Procreation - How Something Simple Turned Into A Circus Menagerie

Lois and Amanda got married in a same-sex ceremony moved to Bernal Heights, lived the flannel-and-jackboots tough girl life for two years, and then realized that their life together, however happy and delectable it was, was missing something - children.  Both women had grown up with many siblings, and a house full of kids was their ideal until it dawned on them that they were as immutably gay as the Rock of Gibraltar, and that life was a zero sum game - you chose a life partner of the same sex but gave up procreation. 

 

Not exactly it turned out, for reproductive health had come a long way since their coming out, and as unpleasant a thought as artificial insemination might sound - Amanda having grown up on a farm could only think of the cows rammed up the twat with a syringe full of bull semen - it was the answer to their dreams. 

But who would be the donor, they both wondered?  Not just any fool who jerked off in a cup but a Harvard graduate, or better yet a blonde, blue-eyed Stanford man.  Neither woman had anything against Jews, but that's what they would likely get from Harvard.  

To their delight and surprise, the market for sperm had grown exponentially, and there were now counselling agencies which could mix and match single sex married women with the right donor.  Prices varied according to desirability and donor anonymity was assured, and the Gay Women's Fertility Center, a top of the line, five-star agency guaranteed satisfaction.  

Although their clients would have to wait and see whether or not the promotional enthusiasm paid off, surprises at birth were not common. Clients would get what they paid for within the bounds of the realm of probability of course, given the complexity of the double helix and the fact that two individuals, donor and recipient  were involved. 

 

Once the first step had been taken - money down and signatures on the bottom line - Lois and Amanda would have to decide who would be the carrier.  Pregnancy was no walk in the park, and since both women had strongly and urgently denied their womanhood long ago - lesbianism for them was not just two women preferring sex with other women; it was a neutering, spaying decision.  They wanted no part of anything feminine, woman, or C&C - Cunt and Cervix.  Pregnancy was a disgusting thought, but one of them had to do it, and a flip of the coin - a la Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men, a movie they both loved - simply wouldn't do it. 

Mandy had an idea.  'Lois, what about my brother? He's a hunk, blonde and blue-eyed, and smart as a whip.  He would do it for nothing.  You would be the recipient and the child would have both our DNAs. What do you think?'

Lois thought a minute - this option as ideal as it sounded would still give her morning sickness, bloat, discharge, and the awful moments of a painful birth; but in the end she agreed, the brother was approached and a date set at the clinic for 'the transfer' as the agency called it. 

Now, the fertility clinic was used to anonymous high-quality donors whose sperm was used to impregnate hundreds of women, so without thinking the brother's donation got frozen and stored as Donor #34263F to be used at a later date for other clients.  All of which meant of course that Lois' and Amanda's child would have hundreds of half-brothers and -sisters. 

Before the baby was born, the women gave up their Bernal Heights duplex and moved to Napa where they could work remotely with the occasional trip in to San Francisco.  While at first the neighbors - mostly wine industry managers, winemakers, botanical supervisors and the like, i.e. definitely not the Mexicans who picked the grapes - looked askance at this new family, they caused no fuss.  Besides, the women had given up the dykey look for circle pins and shirtwaists and fit right in. 

When Bridey, their daughter, was seven, Amanda got a call from her brother who reported that there had been a security breach at the fertility clinic and some donors' anonymity - his in particular - had been lost, and he now knew that he was father to 189 children up and down the East Coast. 

Amanda was at first taken aback, but loving her brother as she did, found it satisfying in a way that he was the father of so many.  A Bardolater, she remembered Shakespeare's procreation sonnets where he urges his young man to have as many children as possible, so divinely beautiful was he.  It was his duty, the 'poet' urged, his responsibility to populate the world with intelligence, sensitivity, ability, and insight.  'That's my brother', said Amanda. 

 

The women lived in a brave new world of diversity, equity, and inclusivity and there was neither secrecy nor shame in any sexual combination and permutation.  The gender spectrum was real, and it mattered not where on it you fit as long as it felt right and good. Procreation, unfortunately still bound by ovum and sperm dynamics, was nevertheless fungible, and couples of all possible sexual inclination were exploring fertility; so it was not without curiosity that Amanda and Lois went to their first Donor #34263F jamboree. 

They were not sure what to expect, for lesbian parenting couples certainly would be in the vast minority, so dreams of hookups and menages a quatre were unrealistic; but to see hundreds of Bridey's brothers and sisters would be a treat for them and her.  A family reunion of impossible proportion, a child's garden of playmates and a field full of new friends. 

Amanda asked her brother if he wanted to attend, but she was not surprised when he demurred. His was a one-off brother-sister thing, and the fact that his DNA was now common property, a cheery thought in someone more egocentric, was of no interest whatsoever. 'And some of these bitches might come after me', not an impossibility particularly since the law was not yet crystal clear on the subject of donor paternity. 

 

The conservative press somehow got wind of the event and sent a reporter in mufti to attend, and the piece went viral.  'Perversion...twisted, fucked up pseudo-buggery...Sodom and Gomorrah...' were some of the more temperate responses to the article; but Amanda and Lois were progressives and such viral screeds were far beyond their media orbit.  To them the jamboree was a delightful family affair, and they did in fact meet some likeable lesbian couples; but it was Bridey's event, a happy-go-lucky time of innocence for hundreds of seven-year olds. 

The New York Times finally picked up on the story and championed the notion, a celebration of diversity, procreation and family all wrapped up in one.  Lois and Amanda saw the report this time and were proud of their decision and that of so many other women. 

'Shall we do it again?', Lois asked Amanda one morning over Earl Grey, a question left dangling until the bell rung for the microwaved croissants, and the train of thought was interrupted, deliberately thought Lois, but then again all couples regardless of sexuality have their differences