ABSTRACT
Few experiences are more intensely personal and intimate than making a life. When the intended parents, while bringing an extra penis to the mix, lack two of the biological components required for reproduction, the intimacies involved become more complex. When out of necessity the process is approached with intense, self-conscious intention, involving the help of egg donors and surrogates, when it goes against the grain of medical and legal institutions and social conventions, the process yields unusual and intricate relationships. So it was for me. Our first daughter resulted from the egg of a close friend, fertilized by the sperm of either me or my husband Richard—we know which one, but don't disclose that publicly—carried by my college girlfriend, supported by her then husband, and birthed by her near the home of my parents, who helped sponsor the whole expensive endeavor and greeted newborn Reba Sadie, along with several other members of our families of origin, in the maternity ward of Martha's Vineyard Hospital. Our second, Madeleine Blanche, resulted from the egg of a friend, fertilized by the sperm of either me or Richard, carried by a woman from Kentucky who was a complete stranger before we met her through a surrogacy agency, and birthed by her near her own home in Bowling Green, with the surrogate's mother in the delivery room and Reba, my parents and my mother-in-law in the waiting room.
