“So, what, you’re going to use a sperm donor?” When people have asked me this, sometimes they seem sad about it.

OPTIONS:

Sleep With A Stranger:

Now, let’s get real, it’s not because I couldn’t just go out and find some random stranger to get naked with. I could. We all probably could. But if I’m going to do this alone, I want to do it all alone – not have someone half way involved or decide later they want to show up. Plus, ugh. Plus, annoying. Plus, no thanks.

Choose A Great Dad/Spouse:

I don’t know how much I trust myself to pick a good match. And at 34 years and 6 months old, I don’t have time to date someone for a few years to see if they aren’t actually a serial killer. When you’re married and get divorced without kids, it’s pretty simple. But having been through that whole step-mom process, I know that unless something serious happens, being a divorced parent means you have to deal with that other person for the rest of your lives – you have to pretend you don’t have strong unhappy feelings for them, you have coordinate and get along, and just do about all the things you used to be UNABLE to do in an actual marriage. So, needless to say, I’m not up for much co-parenting. I’ve seen people suffer through it, my parents included, and if I can avoid it, I’d rather.

Rom-Com/Best Pal Plan:

Find a good friend who will just offer to help me out? Well, the thing about that is that any man that I’d choose from my group of friends would probably have far too large of a heart to be able to get me pregnant and then not be a father to his child – or be “Uncle Joe” until the kid was 15 and then sit them down for a long story.

The cold hard truth is that just because there IS a dad/partner, it doesn’t mean they’re what you want them to be. I see a lot of parents that are functioning as single parents when they have a spouse. Maybe it’s because one parent works all the time. Maybe it’s because one seems invested in the family while the other doesn’t. Maybe it’s because there’s a substance abuse problem, or general abuse. So just HAVING someone there doesn’t always mean they’re actually there.

But here’s a thing that I’m going to have to learn RIGHT NOW. I don’t have to tell anyone all these reasons or excuses or stories. It’s not anyone else’s business why I’m making this decision. As a good friend of mine said, when I asked what I should tell this baby when the question “where’s my daddy?” comes up: I’m choosing to have a child on my own because I want that child so much that I refuse to wait on anyone else to be happy.