Dinner and (Embryo) Conversation

I need to take a deep breath here before I begin to post. Done.

 

Warning: Long, long, long post.

 

We met with our neighbors, as I wrote before. WW and I opted for a fondue dinner, since you can eat and talk without being rushed. (And because it's yuuummmy!) Looking back, for the first 10 or 15 minutes it seemed like we were just trying to impress them, and they were trying to impress us! No bragging or anything, just sharing really cool and impressive facts about ourselves. We found out that neighbor-mom went to Stanford University and studied Literature and Women's Issues. We found out that neighbor-dad went to UCLA to study Political Science. They have been married for 17 years. I was subtle but I found out that they have no intention of moving anywhere, anytime soon.

 

Their fertility issues were multi-factor, both primary related to age. Neighbor-mom is early 50s and neighbor-dad is late 50s. They did only one donor cycle. Fertilization was done with ICSI. I don't know how many they had originally but they got pregnant with the fresh cycle (singleton) and then got pregnant with an FET 2 years later (singleton). They have 2 children and they are most decidedly done, done, done and happy, happy, happy. They believe in nurture over nature. They are multi-spiritual or atheist or both. (It was hard to tell from the conversation.)

 

Now here is the real kicker of the evening...why they like us as a possible recipient family. They feel good about us primarily because...of our kids! They don't know us very well but they have been around our kids at school, at local events, birthday parties, at the library, and in the neighborhood. They think our kids are great. They went on and on (mostly neighbor-mom) about both of them...how mature, smart, loving, and well adjusted our oldest DD is...how absolutely full of joy, smart, and Labrador Retriever friendly our youngest DD is. She also mentioned how much our daughters love each other...how obvious it is, how they stick together, and include each other in everything.

 

This is all true. Neighbor mom is very observant. The irony kills me. You know out in IF land you don't flaunt your existing kids around. Many IFers are completely without a relationship with a child and long for it. I have never taken them to an RE appointment, even if it caused big-time inconvenience. I don't blog about them here. I am very careful about how much I say to my IF sans children friends, because I don't want to cause more pain. I have never been pregnant, but I do have children, and I am a mom.

 

When we first asked about the embryos I thought they would absolutely refused based on the fact that we already had children. I practically broke down explaining to her/them how much being pregnant and growing a person meant to me to help her understand the distinction in my mind and what I felt my life was missing. That heart wrenching discussion was unnecessary. She already knew that I am a real mom to my kids and that I could still want to have a child. Since being so impressed with our girls, they thought they must come from excellent parents.

 

Can I just say how big that is to us/me? Someone we hardly know thinks we are excellent parents. It's amazing to know that are people who care more about how we are as parents and human beings than they do about us being gay. When they told us they had concerns about us being a two mom family, what they meant was they have met the small minded, judgemental, miss-guided types and that the concern is for us and our kids. They put it so well and we were pretty stunned. All I could say was, "Uh, yeah, us too". I had no word there for a second.

 

When we got down to the main concerns, they were all about emotions and the weirdness factor, still. We are not on the same page with regard to disclosure. I told her how we felt about it being the child's business to tell people when he/she wanted to, and they believe that the conception story is the parents' to tell. But is our conception story theirs to tell as well? My answer was no. Their answer was, they would defer to us (but there was definitely a tone of...why are you making this such a big deal?). They talked about not knowing how they would feel to see a child that might look very much like their children.

 

RANT BEGINS: Familial recognition is a big deal for people. My parents, until I stooped them, would tell me that they saw a child that looked just like DD1 or DD2. Then they would go into this whole thing about how they could be a brother or a sister to DD1 or DD2. And wouldn't  it be great if they had lots of relatives "out there". Finally, I asked them to stop. Stop chasing the fictional "real" family. Stop creating hypothetical scenarios to make themselves feel better about the fact that they are not blood relation. They just cannot let it go. My cousin adopted 4 kids. All of them are multi-racial kids (we are white, white, sheet white). I can't tell you how many times in the first 10 years or so I heard one of my parents say to someone...well, of course, they are adopted as you can tell. I love them and they love us, but the mindset is all about biology. I accept that about them and they are learning to accept that it isn't our focus. RANT OVER.

 

So we all came to the conclusion that there are feelings that we just cannot predict. It's actions that matter more. What would they do if they felt a strong pull for our child? They both said they would do nothing and if it were a big issue they would see a therapist, but essentially it would be their problem, not ours. That is progress from our last discussion. We have also made emotional progress as well.

 

I couldn't articulate my feelings about how our girls and their kids might feel if in their public life, people knew about the donation. What would that dynamic be like for them? This goes back to them telling people and me trusting that they wouldn't talk about the donation. This is a tough issue for me. I just don't know how our kids would feel. It's one thing for adults to deal with the weirdness factor, but kids? I think it's too much. And do I trust them to keep our family origins private? I don't know? I'm not super trusting to begin with.

 

Whatever happens, this is a huge learning experience for me. I have grown emotionally already. IF and all that has come with it (including you) has taught me so much. Congratulations, you are at the bottom of this post!!!!