What’s the etiquette?

Well you know things have become mighty sophisticated in the 'city ‘hood!

At one time in our lives we went out with our friends and drank and talked about music, nowadays we sit around and talk about donor eggs.

Specifically – what are the implications of our friend being our donor!

Correct me if I’m wrong, but this is pretty much unchartered waters … is there a right and wrong way to have this conversation?

A few months back, we started telling all our friends ‘our sad IF tale'. Pretty much at the time we had decided that we’d kick off the process for adoption.

We were out having yum cha with a couple we are friends with(‘The Butterflies’) and their three children and told them about the adoption course we’d just been on etc. They were very supportive of it all, but as we told them what was involved Mrs B asked (quite innocently), ‘wouldn’t it just be easier to have your own’?

Whoops, we’d forgotten to mention that we’d been trying for the past 3 years, and after a miscarriage and 5 IVF cycles, had decided to move on.

Immediately she offered to be a donor. A couple of times. And then she told Mr. S she would be a donor.

We let it go, but not before I’d talked in a little more detail with her about it.

Later on when Mr. S and I were having our post-mortem, I asked him why he had such a casual response when she told him ‘I thought she was joking’ he said.

We talked a little more about it over the next week, and went over the implications of such a thing. We decided that when we caught up with them again, if the topic came up we’d test the waters a little more.

Well that time was Saturday night … some months after the initial conversation.

During the week we’d talked about how to tackle some of the questions, when they came up. I have to say we were both feeling kind of weird.

Well the subject of our adoption did come up, and we talked about the fact that we hadn’t put our application in yet, but were working through it. We talked about the fact that two of the couples we’d met on our course had since gone off and gotten pregnant! (1 with IVF, the other DE).

Again, donor eggs came up. Mrs B asked me what my thoughts were on it – and I told her that truthfully we were looking overseas. She asked me if having a child was really important to me. I told her that while I would love to adopt, and do my absolute best to raise a child with the culture etc. of their country that I would always feel like I had missed out by not giving birth to a child.

She said that because she was a clucky kind of person, she would do donor eggs for someone that felt the same way, but for someone that was more casual ‘didn’t care one way or the other’ she probably wouldn’t.

She’s finished her family and perfectly content to have three children.

So there it was, the topic out there in the open.

For the rest of the night we talked back and forward about the whole thing.

Mr. S played devils advocate and threw lots of scenarios out in the open:

‘One day this child would come to you knowing that they have your genetic code and want to talk to you about it’
‘What do you tell people in our circle of friends’
‘What do you tell your three children’
‘We would be creating an extended family – what does that mean’?

So the conversation went on for the rest of the night.

Mr. B is very supportive of the idea – if Mrs. B wants to go ahead. He loves his family and would love to help us have one.

I don’t think either Mrs. B or I slept well that night – our minds were racing at a million miles an hour.

Well I thought, here’s another place IF has taken me – navigating through the most extraordinary social situation I could ever have imagined.

Right now things are being thought about. Mr. S was going to ring up and let them know that we have no expectations of anything. There is no pressure. We have other options. The last thing I want is for anyone to feel pressured into giving me their eggs.

Right now it all feels pretty surreal – I could never have imagined being in this quite unbelievably sophisticated situation.

When I think about it, it’s actually pretty cutting edge isn’t it? Once we thought we were ahead of the pack with our alterna-rock music tastes, we’ve been elevated to a whole new level now!

Nothing to see here ...

Things have been pretty quiet on the IF front in the City for the past few weeks, but we’ve been flat out in other areas.

The past week we have had my parents in town, so have spent as much time as possible with them. My father is not well, so we’re living life one day at a time and trying to enjoy it as much as possible. He looks well, but gets very tired.

Tomorrow Mr. S and I head here for a long weekend, the main purpose being a wedding (close family friends). The extra days by the beach will be bliss.

The day we get back, my sister is in town with her husband and two children.

It’s an all-out family-fest here at the moment!

It’s not that we’re ignoring our IF, more so that for once we’ve just got other priorities.

It’s funny because at times the pace on this journey has been frantic, right now it feels like there’s no hurry. I feel like we’re gonna get there, we just don’t need to arrive out-of-breath. Don’t ask me why this sudden burst of optimism – it’s just there, arrived one day out of the clear blue sky, and it’s stayed.

I still haven’t made a decision on whether to do the Antagonist Cycle. What’s holding me back? Believe it or not, it’s the drugs. I’m not sure I want to take any more. After past cycles it has taken me weeks and months to get my energy back, I just don’t know if I want got through that again. I’m also not sure on the reasoning or logic behind this type of cycle being more successful at getting better quality eggs? I know if we do it, it'd be going in with our eyes wide open 'got nothing to lose' type of attitude - but do any of us ever really do that?

Meanwhile we’re in the queue for donor eggs – by my calculations we’ve ONLY got around another 41/2 months to go!

Tagged..

I've been tagged which is great. But I think I'm pretty boring, so I really don't know what constitutes weird. Here goes - a couple of dull things about me:

1. I used to be a sort of hippie-goth. Started out as a punkette in my teens, and followed music over to the dark side – worshipping at the altar of Nick Cave et al. My music tastes are a lot more diverse these days, and music is still king.

2. Coincidentally myself, and my two sisters are all married to younger men – ranging from 2 – 10 years. Conversely, my brother is married to an older woman.

3. I went to classes and learnt how to make jewellery – and made Mr. S’s wedding band … it’s an extremely simple band.

4. Until recently I always thought I was shy. I mean I worked in a job that used to require a lot of socialising, so got used to walking in the door and chatting to people without wanting to throw up. I thought it was something I’d trained myself to do, but my mother told me I was never shy as a child. She said I was the one that would want to meet Santa Claus while my older brother and sister wouldn’t go near him.

5. My mother is English and when I was around 11/12, my parents took our family to live there for a year. We loved it.

6. I love old-fashioned fruit cake … that’s what our wedding cake was made of.