Word: abe
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Sarah was ready for a change. She wanted to have children. So she strolled into the Reproductive Health Center to reclaim the ovary that had been carefully removed, frozen and shelved on her 21st birthday. She called up her fifth and current husband Abe and asked him if he wanted to have kids...
Since all of Abe's genetic papers were in order and the couple had already received government clearance to reproduce, they decided to take the plunge. Technicians at the center carefully removed a section of Sarah's excised ovary and thawed it. Over the next several days, they gently washed it with hormones, coaxing the follicles to generate 10 ripe eggs...
...help the fertilization process along, the center's microsurgeons drilled little holes in the surface of each egg to make an easier journey for Abe's sperm. Of course, the procedure had been a lot more intricate for the lesbian couple who had shown up earlier that spring. In their case, the nuclei from one woman's eggs had been carefully cut out and transplanted into her partner's ova. The resulting fusion created embryos like any other. But because women bear only X sex chromosomes, the "fertilized" eggs gave rise exclusively to girls...
...After Abe's sperm had successfully penetrated Sarah's unfrozen eggs, DNA analysis revealed that all the embryos were healthy. Sarah and Abe decided to implant just one, destined to be a male. But because Sarah was something of a traditionalist, she opted to carry the baby herself rather than enlist the services of either an artificial womb or one of the center's 18-year-old surrogate mothers. A round of hormone therapy rejuvenated Sarah's uterus, and nine months later Isaac was born...
Sarah proudly admits that she would not change a thing. "I didn't want to have children until I was ready," the septuagenarian says with a laugh. "Now, Abe and I are emotionally and financially secure. We can offer Isaac all the advantages that we didn't have ourselves as kids...