Story of my bizarre and desperate journey to become a mother when a big obstacle emerges.
This entirely fictional story had a very long gestation which started in 2015. I was struggling with the concept and not getting anywhere. I kept writing a bit more and then putting it aside unfinished. In 2018 I got some great advice and assistance from another author: many thanks D. Despite this help I still wasn't happy with my efforts, so I put it aside yet again. Getting weary of its presence in my draft story folder I have finally finished it, though still not completely satisfied. Hope you enjoy.
To get the most out of the story, I suggest you put yourself into the minds of the characters.
To readers wanting a slam, bam, thankyou ma'am plot, or demeaning men, this story is not for you.
PART 1 - My Problem and Possible Answer
My name is Jill. I am 28 and have been married for 8 years to a lovely guy Dan who I met in university. I am a mother now, but it wasn't an easy journey and for a while we had thought we may not be able to have any children. But as they say, where there is a will......
I came from a very strict religious upbringing where sex was never mentioned and the idea of sex before marriage consider abhorrent. I was closely controlled up until the age of 18 when I left home for university. I arrived there totally ignorant of boys and sex. Dan and I had met in my freshman year at a Christian fellowship meeting. He had grown up in a similar strict background, so we seemed well suited to each other in our mutual ignorance. He became my first and as it turned out, only boyfriend.
We dated right through university. On my graduation day he got down on one knee and proposed in front of my family, and I accepted immediately. I was just 20 years old.
Although I had promised to wait until we were married, we both got carried away the night of our engagement/my graduation party and I let him take my virginity in the basement guest room, while my parents and the rest of the family were asleep upstairs. It wasn't a memorable event to be truthful, I just remember a lot of fumbling around, a sharp pain, then a couple of thrusts and he groaned and slumped on top of me.
We were married 9 months later and soon got into the routine of married life with work, paying off our mortgage, social events and holidays taking up all our time.
I had endured a strict upbringing as a child and was very shy and fairly ignorant about sex. I was also Dan's first girlfriend so we both started out marriage very sexually inexperienced, learning as we went along, not very well I might add. Our sex was ok but seemed routine to me, either him on top or occasionally me on top. I didn't often manage to orgasm making love as Dan never seemed to be able to last long enough to get me there. I didn't have anyone else to compare with so my expectations were not high.
As for some other things I had heard or read about, like blowjobs, getting oral, and anal, never happened. I tried to raise the subject of introducing some variety with Dan a few times but got nowhere. Other than that, I was very happily married. Dan was a good and kind husband, generous and caring.
We were travelling along well with married life and the first two years passed quickly with no problems until one day my best friend announced she was pregnant. Suddenly my biological alarm clock started ringing very loudly and nothing I could do from then on would switch off that damned alarm. I was suddenly desperate to have a baby.
Dan and I talked about it, and we decided to start baby making. Our love life was suddenly reinvigorated as we took every opportunity to get me pregnant. After 6 months of trying, including reading at length about how often and when to do it, taking morning temperatures and monitoring ovulation, and all of that, we were still without result.
My friend's belly was ever growing, and I was getting so jealous of her. I started looking into every pram I passed and even went into baby clothe stores, all which reduced me to tears. My desperation was growing and I was feeling a terrible emptiness. I was hungering for a baby. I also found myself staring at other attractive men unconsciously wondering if they could get me pregnant.
I reluctantly went to visit a Gynaecologist with Dan. I was given a very thorough series of examinations by a male doctor. It was very embarrassing, especially as it was done in front of Dan who had accompanied me. I was displayed naked with legs wide apart in stirrups with nothing left to the imagination. I was fingered, poked, and prodded in intimate places and had cold instruments inserted which stretched me apart so he could look deep inside. After that blood was taken and tested, my womb was injected with dye, then x-rayed and ultra-sounded. It was pretty horrible, but I was determined to have that baby at whatever cost. After suffering all these indignities, the Doctor pronounced everything was 100% normal with me and there was nothing preventing me getting pregnant.
It took a lot of persuading, but Dan finally agreed to be tested. I accompanied him to a clinic where a nurse gave him an empty specimen container and led him into a private room to 'produce a sample.' He was gone for almost an hour and then finally emerged looking very embarrassed holding the filled jar.
Unfortunately, the tests showed no swimmers at all. He was sterile and could never father a baby.
After seeing the results, he broke down and I held him close. He cried telling me he didn't feel like a real man anymore and offered to give me a divorce. It took me quite a while to reassure him of my steadfast love and of his manhood. Silently I was beside myself in grief at the thought of no babies.
For Dan's sake I was stoic, but inside I was totally devastated at the news. My dream has evaporated in front of me.
After getting over our initial grief, Dan and I started to talk about options. Dan wanted children very much, though maybe not as desperately as me.
Dan suggested adoption. Unfortunately, we found that there were very few children available to adopt in our country, so we would have to go overseas to adopt which was fraught with difficulty, not to mention the cost which we could not afford. I didn't say it to Dan, but what I desired the most was to get pregnant then carry and give birth to a child.
The only remaining option was artificial insemination by donor sperm. In theory we could obtain artificial insemination services at a private fertility clinic. However, the Government had passed a new law which allowed children fathered by donor sperm to be able to find the name of their donor. As a result, donations had literally 'dried up' and there was a very long waiting list. I was worried I would be 40 before my turn came. Even then, the cost of utilising private clinics was horrendous and far beyond our current budget. There was also no guarantee of success, so even if we could save up the money, it could all be wasted. We started to be resigned to having no children which was a miserable thought.
A few months passed and we both started getting on with a childless life. I was holding it together until one night while I was having drinks after work with my colleagues. After having quite a few, I broke down and cried and poured my heart out telling them the whole miserable story.
The next day at work one colleague took me aside and told me about a friend of hers who had been in a similar situation to me. She had found out about a man who gave private sperm donations at no charge. She now had two children from his donated semen and was very happy with the outcome. She handed me a piece of paper with 'Peter' and a phone number written on it, smiled, and walked away.
I kept taking the slip out of my paper out of my purse and studying it many times a day for a few weeks until I got the courage to broach the subject with Dan.
"So, Dan, about our baby problem. I mentioned this to a friend, who has another friend who was in our situation. She and her husband found a private sperm donor at no cost and now they have 2 kids."
"Huh!"
"What if we try this?"
Understandably he got a shock at my suggestion. "Jill, assuming this isn't a crazy idea, which it is, for a start, how do you think we would we go about finding one."
Well, we could approach one of my friends and ask them for a donation from their husband and self-impregnate.
Really, let someone we know father OUR child? You realise it may take many donations for success. Also, who knows what complications that would bring in the future, say if the father demands parental rights, or when the child figures out who their bio-father is.
I agreed with the pitfalls with this.
"I could go to a bar and get picked up by a stranger I blurted out."
