When Life Gives You Lemons

In February 2008, I was living a cushy life in Manhattan. Sweet West Village pad, great friends and an awesome job.

One day during a call with my boss in California, she suggested that I spend some time in our new office in Bangalore, India to help with our globalization efforts. I’m always up for an adventure, so I said yes.

The flight was ridiculously long. I remember arriving in Bangalore and being exhausted and overwhelmed by the sounds, smells and sights. It’s one of the main takeaways from my time in India and also what makes it so unique — it’s the only place I’ve been in the world where all of your senses are engaged all at the same time. It’s incredibly visceral. It evoked strong emotions based on the things I saw or smelled or heard. And those emotions were often positive. There’s a lot of beauty in India.

After a few weeks in Bangalore, I flew up to Mumbai for a meeting. By the time I landed, parts of the city were on lockdown and on fire. Protesters were angry with the government and had set cars on fire. The taxi driver at the airport argued with me about going to our downtown office because it would mean taking a circuitous route through parts of town not seen by out of towners. I was like, “How bad can this be?” His response was, “When I tell you to, you need to slump down in the back of the taxi so no one sees you.” Annoyed, I said, “Fine.” My New Yorker attitude was fully engaged and all I wanted to do was get to my meeting.

“Now,” he said firmly. “Slump down. Don’t let them see you.”

I slowly started to work my way out of sight when I realized where we were — the slums. There were children everywhere without any clothing and homes crafted from cardboard boxes. My brain couldn’t process it. Part of me wanted to close my eyes and the other part of me couldn’t stop looking.

“Stop,” I said. With that, I opened the taxi door and got out, much to the horror of the cab driver. I stood there. I don’t know for how long, but I just stood there and put my hands on either side of my temples.

Happy children ran over to me, curious to see a white person. They touched me and giggled. I took off my suit jacket, rolled up my long sleeves, bent down to be more at their level and showed them my arms. They laughed at my freckles and one carefully traced the freckles on my forearm as if he was playing “Connect the Dots.”

I didn’t want to leave. In that moment, I knew I really wanted to be a mother. Children are beautiful and wonderfully curious. I was 37 years old and of course, I’d meet someone. Of course, I’d be a mom someday.

Two years later, in the Spring of 2010, I went to Cambodia on vacation with one of my best friends. I went in thinking, “Oh hey, this is gonna be fun!”

Cambodia has stuck with me over the years not because of the amazing sites I saw, but the people we met. Back then, Cambodia was still fairly untouched. It had only issued visas to Westerners for a decade or so, and even in 2010, only two million people had visited Cambodia. For us, we were welcomed as supporters of the economy, but also appreciated for our curiosity into their culture.

Immediately, the residual effects of the Khmer Rouge were pretty palpable. I’d read the “Killing Fields” in high school, but had zero appreciation for the genocide that had taken place under Pol Pot’s dictatorship. There were no elderly people anywhere. Imagine walking down the street and the oldest person you ever saw was 40 years old. It was really startling and you can imagine the impact of a lack of elders on a society.

My good friend mentioned early in the trip that she had an American friend, Rachel, who had been to Siem Reap the year previously and who’d met an Irish woman in town, Sheila. She and her husband, Paul, ran local tours outside of town and we thought that could be really interesting.

Sitting on Sheila and Paul’s front porch drinking a gin and tonic in the stifling humidity… and I mean hotter than Hades, she asked what we were interested in doing while in Cambodia. Naïvely, we said we’d like to go see some of the temples outside of town and oh by the way, if there was a village on the way where we could stop and drop off school supplies for some of the local kids, we’d love to do that.

The next day, we traveled about two hours outside of Siem Reap. During the trip out there in our 4x4, our driver kept weaving along the dirt roads to avoid land mines leftover from the Khmer Rouge. The UN had gone in the previous year and was working to clear the land mines, but all I could think was, “My mom doesn’t need to hear about this part of the story.”

When we arrived at the village, we were met by excited villagers, who were also curious by my pale skin (this is what a long winter living in London does to you). We passed out pens and paper to the kids, and somewhere in the midst of doing that, a woman with a small infant walked over to me and gestured for me to hold her baby. The little girl must have been eight months old. I took her in my arms, looked into her eyes and smiled. She was the sweetest little thing and I still remember the way I felt holding her. After a few minutes, the mother kept looking at me with a very distressed look, so I began handing her daughter back. She refused. I nervously looked at the translator and asked what was going on. He said to me, “She wants you to take her and give her a better life.” My chest tightened. I said to the translator, “I… I can’t.” The mother began to cry and asked the translator to tell me, “I’m a woman. You’re a woman. You can give her a better life than I can. From one woman to another, please take her.”

