“You don’t have a number stamped on your back,” the nurse told me when I’d already been waiting almost a year for a donor egg from the hospital.  She explained that it could take more than a year, but that they were working very hard to find me a good match.  When I asked more about the good match, she elaborated that they were matching my eye and hair color. I felt like I was part of a bad dating service with a limited pool of men.

Then I got the tip that donor eggs were being sold on the Internet.  Some women’s ova were worth more than others. Models, Ivy League graduates and those with proven fertility were the “premier,” extraordinary” donors versus the “ordinary” ones who were paid less.  It was Saks versus Wal-Mart.  I went on a shopping spree.  Did I want the egghead or the beauty?  I could breed virtuosos with the eggs of Olympic athletes or musical divas. Why not buy the eggs of a brilliant model?  Then I paused.  Much as I had wanted to use my own eggs, at this point I would not even have chosen myself as a donor.  I was so preoccupied with concocting the right genetic mix to produce the next Madame Curie who would also win the Miss America contest that I was losing sight of creating a healthy baby to love.