For a while we'd been talking about starting a family, and since I was fast approaching 40 (John was 5 years younger than me) I was in a BIG hurry. Two years after we were married, John went to a friend’s house to watch a football game and had a grand mal seizure. Six weeks later he was diagnosed with brain cancer, which I discovered early on was almost always fatal within one year.

After brain surgery and before treatment, we harvested John's sperm and consulted with a fertility specialist. We were gearing up to start treatment when John's cancer worsened. We made the decision to focus on him and put having a family off. Eighteen months after diagnosis, John died.

After the shock and pain subsided, I decided to go ahead with my desire to have a baby, and started IVF treatment in earnest. The first attempt was with my own eggs and John's sperm. I ended up, after weeks of injections and endless prayers, with one perfect little embryo that was transferred. It didn't take. That cycle cost me about $15,000 and I knew that I couldn't risk another failure or I would run out of money quickly and still have no baby.

I made the difficult decision to use an egg donor. Choosing the donor was very difficult, as you're really not given much to go on when the donor is anonymous. The first choice I had stopped producing estrogen just before egg retrieval and her cycle had to be canceled. There was another donor on the exact same cycle whose recipient couple was willing to share the cycle (the donor had 45 eggs!) and seeing that her profile was in my short list of choices, I agreed.

I got pregnant right away and 5 months ago gave birth to a beautiful, healthy baby boy who looks exactly like my husband. It was a very hard and painful choice to use an egg donor, but now that I have my son, I wouldn't change anything about him. If a fairy godmother came to me and said, "I can make this child your biological child" I would say "no way! Don't touch him, he's perfect!"

It was the best decision I've ever made. I have a fairly good job with decent benefits, but I'm not wealthy. Money will be tight, but baby will have what he needs. I love being a mother more than I ever dreamed.

It is VERY challenging to be a single mom. I'm exhausted all the time. It also makes me sad that my son won't have a daddy, and I fear that he'll be angry over that. But, I have no regrets at all and love my little man more than I could ever have imagined.

So, that's my story. I'm just taking things one day at a time and trying to raise a strong, independent and compassionate son the best I can!