And

i'd like to add back then, three years ago the choice was not easy. The idea that i would not carry on a genetic link that we wouldn't together make a baby was VERY hard. VERY. what i'm trying to say, albeit clumsily, is that now that was have our daughter i cannot imagine anyone else in my arms. and i would not change a thing.

hello

hi.
it's been a while.
i still read other peoples blogs though rarely post.
i still think about all we went through to be able to have our daughter thru DE.
i still have a plastic bottle filled with used IVF related needles

And...

i still wouldn't change anything we went through to get to where we are today.

our daughter is twenty months old now.
it does not matter how she came to us, only that she is here. really.
people do ask me who i think she looks like and i always say her daddy.
some people say she looks like me and i always say, you think?

obviously i don't know what i'd be like to have a genetically linked daughter i only know that when i think back on the agony and stress we had deciding to go this route i keep thinking but why was it so hard? And then i realized we had to go through it all to get here. And it's something no one can really tell you, although I'm trying to: you will love your DE child as much as you would love your genetic child. I simply can't imagine loving someone more than I love our daughter and i can't imagine having a different daughter.

Perfect Moments

I’m borrowing a title (sorta) from Kami …first let me say I don’t know where the time
goes. I still can’t believe our little one is now 8 months old or that it took us over five years to get to this place. There are many days that go by where I don’t think about DE at all, and many others when I do…especially when

a. someone asks: do you want another. Ha, as if it were so easy.
b. someone says: She is the perfect combination of you and your husband
c. someone says: She has your: eyes

I just nod and smile and say something agreeable to any of those comments. Sometimes I wish we hadn’t told so many people as it REALLY DOESN’T MATTER that we used an egg donor. But I know it mattered to us at the time to tell people and it still MATTERS A LOT to let our daughter know of her fantastic high tech origins. How we will do this is umm, unknown. We read a lot of books that said start telling her her birth story from the get go. We haven’t. Other say tell her when she is x, or y or z age. If anyone has experience of thoughts on the when to tell or how, I’d like to hear/read what you think.

Basically for all we went through to get here I doubt our lives are that different from other first time mom’s although perhaps the appreciation I have for the struggle it took to get here adds another layer. I don’t know. All I can say is I LOVE OUR DAUGHTER. All the perfect moments in her day make me very happy. Of course there are imperfect moments a plenty. And the adjustment for my husband and I has not been that smooth. No one talks about the transition for the couple from infertile couple for years, to couple with child. Or how when you’ve waited so long for something you get very overprotective…we’re loosening up but…anyone have a similar experience?


Anyway, just wanted to post because it’s been a long time.

Every day is a blessing

Hi everyone…time passes so quickly. Our daughter will be six months old in a week. I can’t believe it. And I’m so happy to know that there are many new DE mother’s to be out there. Every day with her is a day when I think “it’s so amazing that I ever thought that a donor egg could matter in my love.” But I guess you have, or I had to, go through the whole process to understand it all.


I secretly laugh at the people who don’t know us well who peer into our little ones face and announce things like “her eyes are spaced the same as yours…or there’s just something about her that is like you…” People really do see what they want to sseen. So now I nod and say thank you.

Anyway just wanted to say hi. Trying to keep up with everyone please know even if I don’t post I am following what is going on sending out support vibes to all.

This Time This Year

Since 2003 it’s been “maybe this time next year I’ll be pregnant, we’ll have a baby” it’s been so long that I was startled when we went hiking last week and on our first day walking a trail I remembered that in 2004 with pregnancy number two not yet a second miscarriage, I saw a family with a small baby and thought to myself this time next year it’ll be us…and then realized as we walked along in 2008, that we have arrived. There is no more this time next year, it is really this time, right now, this is it. The time we have longed for, waited and cried for…and it’s amazing. Truly amazing. DE has been a gift for us. To say getting here wasn’t easy is an understatement to say being here isn’t easy is also true. I don’t have the fears that protracted experiences with infertility seem to bring to a pregnancy that finally “sticks” but I do have the emotional scars and memories. These have begun to well up in anxiety, fears cousin, of the future and a difficulty in enjoying present moments. Yes those precious moments that are gone as soon as they arrive. I am determined not to let them slip as anxious thoughts of the terrible things that could happen seep into my mind. I am determined, if thinking about the future, to think, “what if everything goes right” instead of “what if everything goes wrong”. All these years of contingency plans for possible cycle failures seem to have taught me too well to prepare for the bad and not the good. But I am trying to change that…albeit slowly. And I think there is a glimmer of light…I don’t want to forget the past but I am trying to make a peace with it.

Now for the quick recap: our holiday was the first as a larger family and the first time my husband was able to spend so much time with our daughter. My parents came for one week and I have to say, as I’ve said before, DE continues not to make one iota of difference in our love, or the love of our daughters extended family. It does not come into play it doesn’t matter. What matters is her smile in the morning, her laugher when we play with her, the squeals of delight when she gets a bath, her look of wonder at everything.

She will be twenty weeks old on Thursday.

Gone hiking

Yup, first trip with our daughter. Very exciting and totally terrifying.
I don’t know that I’ll have access to a computer to check up what everyone is doing but hoping everyone will be well!

How Many People Did You Take a Shower With?

Asked a very wise man once…in other words when you take a shower are you in the shower or is your mind going through lists, or possible conversations etc…this morning I showered with my fifth grade teacher, of all people, and revisited several past events but did redid them so they came out the way I wanted. And then I thought about the wise man again and this blog and well, now this post.

Just reminding myself as anxiety was starting to get the better of me to take the time to remember to breathe and most of all to take the time to be where I am instead of somewhere else in my head. Not so easy.

Anyone have any tips for trying to stay in the moment instead of rushing on to all the things that might happen? I’d appreciate any suggestions.