Ten is a Magic Number

Today our daughter is 10 weeks old. Sometimes it seems so unreal after having waited and wanted this for so long…I keep thinking is this really my life now? I had gotten so used to the cycles and needles and planning weekends to recoup from disappointment and loss…these memories/feelings do not go away with the birth of a child. Yes the recede but they are also a part of me and have shaped who I am now. It’s why we didn’t have a baby shower, it’s why when I speak to friends I don’t speak about her first – or check myself to make sure I’m not going over board with baby talk. Mind you I am totally in love with our daughter and very happy…what’s funny is after wondering before we began the DE process if should would feel like my daughter without the genetic connection (yes 100%) I am now worried as I go back to work full time that the person we hire to care for her will become so connected to her that our daughter will think of her as her primary care giver…re-enforces yet again that is the time spent and love given that makes the parent.

I know I’ve blogged a lot about how being a parent is much more than a blood tie, and I think at this point there is nothing new to say on the topic besides the blanket statement genetics don’t matter…so going forward I’ll try to refrain from repeating myself and focus more on experiences I have that seem DE specific which some of you may or may not find helpful or of interest.

And on that front: we told another couple (known for a long time but rarely see) about our little ones origins this after the wife was saying how she is a mix of both of us…I wanted to share with her because they’d had their own fertility issues…wouldn’t you know it she told me about her close friend who used DE and a surrogate – goes to show there are so many combinations and so many ways to create a family. Anyway it felt good to tell her and at the same time it seems less and less important to say anything. Not because we want to hide DE (we will tell our little one about her high tech beginning) but because it just doesn’t seem to matter. I read an interview of the mother of a girl I went to high school she was adopted and the mother refers to her simply as her daughter…it think that says it all.

Who's your mommy?

I am reminded once again that genetics do not make the parent. My close friend who is adopted spent mother’s day mourning her mother, she past a way a few weeks ago. Does she care that her mom is not her biological mother? No. Would she be sadder if she was? No. And every Father’s day I am happy to have my dad who is my adopted one. I do not mourn the one who died who has a biological connection to me. How can I? I never knew him. Besides I love my life and if things were different I wouldn’t be me.

What makes your mom your mom? That fact that you might look like her or share some of her talents or the fact that she stayed up late at night when you were sick, hugged you when you were hurt, was there for you even when you hated her (my teen years were not exactly smooth) and loves you no matter what?

This was my first mother’s day as a mother. For a long time now I thought maybe next year I’ll be a mom…and it’s finally happened but that does not wipe away years of yearning. As Summer said in her beautiful post: “I also want to remember the children that we have lost and the ones that we hoped for but never came to be.”