Romancing Potential "Dads"
My first task was finding a father. Even if he wasn't my partner, I figured, he'd be in the picture as an uncle figure. Uncle Dad. I summoned my courage and asked a close friend, my gay ex-boyfriend Xavier, to father my child, envisioning the tall, handsome half Latin off spring he'd give me.

Xavier was a sensitive intellectual, the kind of guy who, in college, could be found pureeing squash for a soup or reading Rilke—in the original German. In my fantasy, he'd introduce the kids to high art and literature. Plus, he was smart, sweet, good-looking, and I loved him. (I had this crazy idea about wanting to make a baby with someone I actually loved!) And Xavier was a slam dunk—he'd offered to be the donor for Joan and me years earlier.

After I popped the question, I sat back and waited nervously for his "yes," falling more deeply in love with my fantasy children, imagining their trips to South America to visit their cousins. I'd have to learn Spanish, of course. But a few months later, Xavier said no. He'd had a distant father, he said, and didn't want to repeat that pattern.

I was crushed, but I was also on the clock. After a month of licking my wounds, I worked up the nerve to ask my good friend Jim, the only other man I could imagine taking this huge step with. No again. I calmly thanked him—then began sobbing the moment I got off the phone.

I was heartbroken: I knew this meant I had to give up on the dream of giving my child a father, and I so badly wanted my child to have what I had not.

With a real dad for my kid off the table, I became totally immobilized. In fact, I might have stayed frozen forever if it weren't for Roberta, my straight, married best friend from high school.

She, proud mother of a one-year-old, hounded me, prodded me, called me long distance (incessantly) to say, and not gently: Do it. Do not wait another minute. You could lose your chance.

Courting Perfect Strangers
So I scraped myself off the couch and started looking at sperm banks. It turns out there are dozens sprinkled all across the country, and most have websites. Searching for a donor from a drop-down menu feels like online dating meets 10th grade biology (remember Mendel's hybrid pea plants?) meets the American Kennel Club.

I hated the idea. It seemed cold and weird and unnatural—even threatening. A stranger's sperm entering my body, and not only that, potentially creating a life. It was anathema to me to make a baby with a serial number instead of a human being. But it was my best Plan B.

A random known donor or an accidentally-on-purpose pregnancy were too risky. And I didn't want to adopt; like many women, I had always wanted to experience biological motherhood—pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding, a genetic connection to my child, the works.

So, instead, I shopped. My first-choice donor was an allegedly cerebral, good-looking performer. I ordered him right up. But he had hit his maximum of 15 families and his semen was no longer available.

My second select was tall, dark, and handsome. Blue eyes, on the ski team in college, liked to dance and cook. "He sounds dreamy!" my mom said. "Can you get his number?" (Inappropriate, Mom!) Still, all that, and he was available! Sounded too good to be true.

And it was. After eight months of intrauterine inseminations (uncomfortable affairs at the doctor's), I learned donor McDreamy was shooting blanks.

Donor Three was a tall, green-eyed actor, again handsome, musical, and athletic. His life goal, he wrote, was "to impact the world by artistic means." I was impressed. Most of all, he seemed like a nice guy.

Turned out, he was The One. I got pregnant on my second try, but was told it was questionable from the start. "Well, you're pregnant, but..." were the nurse's exact words. A few weeks later, I lost the baby.