Putting all my eggs in one basket

I always expected that I would be a mom. Most of us grow up assuming we’ll find a partner, get married, buy a house, and birth beautiful little babies – blond ones, in my case.

That’s the narrative society spins, and we rarely question it.

Until we’re forced to.

I remember creating a time capsule in eighth grade, and I can assure you that I didn’t write down “Have a donor baby at 36.” In fact, I recently stumbled upon said capsule, and what I did write was “Have 2 kids by 25.” Ha. How little I knew.

It doesn’t seem like that long ago when I said If I’m not married by the time I’m X, maybe I’ll consider having a baby on my own. But it was. Longer than it feels, anyway. My mom said to me recently, “You always said by the time you’re 35!”, to which I responded, “35 felt different when it was 5 years in the future!”

And now here we are. 35. Three months away from 36, actually. Holy shit. I’m now closer to 40 than I am to 30. In the words of everyone’s favourite heroine TV doctor, Meredith Grey, We’re adults. When did that happen and how do we make it stop?

We can’t. I’m aware of my age, and more excruciatingly aware of how old my eggs are. I’ve tried to make light of it at times. Y’know, the whole if you don’t laugh, you’ll cry scenario…?

Last year, on my 35^th birthday, which I celebrated in San Diego with some stellar women – because birthdays don’t happen when you’re in a different time zone – I jokingly referred to the day as Egg Death Day. Happy Egg Death Day to me! I sang.

Now, in all seriousness, I know that all of my viable sperm havens didn’t jump off the cliff of my uterus that day, scrambling themselves on the ground below. But it is fact that a woman’s egg count starts its steep decline at the age of 35.

Naturally, I looked into egg freezing, but the cost, and the physical and emotional toll of those hormone-induced 2 weeks vetoed it as an option for me. (FYI, in case you’re wondering, it costs approx. $12,000 all-inclusive for the egg freezing, but come time to use them, those babies aren’t chilling inside you anymore, so we’re talking IVF, which comes with a price tag of approx. another $15k.)

Almost 30k on a maybe (because there’s no guarantee; not all eggs end up viable) was just too rich for my AMH-tested blood.

So, I’m left with only a couple of choices.

Choices. It’s a strange word to use, because they feel more like options than choices. Granted, I am choosing at this point to become a single mother. But I’m doing so because it’s the only available option time and biology are offering me.

Women are having babies much later in life now, I know this. I hear you. But I don’t want to do it at 40. I don’t want all of my friends to be done when I’m just getting started. I don’t want my parents to be in their 70s. I want my child to know what it’s like to be close with their cousins, just like I did. I’m already doing this alone, so I want to make it feel the least alone as possible.

Plus, I’m tired now. It’s only going to get worse. At least that’s what they tell me.

So, after multiple years of thought, soul-searching, research, way too much heartbreak, some tears, countless horrible dates, and therapy, I have finally come to a decision.

Time to grab life by the balls (ovaries), and move all my eggs from the “I’ll-keep-looking-for-my-Mr.Right-and-hope-my-eggs-haven’t-expired-by-then” basket to the “picking-daddy-sperm-from-a-catalogue-before-it’s-too-late” basket.

This was not an easy decision, and it’s taken me years – years – to get to this point. I don’t think anyone wants to do it this way. Many people end up raising children alone, but that’s not how they set out. One woman in an online group shared that she cried at the clinic through the entire insemination, not because she didn’t want a baby, but because she did, and alone via catheter was never the way she pictured – or wanted – it for herself. Like I said, we don’t play dress up as little girls and imagine our futures this way, being impregnated with our feet in stirrups and not even an orgasm to show for it.

But there comes a time in a woman’s life, if she is single, that she ends up asking herself, do I want a child? And then, if the answer is yes, do I want one enough if it means doing it alone?

Yes, I do.

Make no mistake, I’m terrified. About many things. Enough to fill an entirely separate blog post – so stay tuned! But of everything, what scares me the most – more than labor pains, more than exhaustion, more than answering questions about Daddy, more than hemorrhoids, more than being financially strapped for 12 months, more than feeling desperately alone during 3 am feedings – is waking up at 50 years old with the regret that I didn’t have a child when I had the chance.

So, it begins. Decision made. Appointment booked.

Because I may be single, but I’m sure as hell not alone. This child will have one of the biggest villages you have ever seen.

Thank goodness.

I’m going to need it.