Maybe You Should Talk to Someon - Lori Gottlieb Page 0,43
the whole package,” she said confidently.
Kathleen had never sounded so enthusiastic, so I logged on to take a look. I clicked on his profile, pored over his health history, read his essays, listened to his audio interview, and instantly knew, in the same way that people talk about love at first sight, that I’d found The One. Everything about him—his likes and dislikes, his sense of humor, his interests and values—felt like family. Elated but exhausted, I figured I’d get some sleep and handle the details in the morning. The next day happened to be my birthday, and overnight I had vivid dreams about my baby for what felt like eight hours straight. For the first time, I pictured an actual baby coming from two specific people instead of some hazy idea of a baby with half its heritage blank.
In the morning, I jumped out of bed with a burst of excitement, the song “Child of Mine” playing in my head. Happy birthday to me! I’d been wanting a baby for the past several years, and finding a donor I felt so comfortable with seemed like the best birthday present ever. Heading to the computer, I smiled at my good fortune—I was really going to do this. I typed in the sperm bank’s URL, found the donor’s profile, and read it all over again. I was just as certain as I’d been the night before that he was The One—the one that would make sense to my child when he or she asked why, of all the possible donors, I chose this guy.
I placed the donor in my online shopping cart—just as I might with a book on Amazon—double-checked the order, then clicked Purchase Vials. I’m having a baby! I thought. The moment felt monumental.
As the order processed, I planned what I had to do next: Make an appointment for the insemination, buy prenatal vitamins, put together a baby registry, get the baby’s room set up. Between thoughts, I noticed that my order was taking a while to complete. The rotating circle on my screen, known as the “spinning wheel of death,” seemed to be spinning for an unusually long time. I waited, waited some more, and finally tried using the back button in case my computer was crashing. But nothing happened. Finally, the spinning wheel of death disappeared and a message popped up: Out of stock.
Out of stock? I figured there must be some computer glitch—maybe when I pressed the back button?—so I speed-dialed the sperm bank and asked for Kathleen, but she was out and I got transferred to a customer-service rep named Barb.
Barb looked into the matter and determined that this was no glitch. I’d selected a very popular donor, she said. She went on to explain that popular donors went quickly and that, while the company tried to “restock” their “inventory” often, there was a six-month hold for it so it could get quarantined and tested. Even when the inventory was made available, she said, there still might be a long wait, because some people had placed it on back order. As Barb spoke, I thought of how Kathleen had called just yesterday. Now it occurred to me that maybe she’d suggested this donor to several women. Like me, maybe many women had bonded with Kathleen over her honest appraisals of semen.
Barb placed me on the waitlist (“Don’t be foolish and waste your time waiting,” she’d said ominously), then I put down the phone and felt numb. After months of fruitless searching, I’d found my donor, and my future baby had finally seemed like a reality, more than just an idea in my head. But now, on my birthday, I had to let that baby go. I was all the way back at square one.
I slumped over my laptop, staring into space. I sat there for a long while until I noticed, on the corner of my desk, a business card that I’d gotten the week before at a professional networking event. It was from a twenty-seven-year-old filmmaker named Alex. I’d spoken to Alex for only about five minutes, but he was kind and smart and seemed healthy, and I thought, with the impulsivity of somebody running out of options, that maybe I could skip the online banks and try to find my donor out in the real world. Alex fit the profile of the kind of donor I sought. Why not ask if he’d consider it? After all, the worst he could say was no.