Mother's Helper: A Shocking Thing I Learned After Giving Up My Eggs

A few years ago, a woman I've never met had my child, but that's not exactly true; she had our child, or something like our child. My DNA is fringed with her husband's DNA inside a baby who was carried and birthed by this anonymous woman.

Some couple has a kid that I am somehow scrunched inside of.

This was the winter of the Panicky Manhattanite. They scuttled around in Chanel coats, swiping at quarters on the sidewalk, whispering Madoff! while watching their IRAs and 401Ks and mutual funds implode on their phone's banking app, finally drowning their worries in $15 bottles of wine instead of over a nice dinner out, which now seemed, regrettably, indecent.

I had a good job as a wealthy family's cook and assistant, health insurance through grad school, savings, no debt, and a lot of optimism. But I knew I was a luxury employee, my hours were being cut back, and my weekly payments were given with more unease than they had been in 2007, when wads of money just looked cute.

My optimism hadn't...