As you can imagine just by reading any of my previous musings, I have probably received a few of these in my day. Today I am going to take you forward in time to a more modern day musing, which takes place in my early thirties and talks about a very private side of my life. A topic I have not really discussed with friends or family. A subject matter that I have spent a lifetime glossing over with a smile, and making others feel comfortable with at holiday gatherings, all the while suffering in silence deep inside. My fertility, a journey to start a family.

You see not everyone can just get knocked up easily, and if you can, well congratulations consider yourself lucky; or not, believe me I get to hear all about that too. You see there are some of us in the world that have struggled for years to do the very thing you were able to do in a drunken stupor, accidentally during a one night stand with a guy at a bar or with your neighbors husband accidentally at a block party.

So I say Bravo, look at you! You are an overachiever at something, praise Jesus! Now you can spread your mediocre seed on to the next generation; if that generation can even survive; as the jury is still out on that one. Since you, as parents, have done a pretty shit job, but that is a different musing for another day. Just pick up your participation award on the way out, thanks!

So where does this indecent proposal come into play? Well when we did tell a few of our “closest friends” we were trying fertility treatments, that’s when things got really weird. All I can say is I wished I had never told anyone we were trying to conceive, because then we started to get offers. Yes, offers.

One of my male, homosexual friends actually said to me over cocktails one night, “Well you are not bad looking, I mean I could actually fuck you and give you a baby since your hubby can not seem to get it done.” WHAT? I mean seriously, what the fuck, and who says that? I think I actually spat out my drink and choked a bit. I thought to myself surely he was kidding, right? I do not even know him that well. Sure we are shopping buddies, but that is so next level. It is not like we were Will & Grace close. Time warp forward~ years later I realized he was indeed serious, because now via the powers of social media I have seen “a girl” that calls him her “Guncle”, short for gay uncle, and she looks just like him. I heard via a mutual friend that her mother also had fertility issues around the same time that I did, so I guess she saved the 35K per in vitro treatment by taking him up on his offer.

My second indecent proposal came at a block party, where we were introduced by another long time friend to her neighbors. Thank good this was not our neighborhood, or we would have moved the next day after this one. After being introduced to this seemingly normal couple, the husband went right into it; almost like a sales pitch of selling his wife as a surrogate to us. Told us “oh yeah, she is made for carrying babies. I mean just look at her” and he would jiggle her belly and spin her around like we were buying a prized heifer. I was mortified, I faked a headache and told my husband I was not feeling well and we needed to go home. I mean what the hell? I have been bushwhacked into timeshare sells, but never a let me be your baby-mama pitch!

Why is it that people think they can insert themselves into your life like this? Are they just do gooder’s? Do they think they are helping? Why is it that something so personal has become a high ticket purchasable item? Yes, you can just buy a baby on the black market these days. One of our friends told us about an “adoption agency” where you can have a baby made to adopt, with pretty blond hair and blue eyes; which is hard to come by for adoption and buy it all for 25K, much less than in vitro. Ugh, it was all just too much. I mean, what does that conversation look like when your baby turns 18? No don’t search for your bio parents we wanted you so much we hired a couple to create you for us and paid them top dollar, like you would for a car, or boat. Basically you are saying, you are just an accessory, I needed to have you to fulfill myself, right? So I bought you. Isn’t that how slavery began?

You also get so much advice, all unsolicited. I know I hear all the time about expecting mothers getting this same type of help, but just know that it is not just you. I think people want to provide you with their experience, and no empathy for what you might be going through in your journey. No thoughts about what that must look like or feel like.

Another fun little ask I received during this very same time period was to donate blood for a family member that wanted to have an elective surgery, a tummy tuck to be exact. Apparently they wanted to have extra blood on hand in case something went wrong, but they only wanted my “clean blood”, as my other siblings lifestyles made there blood questionable. Since I was already taking fertility treatments like Clomid, HCG, and Ganirelix Acetate to name a few off the top of my head, I explained I was not a good choice at the moment, no to mention that I was also currently anemic. However, I was told I was being selfish. Needless to say I was so disgusted by the entire situation we ended up, after several failed attempts, and a large amount of debt, deciding it was not worth it putting ourselves through hell anymore; and let the universe lead us where we needed to be, come what may.

Goodspeed Little Man,

Veronica J.