Our daughter is now six weeks old – six weeks of experiencing what we had dreamed about for almost seven years. It is still unreal to me, to us, and yet it has happened. All the agonizing we did about using DE and how we would feel was mostly washed away over a year ago when we finally decided on this route and now that the little one is here I truly understand how all our fears meant nothing. I do not feel that oh she’s not genetically mine, that doesn’t bubble up at all. I look into her eyes and think here is a tiny human being and we have been trusted to care for her and give her roots so that when she grows her wings and flies away she’ll also be firmly grounded.
The thing that has continued to happen and I suppose will continue well, as long as we’re alive, are the comments from people on who she looks like and no I’m not just talking about strangers. My mother-in-law who knows all about the DE said to me last week she has your eyes and long fingers. How funny is that? I didn’t correct her and launch into a whole thing about how it’s totally impossible for her to look like me, I just smiled and fell back on my favorite response: you think so? It goes to show how little it really matters and how people will see what they want to see. For instance I’m pretty sure she and I stretch the same when we wake up…
Showing posts with label joy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label joy. Show all posts
Friday, April 18, 2008
Monday, March 24, 2008
She looks just like you…
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 .
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 .
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, February 18, 2008
Six Things
Summer tagged me.
The Rules:
1) Link to the person who tagged you.
2) Post the rules.
3) Share six non-important things / habits / quirks about yourself.
4) Tag at least three people.
5) Make sure the people you tagged KNOW you tagged them by commenting what you did.
1.I eat three squares of dark chocolate a day.
2.I don’t drive.
3.There is a falcon that often sits outside one of our windows on sunny days and makes our two cats bonkers by its presence. The falcon never deigns to look at them.
4.I play piano and recently my mother gave us hers, it’s the one I played growing up. It brings my great joy to be able to play again. I am relearning the sonatas I played as a teenager and finding a depth to them I did not then know existed.
5.I love reading.
6.Mountains, and walking in them, makes me very happy.
I am tagging M, Peep, and Foreverhopeful
The Rules:
1) Link to the person who tagged you.
2) Post the rules.
3) Share six non-important things / habits / quirks about yourself.
4) Tag at least three people.
5) Make sure the people you tagged KNOW you tagged them by commenting what you did.
1.I eat three squares of dark chocolate a day.
2.I don’t drive.
3.There is a falcon that often sits outside one of our windows on sunny days and makes our two cats bonkers by its presence. The falcon never deigns to look at them.
4.I play piano and recently my mother gave us hers, it’s the one I played growing up. It brings my great joy to be able to play again. I am relearning the sonatas I played as a teenager and finding a depth to them I did not then know existed.
5.I love reading.
6.Mountains, and walking in them, makes me very happy.
I am tagging M, Peep, and Foreverhopeful
Friday, August 10, 2007
The needles I have known
Today was the last morning for shots. hard to believe. i have no idea how many hundreds of shots i've had. it has been 23 months. that's right. i did my first ivf/pgd september 2005 and have been at it ever since taking two sometimes three month breaks in between. i also pull of my estrace patch and stop popping the progesterone pill. On tuesday i go in for blood work to make sure levels are all ok. i still doesn't seem real that i wont have a sharps container in a special spot, bottles, band aids, heating pads, ice etc.
anyway, just wanted to share that. it's a really big deal for me (and my husband) that there are no more meds...well we hope not.
anyway, just wanted to share that. it's a really big deal for me (and my husband) that there are no more meds...well we hope not.
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