The Goose Tells Charlotte and Wilbur about the Egg

Telling the kids.

Since we first told the children about our hopes of me growing a baby we drew on many images and ideas that were appropriate for their age. One of the things we told them is that sometimes when a woman gets to an older age, some of her eggs can be duds. They don't do any thing, they don't grow, they just don't work. We explained that this was one of the reasons that I had to go to the "Baby Doctor"...to see if we could get some non-duds. We drew upon the story of Charlotte's web, which in one chapter the goose explains that one of her eggs that didn't hatch that spring was a dud. She simply, casually, and uncaringly lets the rat, Templeton, roll it out of the nest and do what ever he wants with it. She has no emotional attachment to the eggs. She doesn't weep for it or have any remorse. It's just in the way. She's happy to be rid of it so she can concentrate on her other 11 goslings. The children are very familiar with this story so we purposely used it.

When we told the children about the beta results, we simply said all of the "eggs" were duds. They were sad by accepted this as just the way things turn out. Like when a battery gets old or doesn't work...it's a dud. It's nothing personal.

We also told them we would try one more time and they affectionately referred to the possibility of a new sibling as the "maybe baby". Sometimes our youngest saves an old toy for the "maybe baby". Their lives are endless possibilities and they spread that around to everyone and everything. I love it when they refer to the "maybe baby", it's 100% pure hope.