Baby-Daddy?

DH and I have been having a helluva time since we left the RE's , gosh, was it only a week ago?

When Cinderella met Prince Charming at the ball, they talked about all sorts of things. Favorite foods, favorite movies, favorite books. They discussed where they wanted to travel, things they'd like to try. They even ventured into a conversation about what they wanted from their futures. Of course, both wanted children. Later, after the fateful shoe incident, Cinderella sat at home and planned (a bit obsessively) just how their children would look and act. And, although Prince Charming might have been a bit creeped out if he knew that, everything wound up coming out according to Cinderella's plan. Of course it did.

Now, let's pretend that when Cinderella went to the ball, she was presented at the door with a list of all eligible potential fathers. The list includes degrees, interests, hobbies, essays, impressions from the the castle staff, and a description of looks but no pictures. Sure, Cinderella will probably still fall in love with Prince Charming, but due to circumstances beyond her control, he won't be fathering her children. So how does she pick?

Cinderella looks for days, and just when she thinks she's got the perfect "baby-daddy" picked out, Prince Charming comes and hands her a completely different list of options.

Where's a fairy godmother when you need her?

Does this fairy tale sound familiar? For your sake, I hope not! This is exactly what's going on in my little corner of the world, minus the glass slippers and fancy dresses.

How does one pick a potential "baby-daddy"? ( I must refer to donors as "baby-daddies" to keep my own sanity. Please excuse it.) When DH and I started, we simply looked for guys that look like him. Dark curly hair, blue eyes. Then, as we searched through all these guys that looked like my husband but sounded nothing like him personality-wise, we decided to weed out all the men who weren't extroverts. Who didn't seem like they shared my DH's sense of humor. Who seemed boring. And still, we came up with different people.

I liked the pharmocologist who started to answer "what's the funniest thing that ever happened to you?" with "I've seen a squirrel slap a pigeon" and ended with "I've been chased by a homeless man who was walking a cat on a leash." His essay made me laugh out loud.

DH liked the filmmaker who's funniest moment was locking himself in the trunk of a car. We both liked the actor who sounded just like DH until we read his essay. My fourth graders write better than that. His answer to "why are you doing this?" was " money." Well, yes, but couldn't you have made it sound a little better?

We sat down on Saturday and went through our top guys again and again. My pharmacologist got booted, but somehow the stupid actor managed to stay on the list. We are down to three. Well, that's not entirely true. DH is down to three. I have decided, but he's still not sure. There's only one donor on our list who is on the open-donor registry. I think we owe it to our future children to pick him. But DH, I think, is looking at this as a way to give our child everything he can't give him, plus the stuff he can. But, more on that later, I guess.

Sorry about the long, rambling post. It's just so complicated!