The Decision

My boyfriend went to the mall one night and never came home. He was the one I thought I'd marry, start a family with.

This was 3 or 4 years ago, we had been dating about a year, and my relationship before that one also ended in cheating after 2 or 3 years, and in the most humiliating way possible.

But let's go back even further, when I was 14 or 15 (I'm now 34, right on the edge of being considered "geriatric" as a soon-to-be pregnant woman, God willing). As a young teenager of parents who have each been married and divorced multiple times, and the messiest of divorces at that, I remember thinking how wonderfully liberating it would be to have a child on my own. A child who wasn't directly, legally, or biologically attached to a relationship. A child who wouldn't be at risk of going through what I went through, custody battles, one-or-the-other holidays, schedules, mean stepmothers (not you, Sherry), a broken home. My child would have a different home, a nontraditional home, but it would never be broken.

And this was all at 14 or 15, before I even knew how common cheating is, how heartbreaking breakups are, how hard it is to find a good man and build a strong, healthy relationship.

So after he came back from "the mall" the next day, he admitted his betrayal, I helped him box up his shit (to expedite the process), he moved out, and a few weeks later, I started shopping for sperm. It was time.

Time for me to be in control of my future and my child's future, as I had dreamt about almost 20 years prior. Time for me to create the best gift that I could imagine for my child, a loving home without the possibility of becoming broken. Time for me to move forward with my dream of becoming a mother, instead of scrambling to try to find someone and put that relationship under a pressure cooker.

Because all I knew was that I will be an exceptional mother, divorce and breakups are rampant and damaging, and my ovaries are aging.

It was time.