I paused and locked eyes with the mother. We never spoke, but both of us knew what the other was thinking. I started to cry. I wanted to, but I just couldn’t. How could I be a single mother? I quietly handed her daughter back.

My friend and I got back in the truck. I didn’t speak for the two hours back to Siem Riep. All I could do was stare out the window and think. I was 39 and of course, I’d be a mother someday. It would be traditional. White picket fence, great husband and a dog.

In early 2013, I traveled to South Africa. As you do, I went on safari and marveled as a bystander at the animal kingdom. It felt like scuba diving. I was an observer into a world…. a system… that existed for millions of years, had its own rules and was perfectly fine until humans started meddling. While I was in South Africa, I befriended a guy, who was going through a hard time.

This part of the story gets a little heavy. Three months after meeting, he passed away suddenly. At first, someone said it was suicide, which was all I had to go on for awhile. Almost a year later, someone said no, it was robbery. The fact is I’m not sure I’ll ever know. He was found shot on the side of the road next to his car without his wallet.

One of very last things he said to me was, “You’d be one helluva mom someday.” It was so out of the blue. I asked him why he would bring it up. He said he could just see it.

After Brett passed in early 2013, I needed a break. I left my job and relocated from London back to San Francisco. I’d bought a small house in Menlo Park in 2002 and had rented it out while I’d been away in New York and London. I moved back in. People asked me why the hell I was single and moving back to Menlo Park. Shouldn’t I move to the City? What they didn’t know is I was plotting my next move, single motherhood.

For nearly two years until August 2015, I went through five rounds of IVF. At times, I gave myself up to six shots a day. It was pretty brutal, but worth it because I really wanted to be a mom. I’d removed the veil of the picket fence and a great husband (maybe he’d show up later). I saw the best doctors in the San Francisco Bay Area, and eventually went to The Colorado Center for Reproductive Medicine (CCRM) outside Denver, which is known as being the best fertility center in the U.S.

August 11, 2015 was a critical day. Following an incredibly strong IVF round the month prior, I was expecting joyful news that one of the embryos would be viable. The doctor called that morning and told me to sit down, which is never a good sign. None of the embryos were viable. My fifth and final IVF round had failed. He said, “You’re healthy, fit and you should be pregnant. Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t think you’re meant to be a single mom.”

I moved to adoption. I didn’t want to give up. I hired an adoption lawyer, who advised that foreign adoption was pointless because of restrictions and sanctions. To hedge my bets, I should try for adoption within the U.S., but she warned me that it was competitive. With the legalization of gay marriage, something I adamantly support and believe in wholeheartedly, the gay community was pursuing adoption in full force. She told me that expectant mothers prefer couples over singletons, and that as an only child, I also didn’t have a sibling as a back up in case something ever happened to me. Long story short, that didn’t work either. I was fucked.

On Thanksgiving 2015, I turned 45. I got through it, but I wasn’t feeling very thankful. I felt powerless. Life wasn’t supposed to be like this. How was this happening?

By Christmas, I decided I had to turn it around. I borrowed Shonda Rhimes’ book title, “Year of Yes,” and declared 2016 as the year that I’d start over and say yes to more things in my life. I finally had to accept the life I had and not long for the one I thought I should have. I struggled, but I had to make a mental shift.

Since then, a lot has happened. I sold my house in Menlo Park and moved to San Francisco. I changed jobs internally at work. I went to New York to see “Hamilton” with the original cast. I started skiing again and went fly fishing in Jackson Hole. I also went back to London for the first time in two years to see old friends. It’s not been easy, especially when days like Mother’s Day roll around and social media is flooded with sweet pictures, but I try really hard now to focus on what I do have, as opposed to what I don’t have.

And I’m still dreaming. Dreaming of a world where we can all be real, show our true selves — good and bad — and perhaps someday, be a mom. I don’t know what form it will come in, but all of this has taught me to relax a bit more, let go, be lighter, and open myself to possibilities. Whatever that may be. The future is bright, but the present is also pretty amazing.