I didn’t set out to become a walking thesaurus for other people’s discomfort. But when your path to parenthood involves a spreadsheet of medical codes, a refrigerated delivery of someone else’s gametes, and a clinic where the magazines in the waiting room are from 2014, you start noticing the words. Specifically, the ones people use to build a fence between “real” families and whatever Frankenstein’s monster they assume is happening in my uterus.
I am, in the parlance of our times, building my family “artificially.” And my God, the language is a disaster.
The Nature Documentary of My Ovaries
Let’s start with “natural.” It’s everywhere. “Are you going to try naturally first?” “At least you have one natural child.” “It’s so beautiful when it happens naturally.” I’ve started imagining “natural” conception as a little David Attenborough segment inside my body. The sperm, a determined explorer, navigating the treacherous cervical mucus while I narrate in a hushed British whisper: “Here, in the fallopian savanna, the egg awaits her suitor. A dance as old as time itself.” Meanwhile, my “artificial” conception involves a lab tech named Steve, a pipette, and a fluorescent light that makes everyone look like a corpse.
The word “natural” has become a stealth weapon. It’s a gold star you can stick on someone’s sex life, a way of saying “your family was made with wholesome, organic, free-range love, not in a petri dish by someone who definitely didn’t wash their hands long enough.” It implies a hierarchy. Natural children are artisanally crafted; artificial ones are mass-produced. I’m half-expecting someone to ask if my future kid will have a “Made in a Lab” sticker on their forehead.
But here’s the thing: my body is not a national park. It’s a malfunctioning ecosystem. Calling my infertility journey “unnatural” is like calling a heart bypass “unnatural.” Sure, ideally my arteries would cooperate, but they’re staging a revolt, so now I have a piece of plastic in my chest and I’m not dead. Is that artificial? Yes. Is it a problem? Only if you think dying “naturally” is somehow more virtuous.
The Donor Sperm Elephant in the Room
Then we get to the donor conversation. I’ve used donor sperm. Saying that sentence still makes me feel like I’m admitting to a weird hobby. “Hi, I’m Jenna, and I enjoy long walks on the beach and purchasing genetic material from a stranger whose baby photo looked vaguely like my husband.”
People don’t know what to call this. The donor is not the “real” father. My husband, the man who will teach this child to ride a bike and explain why we don’t microwave metal, is the real father. But language fails us. I’ve heard “biological father,” “genetic father,” and my personal favorite, the whispered “you know… the actual father.” No, Karen, I don’t know. The actual father is the one who will be projectile-vomited on at 3 a.m. The actual father is the one signing permission slips and having the sex talk. The other guy ejaculated into a cup for cash in college. These are not the same job description.
I’ve started referring to the donor as “the genetic underwriter.” It sounds like a corporate sponsor, which honestly feels accurate. “This child was brought to you by Donor #4187 and a 20% off coupon at the sperm bank.” Dark? Yes. Funny? Also yes. It’s the only way I can survive the absurdity. Because if I can’t laugh about the fact that my child’s genetic material arrived in a tank of liquid nitrogen called a “Dewar,” what am I even doing?
The IVF Lexicon of Doom
In vitro fertilization itself comes with a glossary that sounds like a dystopian sci-fi novel. “Egg retrieval,” for instance. It sounds so gentle, like I’m popping down to the market for a carton of free-range ovum. In reality, it’s a procedure where a very long needle goes through your vaginal wall while you’re under twilight sedation, and you wake up feeling like you’ve been punched in the soul by a tiny, vengeful fist.
Then there’s “embryo transfer.” This term has all the romance of a bank transaction. “We’ll just transfer the funds.” Except the funds are a microscopic clump of cells that might become a human, and the bank is my uterus, and the teller is a doctor who’s trying to make small talk about the weather while a catheter threads through my cervix. “Any fun weekend plans?” she asks, as I lie there with my feet in stirrups, praying to a God I’m not sure I believe in that this one sticks.
And let’s not forget “chemical pregnancy.” What a hideous phrase. It sounds like the pregnancy was conducted in a beaker and then evaporated. In reality, it’s a very early miscarriage—a positive test, a surge of hope, then a negative test and a period that feels like a personal failure. Calling it “chemical” strips it of any humanity. It’s as if the medical establishment decided that if a pregnancy doesn’t last long enough to be seen on an ultrasound, it doesn’t count as a real loss. But the grief is real. The grief is so, so real.
