'We met online to have a baby.'

Dawn Pieke ended a long term relationship at age 40 when her boyfriend cheated on her.

Her baby dream seemed to be dissolving as she didn’t like the idea of an anonymous sperm donor (she wanted  dad in her baby’s life); and time was running out.

Then Dawn discovered a Facebook group set up to connect men and women who want to have children, but unlike dating sites, romantic love isn’t the name of the game.

Through Facebook, Dawn met Australian Fabian Blue, a gay man desperately keen to raise a child. He told Buzzfeed:

‘I literally woke up out of a dream and had this vision of a newborn child, like a mission. I get the benefits of marriage without the sexual-romantic destabilization. But how was I going to accomplish that, being an out gay man and not successful in my relationships with men?’ he added.

After exploring Co-ParentMatch [a website for people looking to co-parent], he found Ms Pieke on Facebook and the pair began speaking on Skype. Ms Pieke explained it was ‘even more intense than when you first start dating somebody,’ as they spoke about their spiritual beliefs, medical histories, families, and parenting values. It was one of those things that was meant to be.’

Fabian then decided to move to the U.S  from Australia so the two co-parents could co-parent their daughter- Indigo Pieke-Blue who was born in October.

So do you really need all the palaver that goes with meeting someone special and falling in love when what you really want is to be a parent? It seems not, as thousands of people are turning to social sites like Facebook to find someone they like well enough to co-parent with.

It makes logical sense. Falling in love and maintaining that love takes a lot of effort – even the most together couples will experience tensions over why sex isn’t what it was when they first got together and whether or not a flame is still burning for the formal partner you bumped into at the shops.

Take all that out of the picture and you have a mother and a father united in their dedication to raising a happy child in a peaceful home. Even John Howard should be happy with that.

More from Buzzfeed:

One Modamily user, Rachel Hope, is a coparenting veteran — she has a 22-year-old son and a 3-year-old daughter, both from coparenting partnerships. Her first coparent was a close friend and coworker 18 years her senior — they decided to have a child together as non-romantic partners because the divorces they’d seen among friends and family led them to believe the entire nuclear-family system was broken. Hope says they asked themselves, “How insane is it to lay eggs in a burning nest?”

Excellent point. But there are a hundred ‘what ifs’. And some are almost certain.

In fact, Dawn and Fabian still hope to falling in love, just not with each other. They live together, but hope to have romantic relationships, however not with each other.

That’s when trouble appears on the otherwise glowing horizon. Let’s say Fabian falls in love with a fella back home and moves to Australia. How much co-parenting can happen then? Or Dawn meets the man of her dreams and wants to move in with him. What if she has more children? What if they just can’t stand living together after a year because Dawn re-stacks the dishwasher after Fabian’s done it?

What if … little Indigo’s life becomes just like that of so many kids whose parents split up for exactly the same reasons; most of whom sill grow up happy; knowing they’re loved and wanted.

Do you think in-love parents are essential for happy kid-rearing? Or is this a recipe for disaster?