Coming Back
What a time. At the end of 2020 I arranged for childcare for my first New Year’s Eve “out” at a Masquerade Ball with a friend. When that fell through at the eleventh hour, I desperately scrambled for a back up…miraculously begging and bribing my way to childcare that night.
We rang in 2020 in decorative masks.
Masks.
Who knew 2020 would bring so many more masks?
Masks on the outside and masks on the inside as I tried to fight the immeasurable sadness our beloved cat’s death wrought inside me. It has left me raw and broken, and with my two young children dependent on me during a pandemic.
How do I share amusing anecdotes under these circumstances?
And, now, my little girl has just started kindergarten and seems so much older than a mere two months ago. My son is a confident second grader. And, they are back … Continue reading
In the mail last week, I received a storage invoice for cord blood from Elliot’s birth. In a few months, I’ll get one for the embryos I have on ice at the fertility place. They’re stored there, safe and sound. Three of them. I don’t think about it often, but when I am asked if I’ll have another child, of course it sends me into thoughts of what could be. My initial thought is no way, absolutely not. I’ve said it so many times that I have all my love in the world to give to a baby, but I have 1 set of hands- two children would be too much for me to handle on my own. Physically, financially, mentally, logistically.
Bringing a child into this world is such a daunting task itself. And even more nerve-wracking when you’re doing it alone. But I feel good about my decision and the support that I have received. I know it will not be easy but I am up for the challenge!
Though I have been thinking about this often, I am finally forcing myself to sit down and write about it. I am (pause pause pause) giving up on the idea of (no that isn’t right) choosing to move forward with my life by (here goes, breathe) having a baby on my own. There I said it. Technically, I am choosing an anonymous sperm donor, buying vials of sperm that will then be put up into my uterus by a doctor. No sex. No relationship. No man. No wedding. No. Just me.
These are strange times. It’s the peak (here’s hoping) of the pandemic and we’re in the days between the (second) impeachment and the inauguration. (As someone on Twitter said, “I can’t believe it’s time for another impeachment already–I feel like I just took down my decorations from the last one.”)
It’s hard to express what it feels like to go from being a devoted Single Mother by Choice to being a committed family of four. 
Just a couple of weeks later, I changed my mind about having a potential suitor wait six months to meet my children. Despite my desire to protect them, I didn’t want to commit six months to this relationship, only to have their meeting be a disaster. We planned for just a quick ice cream outing, nothing too ambitious. Short and sweet.
Insemination #8 went fine.