"Anonymous" Donor

Last month, I randomly received in the mail an issue of Working Mother magazine. As I am neither "working" by the literal definition of the word (apparently my bazillion hours in the lab don't count) nor a mother of any sort, I thought this was odd. I just assumed, however, that it was one of those free trial issues. The magazine gurus saw my subscription to Martha Stewart's Weddings was going to expire, so they figured this was the logical next step -- you know the rhyme, first comes love, then comes marriage, etc. No big deal. We, coincidentally, happened to have a pregnant friend visiting the day I received the magazine in the mail, and she happily took it off my hands.

Then, earlier this week, another issue came. With a notice that I had received a gift for a one-year subscription to the magazine.

Let me make this clear: I will not be a mother anytime in the near future. No way, no how. I have said for a long time that I do not want to even think about children within my first 5 years of marriage, and considering that a week from tomorrow is Match Day and I'll find out exactly how many hundred(s) of miles I'll be living apart from my soon-to-be husband, I especially have no desire to basically be a single mother working a bazillion hours per week in lab for a $24,000/year stipend while my husband is living several hundred miles away working a bazillion hours per week as a resident. Someday, I hope to have children. Someday, in the distant future, when I am residing in the same city as my husband and our hours are reduce to only half a bazillion hours a week and we're making a bit more money. Someday would not be now.

This is a point of contention with my future mother-in-law. She absolutely, positively cannot wait for grandchildren. Cannot wait. As in, she would be THRILLED if I announced today, unmarried, that I was pregnant. She made the offer that if we wanted to have children ASAP, she would take the grandchild and raise it in Philly and I could come visit on occasional weekends when I can get out of the lab. My fiance sat down and talked with her about her incessant nagging last summer when it reached the point where we both felt like I was only welcome into his family on account of my uterus (which in and of itself isn't a great thing, since my ovaries tend to be rather dysfunctional to begin with, so there's no guarantee that I can even have children, which will clearly make me the biggest failure ever in the eyes of his mother). Since the big argument, things have toned down -- we thankfully no longer get the "When I have grandchildren..." speech every time we visit, though it is obvious that she is still bitter about the subject.

That said, I finally got around to contacting Working Mother today to find out why on earth I am receiving the magazine. Apparently, an "anonymous donor" from Pennsylvania bought me a year long subscription. Hmm. I wonder who that could be.

I think my uterus is now officially closed for business after this stunt.