Baby Bank, page 1
BABY BANK
A Lesbian Romantic Comedy
Sarah Robinson
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Epilogue
Bonus Scene
Acknowledgments
Excerpt from the Next Book in the Queerly Devoted Series
Chapter One
Subscribe to Sarah’s Newsletter!
About the Author
Also by Sarah Robinson
To Baby Emery, whose existence sparked the idea for this entire story. Your moms are cool, too.
Chapter One
“I caught your show the other night,” my gynecologist said from between my legs as he cranked open the speculum.
I kept my eyes glued to the ceiling tile above me, which had an informative list of the symptoms of herpes. Casual reading, I assumed. “At the Comedy Loft?”
I lowered my gaze when Dr. Nicholas Allen’s head popped up above the sheet draped across my knees. “That’s the one. You know, I loved your set on being bisexual and how that meant twice the rejection instead of twice the dates. My wife and I laughed and laughed. Really great stuff.”
I gave him a tight-lipped grin and bob of my head. “Thanks. Always nice to meet a fan. It’s pansexual, by the way.”
“Of course. Right. So, how’d you come up with your stage name?” he asked.
“It’s a play on my name. Tori Miles, Mila Torres.” I didn’t usually answer questions like that, but since he was inside me… “With my day job, it’s easier to have some distance between that and my comedy.”
“Makes total sense. You know what you should add to your next set?” I could feel the giant cotton swab making crampy friends with my cervix as he chatted away like he wasn’t basically breathing into my bearded clam. “Vagina jokes. I’ve got tons of them.”
Definitely something I wanted to hear from my gynecologist.
“For example,” he continued. “Did you know that in older literature, the labia are referred to as meat curtains? Or the wooly beaver. Or a pink taco. Honestly, there’s so much material there you could write a whole set on it.”
“I think vaginas already have a monopoly on monologues,” I replied.
He snorted and I swear to God I felt a spray. “That’s clever. See, Mila? You’re a great comedian!”
I hadn’t asked for his validation, but this wasn’t an uncommon conversation with the male species these days.
“You can go ahead and sit up now,” he said after another minute. “All finished.”
I shimmied my butt farther back onto the table and closed my legs. “All look good down there?”
“The nurse will call you if the results come back as abnormal, but I’m sure you’re fine. It would be good to start thinking about your reproductive future though.” He was pulling his gloves off with a snap and depositing them in a red biohazard box. “At thirty-four, you’re considered almost an advanced age for pregnancy, and every year that goes by, your eggs will continue to degrade. Freezing them now could give you more options in the future for having children later in life. Have you considered having a family?”
“You know, strangely, no one has ever asked me when I’m going to settle down and have kids,” I replied, tapping a finger to my chin to highlight the sarcasm dripping from my words.
But my sarcasm went directly past Dr. Allen. “Really? Well, you’re lucky. Most women are hounded about that kind of thing. I’ll give you a few pamphlets on fertility specialists that we work with often. Great people. Give them a call and get a consultation if you’re interested. Certainly, no need to sign on the dotted line just yet, but good to get the information, right?”
“Right.” I hugged the thin paper gown tighter around me and focused my gaze on the diagram against the window of an IUD plugging up a uterus.
“Unless you’re thinking about having kids soon?” Dr. Allen looked up from the small computer he was working on off the small countertop next to the sink. “Single women have kids all the time lately. Not much you need a man for these days.”
He chuckled at that last line, and I bet he thought he was clever. He wasn’t entirely wrong though.
“If—and it’s a big if—I were thinking about having kids on my own, what would the process be?” The question came out of my mouth before I could fully form a thought around it. “You know, out of curiosity. Not saying I’m actually considering it.”
He didn’t seem as shocked by my question as I was. “Well, right now, there’s no reason to suspect that you couldn’t carry a healthy pregnancy. An intrauterine insemination procedure could place the sperm and then you’d wait until a missed period to pee on a stick and see if it worked. There are even do-it-at-home kits, but I’d recommend going through a fertility clinic rather than the turkey baster route for better chances.”
I nodded as if I was actually considering his words. It kind of scared me to realize that…I actually was. Was I having a stroke? Was this some sort of belated quarter-century crisis? “And what about…sperm? Can you just go to a sperm bank and ask for sperm?”
“Not without a credit card,” he teased. “But seriously, you’re probably looking at twelve hundred dollars a pop on average. Though some places offer a discount for military or Costco memberships.”
Discount sperm was not on my to-procreate list.
“Twelve hundred dollars?” My brows lifted as I tried to remember how much my former law school roommate used to get for his donations to a sperm bank. “I thought guys only got fifty bucks a deposit or something like that?”
“Oh, they do.” Dr. Allen shrugged his shoulders. “Markups are second nature in this industry. The sample goes through rigorous testing, but also, the bank wants to make a profit to keep the doors open.”
