A Chinese online influencer and cosmetics brand CEO has intrigued his 9 million followers on Douyin with his decision to have four children using sperm purchased from the United States.
Ye Haiyan, 36, was born into a working-class family in northeast China’s Jilin Province. At the age of 22, she founded DC Expert, a Shenzhen-based cosmetics company.
After setting up his own factory in 2015, this single, successful entrepreneur asked himself: “What’s the point of working hard and making money?”
Her answer was to have a child, but instead of going down the usual route of getting married and conceiving, Ye decided to buy “high-quality” sperm from a bank in the United States.
She picked what she thought was the best because it belonged to a mixed race man with an Ivy League degree and who was healthy and physically fit.
Ye said she spent 500,000 yuan ($69,000) to give birth to her first child, a daughter called Doris, in the United States in 2017.
She went to Russia in 2021 and underwent IVF again using the same man’s sperm, giving birth to her second daughter, Hattie, in 2022.
On June 20, Ye announced on her Douyin account that she had given birth to twin sons, Owen and Olsen, again using the same man’s sperm.
She said she is very happy to have a son and daughter, who she said are everything she dreamed of when she was a teenager and worried about her future.
Ye faced many questions and doubts when she gave birth to Doris, but now that she is a mother of four, she has found more support.
Many said she was a “role model” to them, with one saying: “She has a daughter and a son, money, no husband and no nagging mother-in-law. She’s very happy.”
China has been relaxing its birth registration policies since last year.
The southwestern province of Sichuan formally announced new rules in February last year, allowing children born out of wedlock to be registered on one parent’s household register. Family register.
In China, Family registermeaning permanent residence permit means you can receive basic social security benefits, including education and healthcare.
Single people in other states also posted online that they had registered their babies.
Chinese law does not allow single women to use sperm banks in the country, so some buy sperm from overseas.
In the video, Ye said she doesn’t want to get married because society believes children need a father, but rather that she can be both a mother and a father to her children. “I can be my children’s hero,” she said.
When asked why she chose to have four children, Ye said: “People say that the more children you have, the less love you have for each one, but my love for my children has only doubled.”
She said her mother gave her full support when she decided to raise her child alone.
