One Good Egg: An Illustrated Memoir by Suzy Becker Read Free Book Online Page A

bank over the California competitor. Convenience beat conviviality. We had filled out all the paperwork. Steve had passed all the tests in advance (they had waived their upper age limit), and we were screened in for the “anonymous” donor program, which doubled as their “selected” (as in unwed to donee) donor program.
Anonymous Donors
a.k.a. altruistic men willing to “help couples experience the joy of conceiving a child”

    I called the bank the morning after I got my period (the day before Steve’s birthday) and made our first appointment.

    A week later, we were standing in front of a flat concrete-and-brick building, breathing through our coat collars, attempting to verify the building number on the other side of the people smoking. We crossed a dimly lit lobby and got onto a dimly lit elevator. There was still a chance the place would be gleaming and futuristic, on a secret, hermetically sealed floor, until the elevator doors opened. A man obscured another dimly lit floor.
    “Suzy, Stephen? Tom Mecke!” He threw out his hand and I shook it as I stepped off the elevator. There was something Oz-like about the welcome, a bushy-brown-eyebrowed director doubling as doorkeeper. Mecke led us down a short corridor by the lab, which was visible through the windows on our left. (The windows on our right were painted a mysterious milky blue, with a matching unmarked milky-blue door. He put on a white coat with a royal-blue cursive Director emblazoned on the left breast as we entered a small office. Mecke gestured to the now-empty coat tree. Steve and I hung up our coats and sat down. He opened the one folder, presumably ours, sitting on the empty desk, looked up at us, and launched into his welcome spiel. Every sentence seemed to contain the word “family.” It was holding up in all the different contexts—his family, our family, the family-run operation, part of the center’s family—and then it started to warp from overuse and the eyebrows dialed up a memory of that fertility doctor who fathered all the clients’ children.

    “ . . . and now you must have some questions for me.” The eyebrows were on Steve. Steve looked at me.
    My questions were so unfamilial. Bankerly. “Well, how often can Steve make a, a deposit?”
    “We recommend waiting two days in between specimen collections.”
    I got out my calendar. “Will we have enough after eight collections? We had been thinking twelve”—a year’s worth of tries—“since he lives in Australia.”
    “It all depends how much Stephen produces, and the quality of the specimen.” The two men exchanged looks; Steve’s eyebrows were junior–bushy league. “We recommend at least two collections.” He looked through the folder. “Are we preparing these for intracervical or intrauterine insemination?” He paused. “Never mind, we’ve gotten ahead of ourselves here. Let’s have you meet with the doctor, Suzy, and we’ll have Stephen produce his specimen, then we’ll know exactly what we’re talking about.”
    He handed me a folding chair and motioned toward the hallway as he led Steve off to the collection room. I unfolded the chair and set up with my back to the lab, angling for a glimpse into the milky-blue beyond. Ten minutes went by, nothing doing. Then a kindly-looking old man with wispy white hair came out of the office/collection area. I half stood to let him by, he half bowed in my direction, and we nearly banged heads. “I’m Dr. Felton. You’re Suzy?” I nodded. “I’ve just spoken with Stephen. I left him in there to—” his voice trailed off as he glanced up and down the hallway. “Well, this looks pretty private,” he said, unfolding himself a chair.

    “Stephen and I went over all of his test results and his medical history. Has he shared any of this?” he held up the questionnaire. I nodded and he went on, “Then you’re aware Stephen”— is gay. Yes, and I —“had an undescended testicle?” And now so is everyone in