Invetro

This copy is for your personal, noncommercial use only. You can order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers, please click here or use the "Reprints" tool that appears next to any article. Visit www.nytreprints.com for samples and additional information. Order a reprint of this article now. »

July 16, 2010 MODERN LOVE

Mom/Not Mom/Aunt

By JERRY MAHONEY

AFTER five loving, fulfilling years with my boyfriend, Drew, I suddenly found myself online, looking to meet a woman. I spent hours poring over profiles, bios and stats, looking at poorly lighted digital pictures and videos of awkward faces uttering tightly rehearsed self-promotional pitches. I narrowed the flash mob of candidates to six. Then I summoned Drew for his approval. Together we had a decision to make. One of the strangers on this Web site could end up contributing half of our child’s DNA. “Big nose, bad hair, gross skin, ugh — those eyebrows.” Drew sped down the list and blackballed them all. I fought for a few: “But she has a 4.0 at veterinary school, and this one teaches autistic kids to tap dance!” Drew was unmoved. I shouldn’t have been surprised. As a writer, I’m drawn to characters with intriguing quirks and heart-tugging back stories. But for Drew, who spent 12 years overseeing reality programming for MTV, this was proving to be just another casting session, albeit for the significant supporting role of egg donor. We’d been instructed by our surrogacy agency not to use the “m-word.” “This child will have two fathers,” the staff member scolded. “He or she will have an egg donor and a surrogate, but no mother!” Whatever you call these young women, there’s no shortage of them. For all those who are desperate to stop gay couples from adopting, there are others who are eager to help us down a more complex path to parenthood. And for the most part, they are merely girls — some as young as 19, still in their awkward

phases. You click on a face and...