the model training class into a model training school.
In 2013, Li Xueke began to be a Wechat business. After that, she partnered with others to do business and realized the freedom of wealth.
In the meantime, she talked about several boyfriends, and every time she thought she would marry and have children with each other, but she was disappointed every time. Li Xueke said that the last time she fell in love was four years ago, and they broke up in discord. Since then, she plans to "find a suitable person to marry at the age of 30, and try to have a baby alone."
"I just want to have children of my own," Li Xueke said. She was worried that it would be difficult to have children when she was old, so she set a time limit for herself.
After the baby was born, Li Xueke fell into postpartum depression for a period of time. She felt like a feeding machine. Every day, three children cried and scrambled to climb on top of her to feed. Sometimes, as soon as she hugged her little daughter, her two brothers became angry again and cried relentlessly. In addition, seeing the scar left by caesarean section also made her feel anxious and panic. Li Xueke said that in order to get rid of the scar, she had been treated for five times, each time with more than a dozen stitches, which penetrated the whole scar, but the effect was not obvious.
Later, she gradually accepted all this, including taking care of three children, being both a mother and a father.
She felt that as long as she saw these three little faces, everything was worth it.
Li Xueke and her three children.
The following is a dialogue between The Paper reporter and Li Xueke:
test tube baby
The Paper:Why do you want to be a test-tube baby?
Li Xueke:Before, every time I fell in love with someone, I wanted to marry and have children with them. After several conversations, I found that this is not the life I want. They want to find a well-behaved woman who can go to work, get off work and take care of the children at home, and I want to make my own career. Especially in the last relationship, the other person is very controlling and energetic, and I have to be with him 24 hours a day. This life is simply a hell on earth. I lived a simple life, and I was used to living with my mother. Later, I didn’t think it was necessary to form a family, facing my parents-in-law, the other family … I didn’t like this life. I have always liked children, and I hope to have children before I am 30. In 2018, I was 29 years old and decided to be a test-tube baby. In fact, before this, I thought that IVF was a child growing up in a test tube, and then I gradually understood what it was like.
The Paper:Have any friends around you ever done IVF?
Li Xueke:No. Heze is a small city. I haven’t heard of anyone who is a test-tube baby around me, let alone a single woman like me.
The Paper:Did you tell your mother to make a test tube?
Li Xueke:I was afraid to tell my mother at first. Later, after I transplanted the embryo, I was pregnant. I told her that I was not going to get married in my life and wanted to be a test-tube baby and have a child of my own. My mother can understand that I don’t get married, because she is also a failure in marriage, and many friends around her are divorced, but she can’t accept that I have children without marriage. She thinks it is too hard for a woman to raise children, and there are many rumors, especially in our small city. I remember that her attitude was firm and her reaction was fierce, which scared me from going on.
Li Xueke’s photo during pregnancy.
The Paper:When did she know that you were pregnant and had a baby?
Li Xueke:I gave birth to the baby, and it was almost the month before I sent my mother photos and videos of the baby and told her that I had a baby. In fact, in the first three months of pregnancy, I lived with my mother in Shandong, and she didn’t find out I was pregnant. Later, I went to Hunan for work and chose to stay there until the baby was born. Usually, my mother and I talk about everything like friends and sisters. I was afraid that she was worried, so I chose not to tell her. Later, my mother told this story to a friend, saying that she was very sorry that she was not with me at that time, and she cried … After I knew it, I felt very selfish.
The Paper:When children were born, what was your first feeling when you saw them?
Li Xueke:It’s so ugly, my first reaction is, is this my child? The doctors hugged me one by one, and the more I watched it, the more I collapsed. How ugly it was! I suspected that the transplant was wrong at that time, because they didn’t look like mixed-race babies either, and I called to ask. However, the longer the child grew, the better it looked.
Gossip
The Paper:You’re not married. How did you become a test-tube baby?
Li Xueke:At that time, single women were not allowed to do IVF in China, and only couples could do it if they had a marriage certificate. So I later went to Thailand to make IVF.
(Editor’s Note: The Technical Specification for Human Assisted Reproduction formulated by the former Ministry of Health in 2001 and revised in 2003 stipulates that "it is forbidden to implement human assisted reproductive technology to couples and single women who do not meet the national population and family planning laws and regulations." In recent years, there have been voices in the society to liberalize assisted reproductive technology and protect the reproductive rights of single women. )
The Paper:We understand that Thai law stipulates that you can only go to the hospital for IVF if you have a marriage certificate. Have you met any similar requirements?
Li Xueke:I don’t know. The agent I went to at that time only took my ID card and passport, and they took me to a Thai hospital to go through the formalities.
The Paper:Can you tell me something about your past experience?
Li Xueke:They took me there and signed some papers, but they were all in English, and I couldn’t understand them. Then I had an ovulation needle and ovulated … I went to Thailand three times, the first time to get eggs, the second time to transplant, and the third time after the transplant failed.
The Paper:Can a single woman apply for a medical certificate of birth after she is pregnant? Did the children have any difficulty in going to the house?
Li Xueke:I remember, at that time, the hospital also asked about the child’s father, but it didn’t matter. You can go through these procedures directly with your ID card and household registration book. My mother went to the household for the children, and the household registration police also asked these questions, and then they went to the children smoothly.
The Paper:Why do you want to have three children?
Li Xueke:I don’t want to have three, but two at most. Because the first transplant didn’t succeed, the doctor suggested another one for the second time, so the chances of success were greater. I didn’t expect all the triplets to succeed. After that, the doctor also advised me to have a baby reduction, but I didn’t want to give up any life and insisted on giving birth to all three children.
