(May 23, 2010)--Ten years ago Carey Goldberg, a Boston reporter who was single and about to turn 39, reached her self-imposed "biological midnight." Determined to be a mother and with no man on the horizon, she did some research and then ordered eight vials of sperm from an anonymous donor.

Then, almost unimaginably, on the very day the vials reached her clinic, Goldberg met the man she would eventually have children with and marry (in that order).

Since she didn't need the donor sperm anymore, she passed on the vials to another Bostonian, Beth Greenberg, age 38. It seemed logical: Why should this perfectly fine genetic material go to waste?

As for Greenberg, she had always thought she'd be married with a child by the time she was 35. Instead, her first husband had left her for his 20-something personal trainer that year, then dragged her through a nasty divorce (she emerged with a $10 million settlement). Suddenly single, Greenberg traveled, meditated, became a journalist -- and then, between getting her navel pierced and having a fling with a sexy parking valet, she started thinking that if she didn't meet someone soon she might have a baby on her own.

She had begun to search sperm bank Web sites when a friend, Pamela Ferdinand, introduced her to Goldberg. And soon after Greenberg took possession of the vials of unused sperm -- arranging for them to be transported in a cryogenic truck from Goldberg's clinic to her own -- she met a mate while ice climbing; they had a child together, and eventually they wed.
That meant the vials were available to Ferdinand, another Boston journalist, 36. A self-described "hopeless romantic," Ferdinand had been searching for love for years. She thought she had found her soul mate during a rooftop astronomy class, but there was a hitch: He was married. She had set herself a deadline of becoming pregnant by the time she was 38, so she, too, began to consider making use of the sperm. But -- yet again -- she didn't need to. The married man extricated himself; he and Ferdinand moved in together, became engaged, and had a baby...Read more


Source: NEW YORK TIMES