Progeny
by Elizabeth di Grazia

Care more than others think wise. Risk more than others think safe. Dream more than others think practical. Expect more than others think possible.
- Anonymous

As part of the recipe, I have this image: I visualize twins, four years old (they look like me at that age, fair skin, freckles dotting the nose and cheeks, blondish-reddish hair), tussling in the front yard under the spread of the ornamental crabapple tree. Like the tree they are hardy, do well in full sun and grow easily. Watching as they grab each other's arm and twirl, faster, faster and faster until one loses grip causing them to tumble to the ground. Pinkish, fragrant, petals of the crabapple have long since fallen and the imaginary children collapse on roots that are pushing upwards through the soil. Being young, they don’t notice bumps or bruises and they spring with a yelp, darting after the orange tabby that spills from a branch of simple green leaves. The barefooted boy rushes ahead, yelling for his sister to hurry. I watch and listen from the living room bay window and wonder if they’ll remember the rule to not leave the yard. Laughter bubbles, floats and flits through the screen door; mingling with the dee-dee of the black capped chickadee and the song of the house sparrow. The boy stops short at the edge of the grass, turns to see if I’m watching. I wave. He hesitates, waves, and pushes his sister to the ground in an attempt to launch a game of chase. Bounding to freedom, the cat shoots to the neighbor’s yard. I smell the dreamt up chocolate chip cookies that my partner is making for the children. I hear her slide a sheet from the oven and place it on the counter. She walks towards me, ready to beckon the children. I am full, satiated and happy. I imagine and want all of this.

Choosing a Sperm Donor Recipe

$195 per insemination unit. Note: for $30 more you can receive sperm of male who has completed or is completing a professional degree. Does not come with guarantee of pregnancy.

May want to order two insemination units per ovulation cycle. 

Click on www.cryolab.com. Donor availability is located in CLI Donor Search Engine.

Beware of creating too long or too short of criteria when specifying donor characteristics. Either will produce inadequate results.

Suggestion: choose same blood type as yours. It will be easy to remember your child’s blood group. You would never think to ask your date whether he or she is O positive or negative prior to sexual relations but hey, take advantage of the situation.

To increase chance that offspring looks like you select same color of hair, eyes of self and identical ethnic background.    

For final selection of donor, choose someone you would consider marrying. 

Make appointment with health clinic. Discuss with doctor whether home insemination is a possibility or artificial insemination must be done in clinic. 

Undergo physical and Pap smear.

Set-up account with Cryolab. Don't spend much time questioning 'name' of business. Perhaps it's a good omen and means a baby will soon be crying.

Order sperm.

Continue with monitoring body temperature. Purchase ovulation kit.

Note: Cost does not include shipping. 

Final Suggestion: It’s a good idea to research donor profile and choose several donors without including partner in the initial go-around - unless you are willing to not inseminate for several cycles while donor discussions continue with your partner.  Suggest to partner that she prioritize final selection, this will keep her involved and happy, well … satisfied.

Home Intra-Cervical Insemination Recipe
1 positive ovulation test
1 large tank or drum
2 vials of sperm
1 pair of winter gloves
1 sponge
1 - 5 cc Syringe
1- 4.5-inch catheter that fits syringe
1  speculum
1 best friend (spouse or partner may be substituted)
2 dining room chairs
1 lamp
visualization

Undress. Wrap self in soft, baby blue waist-length bathrobe. With best friend, lie side by side on queen size bed, hold hands and visualize conception. Avail oneself of crystals, candles and lullaby music. Pull tank from closet (it will be heavy), take care that hardwood floor isn’t scratched. Use winter gloves to unscrew cap. Beware. When cap is off dry ice used for storage of sperm will cause billowing fog. Don't be alarmed.

Wear gloves while lifting metal basket from tank. Take one vial of sperm, leaving other for tomorrow's insemination, cup vial in palm to aid thawing. Visualize strong fishies swimming upstream. (Don't spend time wondering how many vials one ejaculation fills or how much donor gets paid or how much the business profits, though vial is very, very small. Remember it only takes one fishy.) Ask best friend to carry dining room chairs into bedroom. Scoot butt to edge of bed. Place a leg on each chair using the back of chair to function as a stirrup. Remind best friend to heat speculum in bathroom under warm running water. 

After realizing bedroom has insufficient lighting, suggest best friend bring floor lamp from living room. Lift shade off. Tilt floor lamp to rest on dining room chair to augment lighting. Pray that hot light bulb doesn’t topple onto exposed thigh. Best friend kneels, inserts and positions speculum, fills syringe with sperm, locates cervical canal, compresses plunger. Beware. Best friend may faint. Place sponge in vagina for forty-five minutes.

After process is complete, masturbate to simulate lovemaking, follow with more visualization. If within two weeks procedure has failed, retry following positive ovulation test.

