A few people have said our daughter looks like my mother and my Uncle and what do I say? I say “you think so?” or rather I write that as it’s people who have seen photos of her. Of course I don’t mean our close friends and family, they all know we used a donor egg – these are the circle of people who we are not that close with. My husband and I decided we don’t need to explain to every person what we did or went through – the caveat being if we ever feel uncomfortable with what we are saying…in other words if either of us feel we are lying, or covering something up. My husband’s father asked us: do I tell everyone she is from a donor egg? And we said: only if you feel uncomfortable not telling them.
Has anything changed in perceptions of her in the last two weeks? Do I think “ what if she was my bio daughter? Am I missing out because she wont look physically like me?” And the answer is: she is my daughter, it’s really as simple as that. My husband says she sleeps like me and furrows her brows like me, I am reminded yet again that we take on our parents mannerisms and intonations and it is perhaps this that makes us most “look” like them…and again, it doesn’t matter who she looks like. It’s actually amazing to me that I ever thought it would matter, that I mourned the loss of my genetics at all (yes I cried and got angry)…of course that was something I had to go through to get to this place right now, this place of knowing it doesn’t matter how she came into this world, this little girl is our daughter .
Monday, March 24, 2008
Friday, March 14, 2008
1:39 AM
Our daughter was born on Thursday March 6th at 1:39 AM. What can I say, as I write this I feel like crying tears of joy. I can tell you that it really really doesn’t matter that she started with another egg than my own. She is our daughter. The soul chooses the parents it wouldn’t have mattered anyway how we had her she’s still be her. If that makes any sense any at all. So right now being a DE mother feels like just being a mom (I can’t believe I am finally writing the word mom for myself)…as far as I can tell at any rate. We went to the pediatrician this morning and when he asked about family history I said she’s a DE baby and gave him the medical information I have that’s probably the most eventful difference between me and someone with a 100% bio baby, at least for the moment.
As for the birth nothing went as planned but it was wonderful experience anyway and I kept remembering the forest for the trees. My husband at my request had found some photos online of woods, meadows and trees in Oregon and thereabouts which I looked at often during the 22 hours of labor to remind myself about what we can and can’t control. In the then end she was a floating baby meaning she never dropped. I was induced 10 days after our due date and despite 20 hours on petocin without an epidural I never dilated or effaced, although my water broke. I ate like a fiend the entire time: chicken, pasta, eggs, apples, almond butter, quinoa…after 20 hours the doctor and doula agreed I should try an epidural to see if my muscles would relax enough to let the babies head come down. It didn’t work. So we ended up with a C-section and I’m grateful for it as she simply wasn’t going to come out any other way. What we did do is keep her with us during the entire surgery and she came intro recovery and latched on. So yeah, not the experience I’d planned but still a good experience. Forest trumps tree!
Thank you for your thoughts – I am happy to report we are all well. I will check up on everyone in the next weeks, just trying to adjust to everything at the moment. I hope everyone is well.
As for the birth nothing went as planned but it was wonderful experience anyway and I kept remembering the forest for the trees. My husband at my request had found some photos online of woods, meadows and trees in Oregon and thereabouts which I looked at often during the 22 hours of labor to remind myself about what we can and can’t control. In the then end she was a floating baby meaning she never dropped. I was induced 10 days after our due date and despite 20 hours on petocin without an epidural I never dilated or effaced, although my water broke. I ate like a fiend the entire time: chicken, pasta, eggs, apples, almond butter, quinoa…after 20 hours the doctor and doula agreed I should try an epidural to see if my muscles would relax enough to let the babies head come down. It didn’t work. So we ended up with a C-section and I’m grateful for it as she simply wasn’t going to come out any other way. What we did do is keep her with us during the entire surgery and she came intro recovery and latched on. So yeah, not the experience I’d planned but still a good experience. Forest trumps tree!
Thank you for your thoughts – I am happy to report we are all well. I will check up on everyone in the next weeks, just trying to adjust to everything at the moment. I hope everyone is well.
Monday, March 3, 2008
The Forest or the Tree?
Today I remembered that it’s the forest not the tree that is important – by that I mean it’s the big picture – that for us, after years of infertility we are going to have a baby this week one way or another. Sure a “perfect natural” birth would be great, but what’s perfect? The most important thing is that we will finally be parents.
I temporarily lost sight of this, I got side tracked by details that don’t in the end matter, that are a luxury to even think about given how hard it was to get pregnant in the first place. We are very lucky that DE was available and that it worked for us. I do not take this for granted.
Thank you for the words of support from my last post…I appreciate that no one was offended by my fixating on loss of control over a birth as opposed to the larger issues of infertility that brought many of us to blogland…wanting to be parents.
Which brings me back to the forest: we are so grateful that we are finally, almost there, or here.
I temporarily lost sight of this, I got side tracked by details that don’t in the end matter, that are a luxury to even think about given how hard it was to get pregnant in the first place. We are very lucky that DE was available and that it worked for us. I do not take this for granted.
Thank you for the words of support from my last post…I appreciate that no one was offended by my fixating on loss of control over a birth as opposed to the larger issues of infertility that brought many of us to blogland…wanting to be parents.
Which brings me back to the forest: we are so grateful that we are finally, almost there, or here.
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