The Paper:Why do you choose foreigners’ sperm? Are you worried about gossip?
Li Xueke:My career is quite successful, but in Heze, a small city, everyone doesn’t think I got it by hard work. They said that I was so beautiful that I must have been kept by someone. This kind of gossip has never stopped. I was worried that if I chose to have a baby in China, they would think that I was someone else’s mistress and secretly gave birth to an illegitimate child. So I decided to choose foreign sperm. Another reason is that I especially like mixed-race babies, which I think is very beautiful.
Will give children enough love.
The Paper:Why do you want to make this public?
Li Xueke:At first, I had a struggle and worry inside, so I didn’t dare to say this, or even go to a strange city to have a baby alone. When the child was full moon, I made a circle of friends and found that many people envied me and thought that I had lived the life that many women wanted to live. Later, I thought that since I had done it, I couldn’t hide it. As a mother, if I can’t face this matter, how can I let my children face it? So, I decided to go public.
Li Xueke took photos with her children during confinement.
The Paper:Did you think that making this public would cause public controversy?
Li Xueke:I knew my article would be controversial when it was published, but I didn’t expect such a big reaction. At present, it is rare for single women to be IVF in China. It impacts some people’s family values, some people question it, but others support it.
The Paper:Who do you think is supporting you? Who are the people who question and oppose you?
Li Xueke:Most people who oppose me are men, most women support me, and some women envy me. They envy me for my freedom, economic independence, having my own children, not being angry with the other half, not arguing, and having my own career.
The Paper:Parents’ roles are different, and the love they give their children is different. Are you worried that their children lack fatherly love?
Li Xueke:I was raised by my mother alone. My mother gave me enough love, and I didn’t feel any different from others. Instead, it gave me greater motivation and made me strong and independent. So I think it doesn’t matter much whether they have a father or not as long as they are given enough love to grow up in a loving environment. Many people get married just to have children, and there is not much affection between parents in order to carry on the family line. My children, except for having no father, I will try my best to satisfy them, whether economically or emotionally.
The Paper:If the children are older, they ask who the father is and where the father is. What do you say?
Li Xueke:I will tell them the truth and tell them how their mother made the decision and how they came into this world.
Have the ability and confidence to raise children.
The Paper:You want to be a mother and a father at the same time. Which part of your role is more or better?
Li Xueke:My children have no father, so I have to earn money to support my family and take care of several children at the same time. My personality is more like my father’s. I am strict and do things in a hurry, but I feel that I take on the role of my mother more.
The Paper:What do you think is the difference between being a mother and being a mother?
Li Xueke:My previous life was very free and chic, running around the world. Now, when I go out for two days, I will miss my children, and I can’t travel for more than three days. But I often feel that happiness is bursting, although there are also times when there is a chicken feather.
The Paper:You often take videos for your children and post them on the internet. Are you worried about the influence on them?
Li Xueke:At the beginning, I wanted to record some wonderful lives with my babies, so I brought them into a short video. I feel that I didn’t hurt anyone, and what I did was not a shameful thing, so I am willing to take it to the public platform. Of course, if they grow up and have their own ideas and don’t want to shoot, I will respect their wishes.
The Paper:How much does it cost for three babies a month?
Li Xueke:The expenses of three babies, plus my living expenses, buying clothes and shopping will cost about 100 thousand yuan a month. The cost of three aunts is 20 thousand, plus our usual food and clothing, the living expenses are about 10 thousand; In addition, there are baby milk powder, nutrition, diapers and toys to help them enroll in early education classes. I don’t have a detailed calculation, I just calculate how much it will cost in the next year. They will go to kindergarten next year. At present, I have visited a private kindergarten in Hangzhou. The tuition fee is 283,000 yuan, about 350,000 yuan for one child and more than 1 million yuan for three children.
The Paper:Do you have any worries about the future? For example, what if there is no such economic income?
Li Xueke:The future of every family is uncertain. I think I can still support them as long as I work hard and keep pace with the times. Even in the worst case, if I can’t make money in the future, it should not be a problem to support the three of them to adulthood with existing assets, so I have the confidence to have three children.
Marriage is a piece of paper.
The Paper:Will you still get married if you meet the right person in the future?
Li Xueke:I won’t get married, but I may fall in love, because I think marriage is just a piece of paper, and it will also involve many legal problems.
The Paper:Do you not believe in love, or are you worried that marriage will affect your children?
Li Xueke:I don’t think it’s necessary to get married. You can live with me and go on like this. There’s no need to get that piece of paper. Even if you get married and your relationship breaks down, you will still get divorced, so why do you have to ask for that piece of paper? In addition, I am worried that my career is very successful and the other party will divide my property. What do you think marriage can guarantee?
The Paper:It can give children a sense of security and make them have a complete home?
Li Xueke:I will give my children enough love, emotional and material security to make them feel safe.
The Paper:Are you worried that your behavior will affect your child’s view of marriage and love?
Li Xueke:Not worried. I won’t interfere with children’s love and marriage. They can get married if they want, and they can’t get married if they don’t want. Just live their own lives.
The Paper:What are your plans for your children’s future?
Li Xueke:There is no long-term planning. My children, I will support whatever they want to learn; To what extent, they can only rely on themselves. I don’t ask them to score many points or rank in the exam, and they will all become talents in the future. I will be very happy if they can get into the university, and I won’t force them if they can’t. I didn’t get very good grades since I was a child. Although I got good grades in junior high school, I didn’t go to college either. I don’t quite understand that some parents pin their hopes on their children and ask them to realize their dreams.
A single woman decided to have a baby in vitro poster design: Wang Yu