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.

Four Days Ago

It was Father’s day…I never thought we’d celebrate. It gave me pause to think about how much all the IVF/Fertility stuff has changed him…after all it hasn’t just been me going through it all. As far as I can tell it was even harder for him to talk about than me…not because he can’t talk about his feeling (he’s good at that) but finding another male friend he felt he could speak with wasn’t so easy. In the end he had one person he could really talk to and im grateful that he had that outlet. He has been such a support to me, I don’t think I’ve mentioned it much here but since it was just father’s day I’d like to say how thankful I am to have him by my side. If not for him I could not have gotten through all the crap…he helped me see light when all I could see was blackness and his smile always makes my day.

Just wanted to recognize my partner in life and say I love him.

12 weeks

Wow, 12 weeks old yesterday. Our beautiful little one has really woken to the world now. It is amazing. Truly. She is a gift. I don’t forget that ever. I know I’d die for her. How strange, but how true. I got a call from our clinic yesterday because they wanted information for some sort of DE study. What’s the study? Why? Where is the information going? All questions I asked, I thought, were reasonable AND none of which the poor girl on the other end of the phone could answer except to say, you have to do this. Ha! Again I asked all the questions and said you understand you want me to give you personal information and you can’t tell me what it’s for, right? Yes she finally conceded. I’ll have to get back to you. Personally I hope I scared her away.

While we told our very close friends and family about DE because it seemed important that it not be a secret thing, and we will tell our little one, it also seems just as important now to protect her privacy and let her decide who she wants to share information with when she is older. The sharing of information before she was born is part of our story, now it’s hers to tell. At one point I thought I wanted to become some sort of poster DE mom but, at least in this moment, I’d like her to choose.

Anyway not much else to say. I love her fiercely, cannot imagine life without her, and there is no loss with DE, just bountiful overflowing gains.

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.

She looks just like you: part two

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…

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 .

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.

The lesson learned…again

This week I am learning, or relearning yet again, that just because we want something or do all the “right” things does not mean something will automatically go as imagined. In this case I’d imagined our little one would come on or around the due date and that I would not be looking at a possible induction next week. Yes I know, I have time…but it’s the lesson I am grateful for…again. There is only an illusion of control that we have over our lives. The only thing we can control (hopefully) is our reaction to the things that come our way. My husband said to me we’ve waited almost seven years to have a baby so why should I think it would be easy or fast now? Good point. And again I am humbled by the largeness of life that we are swept up in and again I am reminded that I have a choice: I can make peace with how things are going, stay as positive as possible or I can rage and feel helpless or angry or sad (all good things to feel, get out of my system and let go of). Today I am choosing to make peace with whatever happens over the next few days…or should I say the rest of my life?!

That doesn’t mean I’m going to stop the acupuncture, reflexology, meditation, relaxed breathing, cranial sacral, sex, primrose oil etc. to try and get into labor, but I am also embracing, or trying to embrace the knowledge that ultimately I have no control and must take things as they come. It’s the lesson I learned with our infertility in general. How many times I’ll need to learn this lesson I don’t know, but it’s a good one to have a refresher course in I will say that much.

How do you deal with the your loss of control feelings? Any suggestions let me know.

It’s Official

I have nothing to do and it’s freaking me out. I had one last deadline for a big project and that was finished yesterday. When I look at my calendar for next week there is nothing....well other than the due date for the baby on Monday February 25th although the future little one has not sent an RSVP and for all I know might be rather late. For now this is the official beginning of maternity leave – but my brain is working overtime coming up with little projects like, oh, why not clean out the freezer? And, how about ripping the rest of the CD’s so your collection is totally digitized, and lets plan a hiking trip for the Summer in a place you know nothing about and have no information on so you can spend several hours trolling the internet. I keep making lists and finishing everything, which while gratifying, is frustrating because I seem to want to have things to do. My husband and I are going to a play tomorrow afternoon which I’m looking forward to and the rest of my days are filled with acupuncture, reflexology and pregnancy massage all designed to get my body into labor…I actually have until March 4th to do this and then I’ve been told induction awaits so I have time, and I’m not worried, my body will do what it needs to do.

