Donor Swimmers over
Tinder dinners

Many of us women grew up dreaming about the house with the white picket fence; the two kids, the gorgeous partner standing by one’s side.  You know the one.  That scene that is on a loop in your mind  The one that’s not real.  Well, for many of us it’s not.  I never dreamed of the white picket fence per se but from an extract, I wrote back in 2005 on a vision board my thoughts read like this.

In five years time I will be:

“Watching my husband holding our 8-month-old child in the hammock at our stunning modern boho home that overlooks the ocean as the sun sets.  It was a warm balmy afternoon and I pinched myself so I knew what I was seeing was real.”

Boom!

The wake-up thump.  Twelve years later and none of that has happened thus far.  Instead, this is some of what did go down.

A break up with Ian.  He was the one that was supposed to put a ring on it.  Instead, he gifted me with the middle finger as I rolled towards 40.

I tried to pilfer sperm from the pootie, meaning Pim, but that didn’t work.  He was a long time friend of mine and he wanted to do the doona dance.  I just wanted a cup of wrigglers.

I dated.  My Tinder dates weren’t fun at all.  I was looking for daddy DNA and love from the one person while moving to the beat of my biological clock.  It was just too much pressure so I danced into a fertility clinic to pick up some frozen taddies.

After three rounds of failed IUI’s I was then slammed with the ‘socially infertile’ label. WTF?!  Socially infertile is a hideous term generated by fertility clinics for women who are either 35 and have either missed the boat with a man or are in a same-sex relationship.

I literally felt like I had finally come undone. My life didn’t look at all like the vision I dreamed I’d one day have or believed would be there for me.  I had also been given a new title of medically infertile and the only option available to me was to go under some serious anaesthesia to harvest my eggs in a round of IVF.

I was at an all-time low.  After taking a few months off the baby-making mission, I circled back to my Facebook list of friends and began trolling them to see if they were donor worthy.  It led me to continue my search on Google where I just so happened to stumble onto a few donor sperm sites.  In just a few clicks, things were now looking up!

While at first, I thought to conceive a child through these channels was weird and it didn’t sit well with me,  the more I moved through the solo mother paces, I felt more comfortable with the idea.  I even felt like this was a much better path for me and it made sense.  What didn’t really make sense was the process of IVF.  A process that combines science and big business together, but spiritually, physically and financially didn’t resonate with me nor did wearing a socially infertile badge.  I felt I really had no other option and this was my only way forward.  I was being offered a lifeline.  So I jumped in and a couple of months later, I met a known donor in Melbourne and conceived on the first try.

Once I got over the desperation of clinging to a passionless relationship for the sake of fulfilling some little girl ‘dream marriage & family’ fantasy, I shifted gears mentally and forged my own pre-natal and conception path.

It was a wild decision founded on faith.  It was a decision that paid off.  Now no longer socially infertile, I wear the new title of solo mother by choice (or chance, circumstance or like I prefer ‘out of options’) and I couldn’t be happier.

If you’re looking to go down the known donor path and shake off that ‘I got left on the shelf’ thought, I highly recommend you grab a pre-conception or donor contract first.  This will ensure you really map out the bigger picture and possible scenario’s that are attached to using one.  If you’re in Australia, you can purchase our must have contract HERE