She Is Not An Amoeba

VBGF wants to have a baby. But as I said, she is not an amoeba. If she were, making a baby would be a much easier process. Pinch off this cute little piece here and voila! Offspring. It doesn't work that way for humans. (You knew this, right? I mean, I shouldn't have put little asterisks down the side of the page and warned everyone that there was a spoiler coming, right?) Human reproduction (for better or for worse) is more complicated, uncertain, and (in a perfect world) more fun.

VBGF and I were talking about it last night on the phone (and each drinking wine which may or may not have contributed to where the conversation that I'm about to relay to you went.) Once again we were discussing her procreation options. She has tried the sperm bank route before with a previous partner and doesn't want to do that again. Aside from the cost (which is considerable and at this time prohibitive) and aside from the association with the cretin who left her (saying among other things that their inability to conceive a baby was a sign from God that their relationship shouldn't continue), the fact of the matter is that this time VBGF would like not to have to deal with CO2 cartridges and sterile doctors' offices. She has this radically romantic idea that she'd like her baby to be conceived with joy and intention "the old fashioned way."

The hitch in her lovely plan is the distinct lack of available sperm in her world. She's a middle school math teacher and other than the fathers of her students (no) and her male colleagues (more no) - there aren't a lot of eligible guys around. Add to that some fairly disastrous experiences with men early on and a resulting shyness around y-chromosome-laden folks and you begin to see some of the obstacles our heroine is facing. Here's our girl, bio-clock ticking away (two weeks after her most recent birthday), pondering the best way to bring cheap, yet handsome, intelligent, disease-free sperm into her world for just one night (or for whatever number of nights it takes to conceive). Once her mission is accomplished, she plans to be so busy gestating and raising a child that there will be no more room for sperm in her life.

It is harder than you may think to accomplish her goal. We have often debated the pro's and con's of her going to the closest army guy bar, selecting a target, and whispering in the target's ear three magic little words, i.e. "You wanna fuck?" But (most nights) the con's seem to outweigh the pro's, with the shy factor and risk of disease both being ridiculously high in that scenario. Last night, VBGF told me she had a revolutionary idea. She was going to try an experiment. (Actually, I'm sure she said "eckshpriment" but giggling (and arguing) over that led us to giggling (and arguing) over whether she did or did not say "schweaty" the other night when she was trying to say "sweaty" and it took us quite awhile to come back around to the topic of her new idea. In fact, we were talking about groceries when we finally remembered to loop back to the experiment topic. )

She lives in quite a progressive part of the country and "anything goes" seems to be the ethos of her local independent/alternative paper's personals section. So she suggested she run an ad. We looked for the right column and debated over whether her ad would really fit under the "Women seeking Men" category. She decided she needed her own category: "Woman seeking Sperm". Then she listed some things she wanted in sperm - and I had a vision of "sperm" appearing at the top of her grocery list. We got a little silly and started throwing phrases into her ad like "organic" and "free range" and at some point we debated whether or not "hormone free" would be advisable given the necessary delivery method of said sperm.

I can't begin to guess whether this experiment will yield the results that VBGF wants (or whether she'll actually go through with it). There are concerns of course, but I've got to give my girl snaps for unconventional bravery and innovative thinking. And I can't seem to come up with a better or more honest alternative. Can you?
Peace