I am so grateful for the donor egg process. I think about how upsetting the idea was at first and can now barely believe I was every upset. I feel very calm, very happy and have no doubts that this is our baby and that the soul that was meant to come to us has. I have no wish that things played out differently. I think that’s a good place to be and just wanted to share that because I know with DE the question can comes up: will I be able to love/accept this baby and while I certainly can’t answer for what anyone else will experience I can say from my own experience up to this moment the answer is yes I can love/accept this baby AND not have any second thoughts about what might have been had this been my egg. It will be our child and that is a wonderful thing.

The Bio mom

I had a long conversation with a good friend of mine who was adopted regarding whether she considers her bio mom to be her mom and how connected she feels to her bio mom. I was curious for the obvious reasons around DE and what a DE child might want to know.

The background: my friend did not find out she was adopted until she was 15. Yes she was very angry at not knowing AND it also answered a lot of questions for her as she was so physically different from her parents. About 8 few years ago, as she was turning 30 she decided to look for her bio mom. She wanted to find her bio mom for the medical information AND to well, find her. Her big fear was that she’d register and discover her bio mom had no interest in being found. he entered her info into a registry and within 24 hours had the contact information. She initiated contact and they have been in touch ever since mostly by phone with an occasional visit.

How she feels today: After meeting her bio mom she fantasized about being raised by her her and the bio dad (who actually were not together) but then she realized if she had been, she would not know the people she knows today, would not be married to her husband, have their kids, and basically would be a totally different person. She likes who she is and she loves her parents, so once she thought it through the fantasy stopped.

She went on to say that she does not feel that this women is her mom because they don’t share a common background and she was raised by someone else. As she put it: I feel closer to my aunt than I do to my bio mom. At the same time she is very glad to have her in her life, to find out things about the biological side of her family – there are also half siblings.

Now this is one person’s point of view. There are many other experiences out there. I just thought it was interesting to post what her feelings are regarding the love she has for her mother and father versus what she feels for the women who gave birth to her.

As I’ve mentioned a few times here I did not know my birth father – he died right around the time I was born. He had no siblings, his dad was dead and his mother died when I was very young. After his mother died I had no contact with his side of the family. I know nothing exact about his medical history. I do have a few photos of him with my mom and the stories that have been told to me by those who knew him. I was raised by another man, who adopted me, and who I consider my father. When I was a teenager I fantasized A LOT about my dead dad, as an adult I know I am very happy with my life and that a lot of who I am is because of my adopted father. I’ve grown up thinking a parent is more than a biological connection. In a very real way it has prepared me for the DE path – not that this was a path I ever envisioned or knew existed. I had dreams of having a family the old fashioned way.

I don’t blame myself because my eggs didn’t work – they just didn’t. I accept that we will never know why, and even if we did know why it would just be a fact, not a fault. I do think of myself as someone who perseveres and continues to have hope and I am someone who absolutely believes parenthood is more than genetics because that has been my own experience.

The Cat’s Out Of the Bag

So we had a great family therapy session with my family regarding “telling”. As I mentioned before it was my immediate family’s first response of “why tell anyone including the child?” that prompted us to go in the first place. And I’m so glad we did. It really cleared the air. Sometimes you really do need a third person involved so that what is being said really gets heard. I must say my parents made a HUGE leap by the end of the hour in their understanding of why it is not only important for the child to know it’s AMAZING FANTASTIC HI TECH DESIGNER BABY origins, but for the people closest to us to know too. Can you imagine the scenario of the future little one saying to Uncle xy “did you know three people made me, I’ve got a special piece?” And Uncle XY not ever hearing the word donor before saying something like “what, no! you’ve got it all wrong” or something like that….anyway you get the idea.

As for the mister and his hesitation at telling others – once he understood how uncomfortable I was feeling when people close to me were asking certain questions that I felt I was responding to in a lie (maybe it would have helped if i'd told him about these things), and once we both realized that you don’t even want to have a whiff of shame associated with what we are doing, it became clear that telling a circle of other people was/is as important as telling the future little one.

And what about the world knowing? Well if the world ends up knowing that is fine too. But it’s not our mission to tell every stranger on the street, or person we are not in close contact with. Rather it is our mission to have this be open information that is familiar and comfortable and essentially just a part of our story so that when the future little one does encounter someone who says something negative the little one has the confidence and knowledge to either respond or not care.

We are proud of the technology that has enabled us to become pregnant. All the things we went through to get here as individuals and as a couple have made us stronger and made our capacity for love even greater.

Is your family supportive of the decisions you make/have made regarding donors and telling?