A recent Newsweek cover story, “You Got Your Sperm Where?” filled me with silent, slippery gee: Free sperm donations now available on line? You gotta love the Internet.

Before I tried to  conceive with a real, live man, in a real loving relationship, I spent six months or so, in sperm donor hell. The event left me so tramatized, I wrote an essay about the experience:

http://www.lemondrop.com/2010/11/05/no-black-sperm-my-long-winding-journey-to-becoming-a-mom/

And the second of the one-two punches that leveled me came with the cos of sperm: 800 hundred bucks for two hits of seed. That’s right, two. And that’s 2007 prices.

“ They test the sperm for disaeses and wash it to increase the mobility,” the fertlty doctor had told me back then.

“Ohhh, okay,” I replied. It seemed fair and reasonable. High-tech efforts were working with me towards my goal of conception. Then, a month later, I learned that donors, on average, were paid 25 dollars for their, ah, donation.

And I thought, milk had a crazy, high mark up.

The fact of the matter is, conceiving a baby out of the typical manner, is expensive, and shows no signs of slowing. When you take the bouncing baby bundle out of the equation, and examine the hard facts, it’s a business. Supply and Demand. So anyway one can cut down the pile of money straight couples, gay couples, and singles spend  trying to get into the concepetion game, I have one thing to say: batter-up.