How I decided to become a solo mom by choice at age 41

I've always wanted kids, but I figured there would be a natural progression in a relationship where a baby would be the logical next step. That was my thinking throughout my 20s and into my 30s. Meanwhile, I built a big career, cultivated the most magnificent network of friends and lovers, and traveled beyond my wildest dreams. I've hiked the mountains of Patagonia, slept under the stars in Jordan, danced on the beach in Zanzibar.

I've fallen in love three times. But either I wasn't ready for the next steps, or they weren't.

When I was 35, my little sister was diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer when she was just 30. Her doctors wanted her to start chemotherapy immediately, and they warned that her fertility might not come back. They suggested a future scenario of taking one of my eggs and combining it with her husband's sperm since there wasn't time for her to freeze her own eggs. So I froze my 35-year-old eggs just in case she needed them.

As my big 4-0 was on the horizon, I had a growing clarity that I wanted to have a baby. There was an innate desire but, also, I had loved every second of being an aunt, as my siblings and friends brought babies into my life. Plus, a benefit of waiting a bit later to have children is the opportunity to really get to know yourself. Through therapy, through traveling, through the most intense work environments, I had come to know myself better and to trust my own resiliency.

I had spent the past couple of years slowly separating my dating life from my desire to have children. Every date didn't have to be an interview for the father of my child.

Additionally, I had spent the past couple of years slowly separating my dating life from my desire to have children. Every date didn't have to be an interview for the father of my child. After all, I'd already frozen my eggs . That realization released pressure, and it dawned on me that having a child on my own didn't mean that the baby would never have a father figure(s). I mean, how could I predict what the next 18 years of my life would look like? How can you, even if you have a partner at the start of the baby journey, predict how your relationship will progress long term? After all, every one of us is just taking a leap.

I've had many a night where I'm on a lovely date and I've given myself a shot in the bathroom of a restaurant as part of an egg freezing or in vitro fertilization process. I got to a place where I had an appreciation for all the love I was experiencing along the way. How freeing it was that these journeys could be separate but not necessarily exclusive.

When I started to think about having a baby on my own, I turned to my community, especially to queer friends who had paved the way, using surrogates , sperm or egg donors, or all of the above, to start their families. Over coffee, I listened to the tale of a friend who is a solo dad by choice. Over wine, I took in the stories of friends with shared custody. I sat with single parents who met great loves and merged their families. There are a lot of ways to build a family and over a yearlong investigation, I chipped away at the cultural construct of the nuclear family that still tugged at my heart.

Along the way, a couple of men in my life had casually offered their sperm to me. But over the years, both of them had gotten married; one was contemplating children, and the other was expecting a child with their partner. Now using their sperm felt quite complicated.

A single friend of mine and I casually discussed going for it together, but I could see it would get complicated quickly when he asked, "How often would I get to hang out with the baby?" I pictured us both finding partners along the way and it getting tricky — who would the baby's dad be if I got married or partnered up with someone? How much time would each person get to spend with the baby?

Eventually I realized using an anonymous sperm donor would be the best option for me. I soon found that there are many reputable sperm banks all over the country. Each bank had different information that they showed on each donor, different testing that they offered, and each charged hundreds of dollars to access their database for a few months. All of them had terrible, early 2000s-feeling interfaces, which only furthered my feeling of isolation and stigma.

At the same time, I also got a lot of questions. Why not just meet someone at a bar and have sex with them? Why wouldn't you adopt? Have you considered fostering? How will you manage as a single parent? As a person making this decision myself, I felt vulnerable and sensitive against this barrage of questions.

When I decided it was baby-making time, I knew I wanted — and needed — to bring my community into this unconventional process. So, I threw a "Who'z the Daddy?" party, where a dozen friends helped me pick my donor.

Over pizza and wine, I pulled up each profile and we all kept scorecards rating each potential donor on health, hotness, personality and smarts. We scrolled through profile after profile, looking through pictures, reading essays and listening to audio recordings of each man. We tracked our draft picks on a neon-hued sports bracket I had designed that morning and had displayed on the TV behind me.

The "candidates" represented a broad range of demographics and nationalities, hailing from the U.S. as well as countries and cultures where I'd lived and had a strong community. We each scored, we tallied, we eliminated. Eventually, we went from eight candidates to four candidates to two. The excitement in the room was palpable. At the end, we decided on a silent ballot, and everyone wrote their final choice on a scrap of paper and dropped it into a hat. We couldn't believe it when my friend announced it was a tie. But then someone realized we were an odd number. I secretly hadn't voted. And in the end, the whole experiment landed me exactly where I'd hoped: with my community by my side, with two solid donor candidates and a final decision that was just mine.

Using this donor sperm, I launched into two rounds of IVF but unfortunately neither worked. Ultimately, my sister didn't end up needing my frozen eggs, but I did. I dethawed those previously frozen eggs, fertilized them and got two embryos.

The baby I'm 35 weeks pregnant with now, at age 41, was created using my own eggs from all those years ago. My sister has a child now, and I will, too. We've embarked on two very different paths to starting a family, but both have been filled with love and a strong and caring community.