From Instant Child to Instant Childhood--It’s a Miracle!

“There’s no way to raise children on the quick. “

--Sociologist Amitai Etzioni, on the problems of working parents.

Mainly, I worried about my squash game. Oh, I know it sounds like a little thing, but I’d finally gotten my backhand up to where I want it, and I knew that having a baby just now would mean no more three-times-a-week at the club, and a heck of a decline in my fitness level.

Mine and Cathy’s both. As a matter of fact, squash is a pretty good metaphor for the way we live. Cathy and I work hard, play hard and grab at life with both hands. Our relationship is terrific, and we’re both caught up in the kind of exciting, challenging careers that most people just dream about. I’m in advertising; creativity’s my god, good writing my prayer. Cathy’s a lawyer, and a damned good one, doing products liability for one of the top corporate firms.

We wanted kids, but, frankly, neither of us could see taking the time away from our work, our fun or our relationship. And yet, there was the nagging feeling that, well, something was missing. We’re not selfish. Can you blame us for wanting to share our bounty with a newcomer to this great big wonderful world?

I broached the subject with Cathy one night while she was working on the Vroomco case. Cathy takes her work seriously, believe me, and she’d just got done telling me over dinner how she really thought that she’d set a precedent with this one. Vroomco makes lawn mowers, among other things, and a bunch of people who had some trouble with the things decided to sue. You know how people are. They see a big company, and just because the blades come flying off a few of the machines, after years of reliable operation, they think that they’re entitled to a little easy money. Everybody wants something for nothing.

Well, anyway, when I mentioned kids, Cathy just gave me one of those looks of hers. It was obvious that the idea of waddling around fat as a house for months on end and then taking off all that time from work was just not for my Cathy. Case closed.

Adoption? Not for us. See, we think we’re pretty special. And to tell you the truth, we wanted to make a child that would have what we’ve got to offer. Let’s be blunt. We just like ourselves too much to provide the nurture without the nature. We wanted a baby that’s ours .

Then we heard about MinervaGene, over in Encino, and all I can do is fall back on the kind of copywriting cliche that hasn’t come out of my typewriter since I came out of college: It changed our lives.

In one of those marriages made in heaven, the people at MinervaGene have brought together science and business to make child-bearing possible for couples like us. Couples on the go.

And, best of all, it works.

Now, I’m no Mendel, but as far as I can tell, MinervaGene’s business is to manipulate the human genetic material that you provide, so you can have your child without the headaches and hassles traditionally associated with months of gestation and years of childhood.

Using one of Cathy’s ovum and my sperm, they fertilized the egg and then altered the genetic material within so that, just 72 hours after it was planted inside my beautiful wife, she gave birth--to a healthy, seven-pound, five-ounce baby boy, complete with her eyes, my chin and one heck of an appetite. What a thrill.

But that was only the beginning. A week later we had a real, honest-to-goodness 5-year-old running around the condo. Rooting through the VCR cassettes. Climbing on the futon. Just churning up mischief like a speedboat churns water.

I made sure to take lots of pictures, because I knew what was coming. Jeffy was just springing up right before our eyes. A week later he was 10. Another week later, 12, and so forth. We had asked MinervaGene to slow things down when he got to adolescence. When he got to be his own person. Just the kind of person we like.

Yet it’s amazing how much he’s learned in just four weeks of life. Now, Cathy and I believe in total honesty. Total integrity. That’s just us. So we decided to be up front with our son, and tell him right off the bat how he came into the world, and why he might be feeling a little behind at first. A little awkward.

But we also told him how much he means to us already. And that he’ll have all the help he needs to catch right up to all the other 16-year-olds--the ones who had to slog through 16 years of marginal existence just to get where he’s gotten in no time at all.

And you know what the beauty part is? The beauty part is that just by taking a month off from work we were able to be with Jeff for his entire childhood. Both of us. And that’s what I call a miracle.