On Wednesday this week, my sperm will be combined with hamster eggs in a laboratory.
No, I’m not making this up.
As if the barrage of tests weren’t bad enough; as if the awkwardness of telling your friends and family that you’re having fertility issues isn’t weird enough; I have to go and become a hamster daddy.
Well, not really. Technically the sperm don’t fertilize the eggs. But they do penetrate the eggs (hopefully).
All of this is part of a sperm penetration assay, otherwise known as Hamster zona-free ovum test. And it’s easily the weirdest thing I will do as part of this process. Maybe the weirdest thing I’ll ever do.
Did you know you can procure fresh hamster eggs in just 2 weeks?
And to top it all off, a successful test doesn’t guarantee anything!
The things we go through to have a kid.