I was thrilled when he called and said we were on for tomorrow. So I jumped on a plane and headed to Queensland’s sunny Gold Coast. My Latin lover was already there waiting and I couldn’t get there fast enough. He’d scattered crimson rose petals all over the crisp white floor tile and on the white satin sheets that sparkled like diamonds on the freshly made bed. The curtains swayed slowly as the warm, salty, sea breeze wafted through the window on this balmy afternoon. I barely had a moment to breathe it all in before his head was between my legs.
Very softly, he told me to relax and then propped me up a little, then he inserted a clamp. In that very instant, and with that ripping sound effect as loud as a thundercloud above, my charming Latin lover vanished, and I was left face taut and legs spread for my 60 odd-year-old IVF doctor.
While I was shocked back to reality, at least he was armed with the sperm of a sexy, tall, dark-haired, green-eyed, 26-year-old Hungarian hottie, that was about to be squirted deep inside my cervix.
I was 40 years old, single and classed as socially infertile. How did I get myself here?
I could say my thirties were the years of racking up lots of travel mileage points, Facebook friends, happy hours and hangovers. While these were easy to accrue, marriage proposals were not.
At 37 I found myself in a relationship that I’d hope would last forever. It was the one that I had all my chips on the table for as it was in the most promising best of my last ‘fertile window’ days. While I had pinned my hopes on this being the relationship that would take me out of singledom for good, it unravelled over the following two years and I too became unhinged.
As the big 4-0 approached I completely came undone spending each night blubbering into my pillow agonizing over how on earth I could create a family. I was in deep caca with the hands of that ticking biological clock.
Months off the heels of that window waster relationship, I jumped onto online dating sites in a gallant quest to meet the one. All this did was waste more valuable time and keep me from pressing forward with my own plan. Not only did I have to dance around my true desire, dating was slow, required squeezing into an LBD for an entire night of discomfort as well as around my dates weekends without their kids.
Urgh, if only I could make my own baby!!
Pondering that thought and with a little further investigation I realized I actually might be able to and tottered off to an IVF clinic.
Although unfortunately, it wasn’t surprising, the few IUI attempts I underwent all failed. The Hungarian hottie didn’t stick nor did the handsome blue-eyed chiro the month before. I now either had to pull out the IVF big guns and harvest my eggs or get creative and find another solution. I decided for the latter and threw myself at Dr. Google for alternatives. When I first landed on a site for known sperm donors I thought I had stumbled onto the IVF underbelly. I was too fearful to take a really good peek around in case I found myself in some weird porn or body parts trafficking ring. Knowing my luck, I’d have a SWAT team parachuting out of the skies and smashing down my doors within minutes.
Hang on! Courageous, bulked up men in uniform landing on my doorstep in just a few minutes?! Hmmm…..now there’s a thought!
Having scrutinized this path for a year and a half, the idea of finally heading in this direction had now penetrated me deeply and it didn’t seem so aberrant. In fact, using semen from someone that required no relationship labour, I could actually check out in the flesh and have a coffee with made insanely good sense. So, I decided to take the plunge and see what it was all about. With a tap on my keypad, white light began beaming out of my monitor and Beethoven’s fourth movement from his Fifth Symphony masterpiece rang out. Low and behold, before my eyes were dozens of men from all over the world happily offering their free baby batter to wannabe mamas.
I took to a couple of sites sharing my woes hoping to catch a fella.
“Single, 40-year-old, adrenal fatigued, career-focused woman who missed the
‘memo for motherhood’ seeks a strapping young lad’s fertile tadpoles”
“Must be tall, intellectual type, no chromosomal abnormalities, have top-notch winning swimmers and be within close travel distance.”
After just a couple of months and a few discarded swimmers due to not meeting the legal requirements, I got an agile one on the hook that fit my criteria. He was actually a fellow middle-aged man whose uberous sperm could impregnate a nation. A week later he handed me a bucket full of fresh swimmers that I launched as far into my uterus as I could.
The race upstream had begun. I relaxed with my feet up on the wall hoping that one was limber enough to navigate my tightly knotted body’s ‘non-yoga-ish’ innards.
Then it was an agonizing two-week wait for the results to see if there was one lucky winner from the ‘great anti-gravity’ swim. When Aunty Flo didn’t show up to her monthly meeting, it was apparent that the following day it was time to perform a home pregnancy test. Another five nail-biting minutes later, it was finally revealed that one speedy tadpole had indeed been the victor.
So now I’m a middle-aged, single mother to be and I couldn’t be happier. When I think to myself how did I get myself here? Well, I stayed on my imperfect life path, that’s how.
www.desperatelyseekingsemen.com
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