Business is booming for the world's biggest sperm¹ bank, Denmark's Cryos, which is struggling to meet demand despite a soaring number of donors² and new offices opening around the world.

At Cryos headquarters in Denmark's second-biggest city Aarhus, chief executive Ole Schou smiles broadly, sitting at his desk adorned³ with pictures of cheerful babies as he speaks of the company's unexpected success.

Two years ago, he was ready to shut down the business, or at least move it abroad, because of a Danish tax authority proposal that would have required donors to declare income from their donations, thereby⁴ putting their anonymity⁵ at risk.

But when it became clear that this would sound the death knell⁶ for Cryos, tax authorities withdrew the proposal.

A year later, in 2008, the number of donors had grown threefold, from 30 a day to 100 at its four Danish offices in Aarhus, Copenhagen, Odense and Aalborg, while the number of men applying to be donors had risen from 350 to around 1,000.

Each year, Cryos exports 85 percent of its 15,000 to 20,000 sperm donations to more than 400 clinics in 60 countries.

But despite the rising number of donors, Cryos has a hard time meeting demand.

Around 10 to 15 percent of couples in the world are infertile⁷, according to Schou. Added to that are single women nearing the end of their childbearing years who still want to have a family.

"We help a tsunami⁸ of highly-educated, single women who are more demanding, and who prioritized their careers and who want to have a child before it is too late," Schou says.

The phenomenon has surged in the past three or four years, and Cryos "can't meet the avalanche⁹ of demand from the western world".

A 55-year-old economist¹⁰, Schou started the sperm bank in a tiny cellar office in 1987 out of a desire to help couples who couldn't have children.

Cryos, which means "freeze" in Greek and refers to the sperm conservation process, was originally started to help cancer patients who wanted to freeze their sperm before undergoing chemotherapy.

Cryos' sperm has produced more than 14,000 full-term pregnancies¹¹ since 1991, and the company has received piles of letters of thanks from women around the world, Schou says.

And while the sperm from a Danish Viking with blond hair and blue eyes may be exactly what clients are looking for in northern Europe, it "is far from the ideal in other parts of the world". "That's why we've opened a franchise¹² in New York and another one in Mumbai, in India."

全球最大的精子银行丹麦克瑞奥斯公司生意非常火爆，尽管捐精者人数飙升，且公司还在世界各地新开设了几家分公司，但仍供不应求。

在位于丹麦第二大城市奥尔胡斯的克瑞奥斯公司总部，董事长奥利·休乌在谈及公司始料未及的成功时开怀大笑，此时他正坐在办公桌旁，桌上摆满了开心婴儿的照片。

他在两年前已准备关门大吉，或至少移师海外，因为当时丹麦的税务当局提议，捐精者应申报捐献所得，这意味着他们的身份有可能被泄露。

但当税务当局意识到这将毁掉克瑞奥斯公司的生意后，他们最终收回成命。

在一年之后的2008年，公司位于丹麦奥尔胡斯、哥本哈根、欧登塞和奥尔堡的四个分公司每天接待的捐精者从30人增至100人，是原来的3倍多，而申请捐献的人则从每天350人增至大约1000人。

克瑞奥斯公司每年接受的捐赠精子有15000至20000枚，其中80%出口至60个国家的400多个诊所。

尽管捐精者人数飙升，克瑞奥斯公司仍感到供不应求。

休乌称，全球大约有10%到15%的夫妻无法生育，而且快要超过生育年龄的单身女性也想有个家庭。

休乌说：“我们帮助过一大批高学历的单身女性，这些人更想生孩子。她们把职业看得最重要，而在生育期结束前还想生个孩子。”

在过去三四年间，这种现象愈加明显，克瑞奥斯公司“无法满足西方国家飞涨的需求。”

现年55岁的经济学家休乌于1987年在一间很小的地下办公室里创建了这家精子银行，旨在帮助那些无法生育的夫妻。

在希腊语中，Cryos的意思是“冰冻”，指的是保存精子的过程，公司成立的初衷是为了帮助癌症患者在化疗前保存精子。

休乌称，自1991年至今，克瑞奥斯公司已帮助14000多人成功受孕，并收到无数封全球各地女性寄来的感谢信。

尽管有着金发蓝眼的“丹麦海盗”的精子正是很多客户想在北欧寻找的，但这“与世界其它地区的理想要求相去甚远，因此我们在纽约和印度孟买各开设了一家分公司”。

Vocabulary:

death knell：结束的信号，丧钟

avalanche：a massive or overwhelming amount（蜂拥而至）

full-term pregnancy: 足月妊娠