When Fate Dictates Sperm Bank Option

“Dear Family Life,

“Have you a list of legitimate, carefully screened gene banks that I may avail myself of? Thank you.”

The letter was signed “Shirley.”

Obviously, it letter was from a woman in search of a sperm donor. But who would have guessed that Shirley was a 68-year-old woman who wants to become a grandmother?

“It’s for my daughter, Renee,” Shirley said when I called. “She’s 41 years old. There is no man in her life, and she’s decided to have a child now before it’s too late. So I’m doing what I can to help her.

“I’m getting older, and I’m not going to be around forever. I want her to have a child who can be to her what she has been to me, so she won’t be alone.”

Her daughter is living in New York City now but is planning to move back to Orange County soon.

Shirley told her daughter: “A gene bank could help you, and you would be free of any encumbrances. If you went any route I’d be right behind you. I love you. But if you went this way, it would be best.”

After some thought, Renee agreed and found a gynecologist willing to help.

“I would love to be in love,” Renee said when I called. “I would love to have someone who would willingly make a commitment for a lifetime. I just haven’t met them. That’s their problem, but it became my problem.

“But this way, it’s very aboveboard. I know exactly what’s expected. I’m the only one who’s in charge here. I don’t have someone to play with my emotions.”

Renee, a free-lance writer and historian, said she never intended to wait so long to become a mother: “It wasn’t that I ever didn’t want to have a child. I was just too busy trying to create a professional life for myself.

“You just move along and take time with you, and suddenly time overwhelms you. I have a lot of friends in the same situation who are truly agonizing over it.”

One male friend offered to help. “He said, ‘I’d be happy to contribute my sperm.’ And I said, ‘Don’t be so generous.’ I just don’t want this person to come into my life and make demands on me.”

Then there was the option of going out and “just picking up someone,” Renee said. “You just don’t do that in the age of AIDS. It’s too risky. And it’s not my personal style. I never go to bars; I don’t drink. So for me, artificial insemination by donor was the only choice.

“I feel more comfortable with a data sheet, which gives me no sense of who this person is, aside from medical history, color of eyes, hair, weight, etc., than with someone I know too well. When you’re in love, you don’t ask questions about medical history. Since that is missing, I can choose according to criteria that are objective, maybe to the point of being ridiculous.”

The concept of the anonymous donor has given Renee “a sense of control over my own life. When my ability to have a child was a function of another personality, part of the complex psychology of partnering, I found my own sense of personal freedom was being compromised. Now I don’t feel passive. If I want a child, if I can pay for it, I can do it, assuming that physically I’m functional and healthy.”

Renee has not abandoned the hope of finding a partner: “Having a child doesn’t mean that I’m always going to be unloved the rest of my life. My life as a sexual woman isn’t finished. One of my friends said, ‘Look, it probably will become easier for you now. For the first time in a couple of years, you can become romantically involved with a man and see him as just the man, not as a unit that could produce a child.’ ”

Whether or not Renee becomes pregnant this month, she plans to move back to Orange County, where she grew up, so that she and her mother can go through the process together, however long it takes.

Shirley said she recently had a dream in which Renee ended up having a daughter. After that, “I’m sitting here knitting booties already. And I do hope she’ll have a daughter. But I’ll take anything. She’ll take anything, I’m sure.”

We’ll check back with Renee and Shirley in a month or so to find out if the first attempt was successful. Stay tuned.

Children Having Children

Your teen-age daughter is only a baby herself, and now she tells you she’s pregnant. Even as more adult women are postponing pregnancy these days, there is still an epidemic of teen-age pregnancy. If you and your family have faced this problem, tell us how you dealt with it. Abortion? Adoption? Are you raising your grandchild along with your child? And tell us what you’d do differently if you knew then what you know now.

Dad and Apple Pie

Are you a single father who is raising his children alone? We would like to meet you and talk about how you cope with juggling business and social life, among other things.

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