As part of the recipe, about once a month, the endometrium, or lining of the uterus, begins to thicken in preparation to receive and nourish a fertilized egg. Meanwhile, several egg follicles begin to mature, but usually only one develops fully, with a mature egg inside. It moves to the surface of the ovary, and the follicle ruptures, releasing the egg into the fallopian tube. Over the next few days, the sides of the fallopian tube squeeze periodically, pushing the egg down into the uterus. As the egg, or ovum, progresses through the fallopian tube toward the uterus, it secretes a special substance which acts as “runway lights” to guide sperm. Only one sperm penetrates the egg, leading to pregnancy. The embryo will then travel down to the uterus where it implants in the uterine lining and begins to grow. Sperm can survive for several days inside of a woman, residing safely in the fallopian tubes or in one of over a hundred gland-like cervical crypts. Once released, an egg is viable for twenty-four hours.
 
I discerned exactly when it happened. I could feel the ovum and sperm meeting.  It was a bang, a pop, a twinge, a crash. I could feel the tiny squiggly thing pushing its way into the egg. I recognized the penetration, the force, and the want of that sperm to get into the egg and of the egg’s willingness to allow it. I could feel all of this: breasts sore, swollen and tender; stomach queasy; I had to urinate often; tired; heartburn and headaches, and did I experience mood swings! angry, sad and happy for no reason at all.

I had all the signs that one does in their first trimester of pregnancy. 

When my period came, I sank to the floor. There used to be a time, I wanted, I begged for my period to come and it didn’t.  Now, now when all I wanted was for one tiny scrawny miniscule sperm to penetrate an egg, blood flowed.
 
Throbbing for children, I attempted artificial insemination twice. That was all the devastation I could live with.    

Why can’t I have children?

I want a child to wrap his or her self around my legs, hold me down and not let me walk from room to room. Why can’t I have that?

My sister Catherine says I can’t. She’s a Baptist. I stated over and over that I was a good person. But Jesus Christ is her savior and he’s saving her and her family from the likes of me. 

President Bush says I can’t. He’s called on Congress to pass a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, warning that the “most fundamental institution of civilization” will be permanently damaged if the federal government fails to stop judges from forcing gay marriage on American society.

“The union of a man and woman is the most enduring human institution…honored and encouraged in all cultures and by every religious faith,” he said.

The Pope says I can’t. He called on all Roman Catholics in authority to stop same-sex marriage.
             
Jody and I can't stop wanting children. She, too, undergoes artificial insemination, failing to become pregnant five times. 

We can't stop wanting children. Jody and I have an adoption referral within thirty days from when we start the paperwork and at the same time we have in storage an order of sperm for Jody's sixth try at artificial insemination. If we are successful with both undertakings, Jody will be pregnant or giving birth when the adopted child arrives. We decide to not inseminate.

Nighttime, Jody floats into my dream world; my wife, my partner, my spouse.  "Where will we travel?" I ask.  'What will I need?"
 
"We'll travel light," she says.  "We'll fly to Guatemala, wake the children from their slumber, motherless; we'll bring them home and mother them."

This is not true. I imagine all of this.

I envision a home and a mother that I love to lean on. I’m twelve years old. A mother sits on the davenport, reading, drinking lemonade that we made a short while ago. My fingers still contain the pungent scent from the lemon I sliced. I was quite awkward with the paring knife, nipping my thumb when the lemon slipped off the butcher block, rolling to the tiled floor. A mother was measuring sugar, and after taking a peek, she assured me that I was fine.

“Wash the lemon; let’s try again,” she said.  “I’ll get you a Band-Aid.”  Then she held the lemon while I cut. 
  
An imaginary light breeze is blowing through the screen porch, rustling the chimes that we brought home from Paraguay. A mother holds out her right arm, beckoning for me to sit. I cuddle under the umbrella of her full, round shoulder.  
 
A mother is flipping through a scrapbook from Parque Nacional Defensores del Charo that we brought home from our trip to South America. She points out the giant anteater, maned wolf, Brazilian tapar, puma and ocelot that we saw, pausing at the photograph of the ocelot, then rubs the colors as if she’s petting him and can feel his yellow, tawny fur. Running her fingers, she draws around his dark brown irregular shaped spots and stripes. The ocelot looks like a regular tiger to me that I could see at any zoo, but a Mother explains that the animal is almost extinct because of hunting for its fur and pet trade.

“Remember,” she says, turning a few pages to a group of old women sitting in a circle, “It was here in Neu-Halbstadt that you picked out your Indian silver rose earrings?” 

That’s a mother. She loves to travel, bringing the visiting country home with her. I can count on living Paraguayan style for at least six months. Next summer when school lets out she says I can pick the destination. I’m thinking of the Galapagos Islands to see the giant sea turtles. Do you think I should research their ethnic foods first?

I imagine a mother, this time, and this conversation and hope that I can be as good of a mother as I imagine.

Elizabeth di Grazia, M.F.A., essayist, memoirist and poet has two completed memoirs, “House of Fire”and “Intentional Family Living” and is in the process of finding a publisher for both.  DiGrazia received her M.F.A. in writing from Hamline University.  Her work has appeared in a number of periodicals, including The Phoenix, Rockhurst Review, Beginnings and four personal essays with Edge Life. She lives with her partner and two children, Antonio and Crystel, in Richfield, Minnesota. Antonio and Crystel are four years old and were adopted from Guatemala when they were seven and eight months old. They continue to provide material.

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