“The way of the world,” I replied, the familiar disillusionment with capitalism in my tone.
He nodded as he finished up his notes and then stood. “Well, go ahead and get dressed, and I’ll leave the paperwork and pamphlets at the front desk for you.”
“Thank you.” I shed the paper gown the moment he closed the door behind him. As quickly as possible, I grabbed my clothes that were folded neatly on the chair to my right—my underwear discreetly tucked into the pocket of my jeans. Heaven forbid my gynecologist find out what type of underwear I wear.
Moments later, I stepped out into the hallway and walked past Dr. Allen, who was typing away at some sort of makeshift computer station between two exam rooms.
“Good to see you!” he called out when he spotted me. The man actually waved vigorously as if I might not see him.
I smiled tightly and nodded my head, hoping that was enough to get me out of there unscathed.
“Mila Torres?” the receptionist called out to me as I tried to make it through the waiting room inconspicuously.
I turned and gave her my most innocent smile, pretending I hadn’t noticed her there. “Oh, that’s me.”
“We don’t have a card on file for you. How would you like to pay?” she asked as I stepped closer to the front desk, still trying to stay out of the line of sight of literally anyone possible.
I’d like to not pay, to be honest. “Is my insurance not covering the visit? It was just an annual.”
She looked back at her computer screen and then back to me. “You haven’t hit your deductible for the year yet.”
That was basically gibberish to me, but I handed over my debit card anyway. If anyone had asked me in law school if being an attorney at a prominent law firm that handled all the politicians’ divorces in Washington, DC, would mean I’d be bathing in money, I would have absolutely said, “Dollar, dollar bill, baby.” Instead, I make six figures and can barely afford the mortgage on a narrow, two-bedroom row home in Capitol Hill that, for the same price, would buy a ten-bedroom McMansion in Ohio.
My cell phone began vibrating in my pocket as I left the office and made my way to the dingy parking garage to find the puke-green 2005 Ford Taurus I’d inherited from my grandfather. I’d used Band-Aids—yes, literal Band-Aids from the first aid kit in the glove box—to hold down the paint on the hood of the car that kept flapping up and hitting my windshield, but the clunky machine still worked fine, so I didn’t care. It wasn’t like I needed a car that often in the district and paying for a monthly parking spot wasn’t my favorite budgeting expense, so I was just planning on letting this one ride out into the sunset.
“Hello?” I clicked the speakerphone button and placed my phone in its holder on the dashboard as I turned the car’s engine on.
It connected to the small Bluetooth device I’d attached to the old car’s visor just as my best friend’s voice blared through the speakers. “You’re not even going to believe this shit, Mila.”
“What?” I turned toward the exit and signaled my intent.
“Do you remember the Jolly Green Giant?” Isa Reyes had been one of my best friends since our undergraduate years and—like me—had been perpetually single. Except—unlike me—she nicknamed all her Tinder matches and had a steady rotation of dates every Thursday through Saturday night. “He called me Tuesday.”
“Tuesday? Like via text?” I asked further, super confused.
She laughed, but it sounded bitter and like the type of laugh that, if I had been standing next to her, I would have had to start thinking about alibis for the both of us. “I wish. No! Mid act! My legs were straight up in the air and he was saying how good I felt, ‘Tuesday.’ I go, ‘Who?’ He says, ‘You know, because we matched on a Tuesday.’ It’s how he keeps track of his dates! So, anyway, he’s over.”
“Yikes,” I commented, definitely not mentioning that she also uses made-up names for her dates. This wasn’t a hold-me-accountable moment. This was a burn-the-patriarchy-to-the-ground moment, and I was always on board for that. “I’m sorry, Isa. I know you really liked him.”
“I liked his height.” I could hear her tapping away on a keyboard in the background. She worked full-time as a public relations executive for a crisis management firm and multitasking was her bread and butter. There was a briskness about her, but being her friend all these years, I knew her soft underbelly. She sent most of her paycheck home to her parents in the Philippines every month and lived off the rest. Her heart was bigger than anyone I’d ever met, but so was her libido. “What about you? How was the gyno? They toss in a free happy ending this time? I recently saw this show on Netflix, and you won’t believe what they did with a transvaginal wand—”
“He told me I should think about freezing my eggs.” I cut her off quickly as I narrowly avoided running into the car in front of me when it randomly slammed on its brakes. I gritted my teeth. “The drivers in this town, I swear.”
“I was thinking about doing that, but then I realized I don’t want children.” Isa laughed through the phone. “Can you imagine me as a mom?”
I wasn’t about to walk into that trap, so I shifted the focus back to me. “Actually, I’ve been considering it.”
“Freezing your eggs?”
I shook my head even though she couldn’t see me. “No, having a kid.”
