Danica
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Danica was sitting at the verandah of her house watching the twins play in the yard; Rooney and Briana. She watched them with satisfaction as they chased each other around. But one thing scared her so much. She was their mother, but she feared for their future, she feared not being there to watch them grow old, she feared not being there for them as they become adults. She was sixty-three, and the twins had just turned three a week ago. She also feared the stigma that might hit them upon realizing who they indeed are. She examined her mind for some consolation but instead her mind was so preoccupied with the future of her two lab babies.
Rooney throws a ball towards the house; it hits the grill, and this awakens her senses. This vision scares her, and she almost drops the mug she is holding, this brings her back to reality, the present. She is not sixty. She was lost in the future. The future she so much yearns for was now scaring her. She is just thirty-five, and a week ago she was in the clinic for the final stages of her project to freeze her eggs. She had requested an extended period of 25 years due to the nature of her work and her fertility issues. Her phone rang, and she went back to the house to receive it. Her mother was on the line. “Hello darling…hope am not bothering you again”? her mother’s voice echoes. No mother, it’s alright, I hope this is not another lecture on grandchildren. No darling, just checking up on you, and again you know I am ageing away dear, and I would not mind holding my grandchildren and watching them play, you know, Her mother retorts.
Danica was quiet for some seconds then She answered; now is not the right time to have children and you know that Mum, my job won’t allow. “When will it be the right time for you Danica? Asks her mother with a voice of concern. You are growing old my dear, and …” Danica cuts her short, “when I retire, and I think you should know that I have frozen my eggs till then”. “Whaat!!, you did not do that, No Danica. Why on earth would you do that my child? Having kids at my age is unthinkable, will you even be strong enough to raise them, how about grandchildren will you be there to see them?” her mother asks. “Mum this is the 21st century, everything is possible” Danica retorts then she hangs up. Her mother is lefts talking to herself; “technology is worse than I thought, this generation has not even the slightest respect for nature, they started with freezing ovaries to the manufacturing of babies, now grandmothers are becoming mothers and who knows maybe next time they will impregnate a man, Oh God have mercy on them”.
Danica is a military agent, and she is currently working with the central intelligence agency. Her commitment to work is not something she is so willing to give up for a family. However, Danica has always envisioned herself as a mother someday. She chose to freeze her eggs before it was too late for her to conceive so that when she retires from CIA, she can have babies then, despite the age question she believes that all will go well. Her doctor recommended 60 years for her, and she was okay. He told her this after her transvaginal ultrasound aspiration went on well the previous week. She remembers the entire process and fear builds up in her once again.
Mr Ronald, the doctor, taking her through the process had warned her of the dare consequences, but Danica was so determined to test the waters of this evolving world of tech. She wants to be a mother, not now but in future, and she cannot let anything stand on her way. Again, quitting her job to start a family has never crossed her mind. When the time comes, she will retire, have served her nation fully, and become the family woman she has always wanted to.
As she still held the phone, a thousand thoughts crossed her mind. She remembered the vision she had just had a few minutes ago. She had even given her children the names to her doctor and given the instructions that they had to be a boy and a girl. How this will happen is for the lab people to figure out. She had done her part, and her sperm doner would be her ex-boyfriend, Mark she had requested him, and he agreed. Her ex-boyfriend Mark left her three years ago when she declined her proposal in the name of commitment to work. Although she still loved him, her claim was not to give up work for love.
Although she looked ahead to a future that will be so brightened by the “future of a childbirth technology”, Danica was still scared of it. Will, the children, refer to her as their mother, or will they be ashamed of their aged mother? Will she be able to raise them well as expected? These and other questions crossed her mind, and she sank into the world of thoughts again, only to be awakened by a phone call from work. She had a mission at hand.