You never know who has used donor eggs…

Note: I re-wrote this post from the first posting…feel it now says more of what I wanted to convey…and kami thanks for your support as always…when I put this new post up everything got deleted.

It’s good to tell people.

The pediatrician we interviewed this morning has two children via egg donor. This was wonderful news to us. I think I felt my heart lifting when he said that. It re-enforces my belief that being open and honest about DE is the way to go and just for that serendipity – finding someone who has some direct experience with infertility with the issues around DE or DI etc.

I keep wanting to talk about DE with more people. For me it is very freeing and every time we speak about it I feel it becomes less of a big deal, more of a this is what we did. If that makes any sense.

I had a long talk with a friend recently who was adopted and is now in touch with her bio mom. I’ll post about that later as I think there is some correlation between what she has experienced and some of the things I know I’ve thought about when deciding on a donor and thinking about how we would tell the future little one etc.

I’m out of time today, need to get back to work, but will post more on this later.

Fear vs. Stomach

my stomach finally trumped my fear. i bought maternity clothes yesterday (just finishing up week 14). i hope this is not jinxing things but i've been walking around with my pants unbuttoned and long shirts for a while now. my mantra is "this time things are different" and then i take a few deep breaths when the anxiety creeps up.

next week we are going to talk to a family therapist with my parents regarding disclosure -- i'm looking forward to this and hopefully it will give us some broader understanding of ourselves and of this topic. i've also ordered a few books on DE and books for DE children based on a long bibliography from our IVF clinic..once i get them if any seem really good to me i'll post the titles.

what else...we started telling our friends our news...just the pregnancy part. most of them didn't even know about the IVF or our losses -- it was something we chose not to share. anyway, that has been interesting. i feel very hesitant, it's partly the fear and partly just, well it feels strange to have this type of good news and i'm not sure how to wear it...so to speak.

many of my close friends are single women all of whom would like to have children and find a life partner so im very sensitive about how to tell them -- plus i've been on the receiving side of pregnancy news and felt a mixture of happiness and devastation (because of our fertility issues) so often and for so long that i just don't want our news to be the focus of most conversations.

it goes without saying that the already extended offer for a baby shower was kindly denied because well, frankly, i am too scared to celebrate until our baby is born. wow i can't believe i just wrote that...until our baby is born...how great is that?!

s/he looks just like you part two

a little more on disclosure.

Yes we want to tell our child everything…but does that mean we tell everyone everything?

I have to say that I feel funny not saying anything but the MR. doesn’t want to think about this right now. He wants us to just be happy things are working (knock on wood). I don’t think every stranger needs to know our story but I am feeling like some of our close friends, especially two who have had fertility issues of their own, are people it seems odd not to tell the real deal too. I worry that inadvertently we will become the poster couple for IVF…if you just stick to it eventually it will work. But that is not our case. I mean so far it has worked (currently finishing week 13) but with DE.

When I tried to bring up the subject recently to my husband he got very defensive and I shut down. I don’t like fighting. So I stopped pressing it, and decided to wait for another day. no im not dropping the issue. Last night we told two friends who have been through fertility issues our news and they were so happy for us…PGD worked they said, or something like that. GOD I felt like such a liar. This baby, our baby was conceived via DE. There is nothing wrong with this, why should we hide it? And yet, and yet…my husband is hesitant and my parents don’t think we should breathe a word.

I asked about disclosure before regarding telling a child, but what about friends? Or mere acquaintance? Do you draw a line? Do you tell everyone? I personally am for telling though as one wise person posted on this site..”you can’t untell” so I’m not in a rush at the moment but I don’t think it will sit well with me to forever say nothing to anyone.

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

It’s a secret…

everything went great yesterday -- after i stopped crying from fear and then relief i saw the heartbeat which was reassuring. our doc. even said you can tell everyone. HA...and there's the catch: we've spent so many years not telling anyone anything and leading these double lives that it feels really odd to think no more second life that now all of a sudden after not sharing our infertility we will share our fertility. my husband and i agreed to wait until next week after the ultrascreen (non invasive procedure to test for trisome 12, 18 and 21) to make sure that everything really is ok...and then there will be the telling (again assuming all is ok) -- but like i said it seems odd and the words almost stick in my throat. and how do we say them, and when -- right now only my mother and our doctors know. so we will wait till next thursday when the test results come back before saying boo to anyone about this.

then there is the other thing of: do we explain the donor egg idea right from the get go? We want full disclosure for our child, does that mean full disclosure to everyone? to close friends and family? i'm not sure what it means. If anyone has thoughts on this please let me know.