2.
It rattled around inside of Janet's brain. It was like an itch that couldn't be scratched. Small, inconsequential, yet all consuming. It forced its way into every waking moment, interrupted every thought.
The Idea.
That night of the breakup, the first vague swirlings of inception had lingered in her mind. But Janet had immediately dismissed it as preposterous. An impossibility. Even if not technically impossible, she'd have to
ask
. And the answer would have to be 'yes'. And then to actually go through with it...
No. It was completely bonkers to even entertain.
And still The Idea persisted... The days had turned into weeks. Initially, Janet had thought she
was
just emotional from the breakup, not thinking straight. But as time passed, the notion remained, unwavering, even growing stronger in its allure. The more she thought about it, the less ludicrous it seemed.
After all, people had babies out of wedlock all the time. She'd hardly be the first single mother in the world. What was so bad about not taking the conventional path? Who said there was one right way to start a family?
Coming to terms with these feelings certainly did provide a measure of comfort. That feeling of time ceaselessly, inexorably passing, running out, became less of a claustrophobic crush when Janet thought in those terms. She didn't need to try to find a suitable candidate within the launch window. If she was able to just step away from her own preconceived notion of the "right way", she could throw out all of the life-planning number-crunching.
She could be free.
That was one germ of the idea that had formed in Janet's head that day of the breakup.
'I just need to have a baby,' she'd said. 'All that stress, all the pressure against the clock...'
It was true. It was so true. But then that inevitably led to the next pressing question. 'I'm not saying I'd go bang some random and get knocked up,' she'd said that day. ' I could get a sperm donor or something...'
And, at first, Janet had started to investigate doing just that. In the immediate weeks that followed, she began privately and surreptitiously looking into donor sperm, potential sperm banks to contact. How quickly it all became overwhelming -- washed vs. unwashed sperm, genetic testing, transportation, insemination methods, body priming via self injections... It was so much to process let alone consider undertaking.
And the costs of it all! She soon determined that absent some medical condition that required these procedures, she wouldn't be able to get coverage for any of it, which would cost tens of thousands of dollars.
An elective procedure, right,
Janet thought bitterly.
Maybe she should just get knocked up by some random after all, she thought in one moment of despairing dejection. After all, none of these issues she'd come across even touched upon what she'd naively assumed would have been the hardest decision: selecting the sperm donor.
And that was what Janet found most depressing of all. That she'd have to go through this convoluted, invasive, prohibitively expensive process, all just to have a baby with a literal stranger, someone she'd never so much as clapped eyes on. And why? What for? Because she was a failure at the Game of Life. Because she'd made the wrong decisions, picked the wrong people, the wrong relationships, and now the window was closed. This is what she'd have to settle for.
If only... if only there was something in between... Like a plot out of one of the crappy rom-coms she and Samantha loved to watch, if she had a close guy friend, a true friend that she could ask, to help her conceive and nothing more...
Of course, the plot would dictate that they'd realize that they were in love with each other all along and end up together as a happy family ever after... but Janet didn't need that. She could easily forego the cornball ending, if only she was just able to accomplish the first part, and take that power away from the clock...
But the whole line of thinking was utterly useless, because the fact was she didn't have a male friend like that, or anything close to one. Casual acquaintances at best.
And Janet had fallen into deep hopelessness once more.
And then, The Idea had come, coalescing in her mind and once fully formed, it would not leave. It stayed resolutely in the fore, blocking out all else, until in the end it was consuming her every waking moment.
