Buying Dad: One Woman's Search for the Perfect Sperm Donor FROM THE PUBLISHER
What do two nice Jewish girls do when they want to start a family? They can marry two nice Jewish boys, or, if they happen to be lesbians, they can buy sperm online from California! Buying Dad is a hilarious, edgy, first--person chronicle of a year in the life of a woman engaged in a very alternative family-planning experience. Peeling back the layers of self-indulgence accumulated in 30-odd years as a self-proclaimed gay, childless, albeit happy neurotic, Harlyn Aizley takes the reader on one of the most personal, intimate and utterly female journeys any woman, gay or straight, can make -- that of becoming a mother. Aizley's story begins with the search for sperm -- known or unknown donor? Delivered on dry ice or in a nitrogen tank? The journey unfolds within the context of her relationship with her female partner, her mother's cancer diagnosis, the threat of her own possible infertility and finally pregnancy itself. Aizley's wry voice and candid prose embrace this confluence of major life events with the humor and wisdom that make Buying Dad accessible to any woman who ever considered ending a lifetime of sleep-filled nights and becoming a parent.
Harlyn Aizley's fiction and poetry have been seen in Cups, Caffeine, Inside, Dialogue and The South Carolina Review as well as the anthologies Love Shook My Heart, Scream When You Burn and Beginnings. Her nonfiction has appeared in Boston Magazine and the anthologies The Best American Neurotica and Mondo Barbie Redux. She is a graduate of Brandeis University and holds a master's degree in education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. A native of New Jersey, she currently lives in the Boston area.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
While reproductive high-tech isn't exactly gay friendly, it has revived interest in the biological clock for many lesbians who wouldn't have heard its tick years ago. Aizley, a Jewish lesbian freelance writer, and her partner, Faith, were already in their 30s when they started considering motherhood. Agreed that children didn't need dad energy, and that Aizley, being older, should get pregnant first, they faced the trickier issue of sperm sourcing. After considering some male friends, they decided an anonymous sperm donor was less problematic. At first, sperm shopping seemed delightfully empowering-"the genetic world is our oyster"-but they soon realized they hadn't thought about which attributes really mattered. Ethnicity? Intelligence? Sincerity on the writing sample? Narrowing it down to donors willing to disclose paternity when the child grew up, the couple invested enough in one donor's specimens so Faith could later produce a half-sibling. From this point, Aizley's tale reads like any woman's: failed insemination procedures, fears of fertility treatments and huge doses of self-doubt. But before long, she's pregnant. Meanwhile, Aizley's sweet mom is dying of cancer, her hetero sister is having an unbelievably easy pregnancy-the story is as addictive as a good soap. Aizley's sense of humor may turn off some (when they switch to "non-Jewish" sperm, she muses, "I hope they treat my egg with respect and roll back their foreskins before doing the deed"), but her lesbian fans-and a good many straight women-may appreciate her irreverence and her honesty. Agent, Ann Collette. (July) Forecast: Alyson may have a good crossover title here, at least to hip straight women. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
Aizley, a published poet and nonfiction writer, chronicles the hyperanxiety and soul searching surrounding her decision to choose artificial insemination, her pregnancy, the implications of motherhood, and the wisdom of bringing a child into the world at all-much less a world of two mommies, no daddy. But rather than presenting a dry, tedious, and depressing narrative, she leaves the reader laughing out loud. Her humorous take on life allows the reader to become the author's friend and to relate to her much as an "Everywoman" sharing the universal worries and experiences of impending parenthood. As Aizley sorts out her feelings, the very important subtext of her own mother's failing health is analyzed. In that regard, this thoroughly captivating read about the foibles of a 21st-century family also becomes a book about death and dying. While there is a fair amount of material available about lesbian mothers, not much has been published dealing with lesbians who choose artificial insemination. Recommended for all public and large academic libraries, though the topic and language are frank and may be offensive in conservative communities.-Margaret Cardwell, Christian Brothers Univ. Lib., Memphis Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
Describing with wry humor a lesbian's search for a potential sperm donor, Aizley's memoir makes a literate addition to the growing shelf of books altering the traditional definition of family. Nearing 40, medical researcher and writer Aizley lives in Boston with Faith, a musician and composer. The author is ready to have a baby, but first the couple must decide on a donor: Faith wants someone they know, while Aizley prefers an anonymous source; both are Jewish and initially want a Jewish donor ("it's a tribe thing") who agrees that the child can make contact later in life. They begin to research the literature, Faith comes round to Aizley's position on anonymity, and they finally locate an apparently suitable donor they nickname Baldie. His sperm arrives from California in a number of phials preserved in a tank of nitrogen, and Aizley begins insemination. After months of failure and increasing medical intervention and expenses, she fears she may be infertile, but before taking fertility-enhancing drugs, she checks to see whether Baldie has ever impregnated anyone. Learning that he hasn't, the couple finds a new donor, half-Japanese and non-Jewish, and begins another, ultimately successful round of inseminations. Along the way, they learn that Aizley's mother must undergo chemotherapy for ovarian cancer. As she relates in vivid detail her own medical trials-the ovulation watch and the actual inseminations, the doctors and personnel at fertility clinics-the author also movingly details her mother's struggle with cancer. She describes frankly her jealousy of her also-pregnant younger sister, Faith's occasionally ambivalent attitude, and fears that she can't survive without her mother, whosecancer has spread. Relentlessly analytical, Aizley also explores the nature of her relationship with Faith, the meaning of motherhood, and of being gay. The high level of self-awareness is at times wearying, but good writing and solid medical reporting more than compensate.
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