Tuesday 3 September 2013

Why can't it just all be easy, like in the Bible?

AAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHH

I am sat on my bed with a copy of The Baby-Making Bible next to me.  It all seems a lot more complicated than it is in the real Bible, where men just have to "know" their wives, and "go into" them.  Although I suppose that Abraham and Sarah had difficulty conceiving, and had no success until they reached the grand old age of ninety-nine, which beats even the most outlandish Wikipedia stories about OAPs conceiving back in the 1740s.

And there are several stories about women (including the unfortunate Sarah) having to put up with their husbands going off with comely young concubines to continue the family name.

And the Virgin Mary's cousin Elizabeth struggled a bit.

And the Virgin Mary herself conceived in a somewhat unlikely manner, being a virgin and all that.

OK the Bible is probably the greatest book ever written about infertility.

But it doesn't tell you an awful lot about how to conceive, except that it is something that only The Lord  can make happen, which isn't very useful.

Or you could just go and get your widowed father roaring drunk in a cave, and "lie with him" (THIS HAPPENS KIDS.  IN THE BIBLE).

Anyway, The Baby-Making Bible isn't so much fun (not that I am suggesting that *see above* is fun).  It's just about how people should have acupuncture, and not drink too much water and stuff.  Yes, not drink too much water.  It actually goes against all known medical advice.  I have continued to drink water, and I have also been augmenting it with a daily shot of "Royal Jelly," which is quite literally the food of Queens.

Queen Bees, that is.  Yes, I eat the same stuff that Queen Bees eat.  And I am like, a million times their size.  This is astonishing.  Anyway, Queen Bees lay LOADS of eggs, enough to populate an entire hive; therefore it stands to reason that eating their food means that I too will lay LOADS of eggs.

And this is very important as I am going to be having IVF.

YYYYYEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!

I have been accepted as an egg sharer.  This means that I do not have any of the following:
HIV
Syphilis
Gonorrhea
Chlamydia
Any of the ten million varieties of Hepatitis
Cystic fibrosis
Dodgy chromosomes

I have so few diseases, I am even CMV negative, and eighty per cent of the population have that, whatever it is.  The only significance of that fact is that it limits the choice of sperm, as one can-in bizarre twist of weirdness as clearly in Real Life, when choosing a partner on Match.com, or in the dim light of a ropey club with sticky carpets at 2am, one always questions the likelihood of one's prospective partner having a very common virus that almost everyone has anyway-only choose sperm from a CMV negative donor if one is CMV negative.  This inevitably limits the choice of available sperm.

In fact, it limits it so severely that when one narrows the selection down to only "UK-compliant, ID-disclosure" donors, one ends up with a choice of barely sixteen men.

Sixteen.  IN THE WORLD.

OK "in the world" is a slight exaggeration, when what is actually meant here is "in a sperm bank in America."

You can imagine my delight when I saw their photos (yes, photos.  AMAZING) and discovered one who was "fit."

I was so happy that I ran home from work early just so that I could call America before my beloved Chosen One sold out, only to find that it was "Labor Day" (please note inverted commas.  I know this is not the correct spelling of "labour."  I am merely being authentically American.  Also, no pun intended) and the sperm bank was closed.  Horror.  This meant that I had to make the Fateful Call the following day, from work, from my mobile, whilst praying that no one walked in while I was on the phone.

To my relief and delight, the donor-who I had, in my head, started calling "The One"-was still in stock, and I purchased him-or rather a vial of him-immediately.  Totes amaze, as they would say in Essex.

However, all was not rosy for long, as I then decided to have a little look at him on the website again, just so that I could admire my great judgement in choosing him.  Then I saw the other nine photos.  AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH.  He is not as fit as I thought!  This is a tragedy.  I am going to have an ugly baby with a grade point average of 3.2.  And I don't even know what a grade point average is!  And he is doing a degree in something which sounds dangerously like "mickey mouse studies of things that aren't really things."  At a college which isn't Harvard or Yale!  And none of his siblings went to university!  And he places baseball!  BASEBALL for God's sake.  It's like ROUNDERS!  And he was a ten pound baby!  Not as in cost ten pounds (I wish.  No comment on the cost of all this), as in weighs ten pounds!  OH MY GOD I AM GOING TO HAVE A HUGE BABY WHO'S GOING TO BE EVEN BIGGER AS WILL POP OUT WEARING BASEBALL CAP.

Pass me the smelling salts.