There was silence for a moment and then a forced laugh. “Uh, Mila…what?”
“I’m serious,” I continued. “I’m thirty-four years old and there’s no ring on my finger. Hell, there isn’t even a date on my calendar. But I’ve always wanted to be a mother. You know that. I’ve been talking about it since I got my first baby doll at age four. It has sucked waiting all this time for the one so that I can be the person I’ve always wanted to be. Why do I have to wait until I find the perfect partner? I can be a mom right here and now, thanks to science.”
The idea had crept into my mind more than a few times before today’s doctor visit. I loved my career and my social life and everything that made me who I am today, but there had never been a doubt in my mind that I was meant to be a mother one day. Maybe it was because my own mother was such a pivotal part of my life. She had also been a single mother, raising me completely alone. I know it could be done because I’d seen her do it—and excel at it, if I may brag on her behalf for a moment.
I wanted the chance to give that experience to the next generation—an adoring, devoted mother. Was that really too much to ask? Was it really a two-person job?
Isa laughed again, and I could practically hear her shaking her head. “I can’t imagine telling my parents I was buying sperm. They’d ask why I wasn’t sending more money back to them if I was that rich.”
I opened my car window and slid my credit card into the parking meter. “How much does sperm cost in the Philippines?”
“It doesn’t,” Isa continued. “You can’t buy sperm. You can do IVF treatments, but that’s like two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand Philippine pesos or more. So, maybe six thousand US dollars. It would be cheaper to adopt a baby than to make one over there.”
I cringed at the thought of the cost it might be stateside. “The doctor told me it would be twelve hundred dollars to buy sperm here.”
“What?” Isa all but shrieked through the phone. “No, that’s ridiculous. Men do that for free in a sock. You can find that on Tinder with one swipe.”
“It’s insane, right?” I thought back to the few drunken one-night stands I’d had where my priority had been not getting pregnant. Hell, I’d paid fifty dollars over the counter at the pharmacy the next day for a morning-after pill twice in my life—all in an effort to make sure I wasn’t signing a lifetime contract with some random dick.
And now I was considering buying sperm.
“Why not just get a friend to give you his for free?” Isa asked. I could still hear her typing on her computer in the background and what sounded like a work video call in progress. God, I hoped she was on mute. “Who do we know that would be a hands-off dad?”
I shook my head. “Absolutely not. I don’t want any complications or strings tied. That’s way too much pressure for a friendship. It definitely needs to be a stranger. If I go this route, it needs to be no strings tied, completely free of drama.”
“Hmm.” Isa paused, seeming to think about it for a minute. “Oh! I know. Use Baby Bank!”
“What’s Baby Bank?” I turned my car down the block and scanned for an open parking spot on the street in front of my townhouse—a hit-or-miss situation most days. And by that, I mean almost always miss. “Do you mean a sperm bank?”
“No. Remember my lesbian neighbors, Jamie and Amy?”
I was friends with both women on Facebook after having met them at Isa’s housewarming party, and I’d recently seen a pregnancy announcement on Jamie’s page. “Yeah, Jamie’s pregnant, right? I think I saw the announcement not too long ago.”
“Fourteen weeks,” Isa confirmed. “They used Baby Bank to get pregnant. You can download it in the app store.”
“It’s an app?” I maneuvered into a free spot against the curb a block from my townhouse and turned off my car, switching the call back to handheld. “What the heck are you talking about? You can’t get pregnant by an app!”
“Have you seen the world we live in recently? Of course you can.” She spit out another laugh, then I heard the crackling sound of a bag of chips being opened on the other end. “It’s like Tinder, but for free sperm. Guys have profiles on there and you swipe until you find the sperm you want and then see if you match.”
“That is not really a thing.” But I was already opening the app store on my phone and typing the name in the search bar. Sure enough, Baby Bank popped up immediately. “Holy shit, it is a thing!”
“It’s actually legit,” Isa continued in between crunching and swallowing her snack. If I had to guess, knowing her, I’d say Cool Ranch Doritos. “Lots of couples use it when they’re trying to have a kid. Doesn’t cost anything. All arrangements are worked out individually with the guy. Oh, but don’t swipe on the profiles that say NI only.”
I frowned. “What’s NI mean?”
“Natural insemination only. It’s just dudes trying to get laid.”
I was already halfway through signing up for my own account, and of course, the first profile that popped up said NI ONLY. “Wow…why do men even sign up for this? What do they get out of it?”
“I don’t know. Spread their seed?” Isa remarked, seemingly unfazed by the entire thing.
I grimaced as I closed out of the app and stepped out of my car. “I just got home. I’ll talk to you later, okay?”
“Okay, but I’m coming over later tonight for some booze-induced swiping,” she replied. “I want to pick a baby daddy with you!”
I grinned and shook my head. “I didn’t say I’m going to do it!”