Reclaiming the Narrative, One Snarky Comment at a Time
So what do we do with this linguistic dumpster fire? I’ve decided to stop letting other people define my family’s origin story. If “natural” means a blissful, unassisted conception in a field of wildflowers, then fine, my family is “artificial.” We’re plastic. We’re synthetic. We’re the polyester of procreation. And you know what? Polyester doesn’t wrinkle. Polyester survives the washing machine. Polyester is durable as hell.
I’m also learning to correct people with a smile that’s just sharp enough to draw blood. When someone asks if I’ll “try naturally,” I say, “Well, my natural state is infertility, so we’re going with science.” When they refer to my future child as “not fully mine” because of the donor, I ask them if they’d like to explain that to the kid, because I’ll happily film it for the family Christmas card.
The truth is, all family building is a little bit artificial. We’re all constructing something out of hope and chaos and the occasional fertility smoothie recipe from a stranger on the internet. The “natural” label is just a way to make some people feel like they earned it, when really, we’re all just rolling the dice and praying they don’t come up snake eyes. My dice just happen to be frozen.
The FAQ I Never Wanted to Write
Is “natural” conception really better than “artificial” methods?
No. This is a false binary. “Natural” is a word we use to describe a process that worked without intervention, not a moral judgment. Conception via IVF or IUI is just conception with extra steps—and a lot more paperwork. The outcome is the same: a baby. The method doesn’t determine the love, the parenting, or the quality of the human being. If it did, we’d have to start judging people based on whether they were conceived on a waterbed, and I don’t think anyone wants that.
How do I talk to my child about being donor-conceived?
Early, often, and without shame. Use clear, age-appropriate language. “We needed a special kind of seed to help you grow, and a very kind person shared theirs.” Don’t make it a secret, because secrets imply shame. Frame it as a normal, beautiful part of their story. And if you need to, practice on the cat first. The cat won’t judge your phrasing.
Why do people react so weirdly to “artificial” family building?
Because it challenges the fairy tale. We’re raised on a narrative of love, marriage, baby carriage. When the carriage requires a medical team and a financial plan that rivals a small country’s GDP, it disrupts the illusion of effortlessness. People don’t know how to hold space for that complexity, so they fall back on clunky language and invasive questions. It’s not malice, usually—it’s ignorance wrapped in a bow of good intentions. But that doesn’t mean you have to accept it gracefully. A little awkward silence in response to a dumb question can be a powerful teacher.
Is it okay to laugh about infertility?
For me, absolutely. Dark humor is my survival mechanism. If I can’t joke about the absurdity of paying $1,000 for a vial of sperm that might not even thaw correctly, I’ll just cry forever. But humor is personal. What feels cathartic to me might feel hurtful to someone else. The key is to laugh at the system, the absurdity, the language—not at the pain itself. And always, always read the room. A fertility clinic waiting room is not the place for your stand-up routine.
I’ve spent a lot of time in those waiting rooms. They’re a purgatory of bad magazines and worse coffee. Everyone is pretending to read, but really we’re all just cataloging each other’s bodies, wondering who’s pregnant, who’s failed, who’s about to cry. The language of this world is sterile—literally and figuratively. But the people in it are anything but. We’re a secret society of hope-hoarders, clutching our lucky socks and our progesterone suppositories, speaking in codes: beta, blastocyst, BFN.
Maybe that’s the real problem with the “natural” versus “artificial” debate. It erases the humanity of the process. It reduces a profound, messy, often heartbreaking journey to a binary that exists only in the minds of people who’ve never had to think about it. My family is not a thought experiment. It’s not a rhetorical device. It’s my life, built one injection, one ultrasound, one panic attack at a time.
I remember the first time I held a positive pregnancy test that came from a transfer. I didn’t feel “natural” or “artificial.” I felt terror and joy and the overwhelming urge to pee on seventeen more sticks just to be sure. The language didn’t matter. The result did. That little pink line was the most real thing I’d ever seen, and no amount of semantic gymnastics could change that.
If I could wave a magic wand—or better yet, a very expensive fertility wand covered in ultrasound gel—I’d erase the word “natural” from the family-building conversation. I’d replace it with “intentional.” Because that’s what this is. An intentional, deliberate, fiercely wanted creation. There’s nothing artificial about that. It’s the most human thing in the world.
So call it what you want. Call it a test-tube baby, a science experiment, a miracle of modern medicine. I call it my kid. And if you ask whether they were “natural,” I’ll probably just smile and say, “No, they’re supernatural.” Because honestly, after everything it took to get them here, that feels about right.