I began seriously considering 'alternative' options for motherhood just before hitting my 30's. Through college I was a serial monogamist, but then hit a dry spell when I entered the work force. I had a few casual affairs, but nothing serious. I always knew I wanted to be a mother, and would never even have considered not having at least one child. I had just bought my own little house, was in a stable job, and had heard the expression ‘your eggs are getting old’ for the first time. I sat down and wrote out a budget, then in the autumn of 2001 I went and bought my first copy of ‘Parenting’ magazine. I was scared, excited, nervous, and oddly confident. The only thing holding me back was the Father Factor.
I have always been open to the idea of adopting, and am always impressed by parents who open up their homes and hearts to foster children. However, I wanted to experience the full gamut of motherhood; I wanted to know what it was to create life, to carry that life inside you and feel it grow, to go through the pain of labor and at last hold your flesh and blood warm in your arms as the ultimate reward. I have never had a selfish need to recreate myself, or carry on my line, or mold an idealized copy of myself; it is deeper than that. On the same note, my reasons for wanting a child were very, very simple; the instinctual need to feed, clothe, and love a small person. I have encountered other single women who had less altruistic reasons. Some are lonely, and feel a child will fill a void left by a relative or significant other. Some crave love and attention, and expect a child to provide that to them. Some want a friend and companion, some want a pet, some feel a need to prove something, some want a trophy. A handful, like me, find themselves getting really defensive when asked this question, because we know we shouldn’t have to explain ourselves. No one questions a married woman’s motivation. But I wanted a child, I wanted my own, and I didn’t have a Daddy.
I have always been nervous about the idea of an unknown donor. I have heard nightmare stories of the expense, and the hassles of timing. A small part of me admits that I would prefer a good-looking Daddy Donor, and a bigger part isn’t shy about wanting some intelligence to go along with it. There were a couple issues for me that I couldn’t get over. I was already going to be denying a child a father, guilt that I would always and forever have to live with, every day. But for a child to never know who their father is? If I could avoid that, I would. In addition, although I have never had any medical issues nor know anyone who has, I was suddenly very concerned with having access to the Daddy Donor’s full medical past. What if Baby X had some strange exotic illness, and if I had only known that Daddy Donor’s Aunt Margaret had the same thing, and we could have treated more efficiently and effectively with that knowledge? Yes, a stretch, I admit, but I like to worry about stupid stuff.
So I needed someone I knew, but then there were ALL sorts of complications that went along with that. I had a friend from high school, a recently out gay man who would have happily agreed to be Donor Daddy, and who I had in fact discussed the possibility with many times. The catch was, he also loved children and had always wanted a family, and very much wanted to play an active role in parenting. This would have been extremely difficult since we live in two different countries, plus the legalities of it were daunting. In a very precious and unexpectedly tender moment, my father asked me to consider utilizing someone else, since he worried I would someday be in a custody battle and he would not want to lose his grandbaby.
I thought about my options for a few months, and then something else unexpected happened – I met someone. In July of 2002 I was at a friend’s wedding and was introduced to the man I later thought I would one day marry. We dated for just over a year, and talked a lot about the family we would have. When we broke up in September of 2003 it was devastating. I was single again, and my eggs were even older. I mourned for way too long, did some casual dating again, and started hanging out with some new friends. By the summer of 2005 I was practically living with my new friends, a couple I had met through work. We got along terrifically, had a million things in common, and the fact that they were two gay men might have raised a few eyebrows but didn’t bother us one bit. Friend 1, then a coworker and still a coworker today, is a big-hearted loud-mouth who knows it all and does it all. Friend 2, his partner, is an easy-going homebody and the best girlfriend a girl could have (except he doesn’t like getting pedicures). We settled into a comfortable routine, and the Baby X conversation eventually came up.
Last spring, 2006, we all had a very serious talk. We were more than friends by that point, we were family. The Boys, as my friends and family took to calling them, made the ultimate sacrifice and committed to helping me raise Baby X, immediately nicknamed ‘Alistair’. We started talking to a real estate agent about selling our individual homes to relocate to a new quad-friendly location, and wrote up a one-year plan to begin. Six months later we had scrapped the one-year plan, since things moved a little quicker than expected with the housing market, and by January of 2007 the three of us were in a new house and ready to try for a fourth.
Finally, irrefutable proof that the January attempts were failures. No matter how bossy I am, there are just some things that I can’t force, and this is one of ‘em. I’m not going to pretend to be devil-may-care, because it totally sucks; now my charting is all screwed up, and I’m going to have to do math, and Quiet will have to miserably hide in his closet again, churning out Elf Magic. I did, however, receive some interesting words of support and advice from friends that made me want to punch them in the face at the time, but that I can now accept and ponder with a little space.
