Posted on 11/17/2017 4:28:26 PM PST by Sub-Driver
Every other month I receive two vials of frozen sperm in a nitrogen tank, which is then emptied, the vials labeled and kept frozen until the exact time of month I’m ready for them. This window of readiness is brief: 12 to 24 hours. When I detect that ovulation is imminent, the vial is defrosted. Ninety minutes later, 17 million sperm are inserted into my uterus via a catheter.
I do this because I am 39 and single and my craving for a child eclipses everything else, including my secret fear that this process will be successful.
The donor I have chosen is tall, well educated, lean, laconic, a chemical engineer who researches renewables. He’s a cyclist, they tell me, who clicks down the halls of the center in his special cycling shoes. Affable but not warm. His mother’s people are Tatars, Muslim nomads from the Central Asian Steppe. I like all that he seems to represent: intellect, precision, hardiness, planetary repair.
One week each month I pee daily on a test strip and wait for either an empty circle, which means the window is closed, or a smiley face, indicating an egg’s imminent release.
At a bachelorette dinner for a friend in late July, I met Sadie. She was loud, brash, a presence. From across the table, I overheard her describing plans to drive south for the coming eclipse, and a deep longing welled up inside me.
“If you have space —— ” I said.
“We may.”
By the wedding on Aug. 6, I was two days late, my breasts sore and engorged. A pregnancy test came back negative, but I was certain it was wrong. I felt swollen with a secret, sacred hope.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Every sperm is sacred.
Every sperm is great.
If a sperm is wasted,
God gets quite irate.
There’s a very old Gahan Wilson cartoon I haven’t been able to find an image of online. In it, a deformed, twisted old man chuckles as he walks down the street. In the background is the sign for the fertility clinic he has just donated to.
I’d post it if I could find it. Does anyone remember it?
Was it anything like this?
(Different artist, I know.) 
“Ninety minutes later, 17 million sperm are inserted into my uterus via a catheter.
How very.....icky.
L
Then maybe you ought to find a decent man and procreate. Or, barring that, give up the obsession with bringing a life into the world that you have no clue how to support morally..
Did my own search and didn't see that cartoon - lots of potential hits so it might be out there....
“Was it anything like this?”
Same idea, different artist, different composition.
In Wilson’s cartoon (as I remember it), the deformed old donor was seen from the front, chuckling as he walked down the street, hunched over his cane. In the background, down the crowded street you could see the sign of the clinic.
I’m glad you remembered it. I too did a search on Bing and Google Images. I went through a lot of cartoons, but didn’t see that one, either.
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