Sitting at my desk Friday morning juggling ten different things I get a call from a woman telling me that she is calling me about my surgery. What surgery? The one that is scheduled for Monday! Oh really, that one? I told my doc THE PREVIOUS DAY that I could come in any time for surgery and I guess he took me at my word. The rest of the day I scrambled to reschedule my Monday duties ( including planning to go into work on Sunday), kept on juggling other work stuff, dealt with the many calls about insurance, tried to find people to give me rides to and from the center so S can go to work and not worry that she might get canned for taking one more day off ( she was just off for a week for an intensive course for her MDiv.) She totally would have done it for me, but I prefer her to keep her job and I am a big girl. So my sis and her sister in law are taking me and bringing me back. Thanks guys! You rock!
The surgery center told me all the details about what not to eat or drink before hand,to wear no jewelry or valuables and to bring my advance directives if I have any!!!YIKES!!! I am having a general anesthetic and of course I need to be prepared... I know I talked about this in my last post, but it feels a bit creepy that they brought it up to me.
So I am sitting on the couch, ready to search for a website that can help me do a will and advance directives so I can get them witnessed tomorrow.
Sorry it's not very pithy or funny, but I am pre-occupied.
And then after having dinner with a friend last night and talking about the whole egg donor thing and showing her the info, we discovered that the egg donor we picked wants to remain anonymous to the child. We had not given it much thought really - but had believed we had picked a known donor. We agonized over the decision to pick an unknown sperm donor when we were doing IUIs- it boiled down to money in the end - and then when we started IVF we picked another guy who was willing to be known because our clinic didn't like the first sperm bank and the second had known donors available and IVF only takes one vial so it's cheaper than endless vials for IUIs- but he wasn't our renaissance man that we just love, who is with a company that does not supply any known donors. I have this fantasy that if he had been given the choice he would have said yes - just from reading his answers to the essay questions I got the impression he was very interested in how it would all turn out. So this whole egg donor thing has been kind of a whirlwind and we never really considered the whole known donor question too seriously. I am not even sure if many egg donors consent to be known. So we decided that we really do want to give our child some chance to find out who donated the eggs and sperm to bring him or her into the world. So now we have to pick another egg donor and we are thinking about going back to the guy who is not so interesting but is willing to be known so we can give the kid the chance to meet or talk to both donors if he/ she wants to. It's a bummer because we really liked the donor we had picked!
Any thoughts on the subject would be most welcome!
Please send positive vibes to me on Monday at 12.30pm central time - when I will be having my little fibroid removed. I told my tennis pal today that I had to have a fibroid removed and she said she thought I said I have to have a vibrator removed!!!! Funny!
Okay - off to do my will, etc etc.
Ta ta for now!
10 comments:
Claire - I am so happy to hear of your plans to use DE's! So very excited for you... I'll be thinking good thoughts for you on Monday, too. I'll be sure check in again to hear more details!
i will come at this from two sides, so i apologize if my answer is confusing.
we may be using an egg donor, and fully planned on using an egg donor when we first started, so this is something that has been thoroughly discussed. unlike our surrogate, we do not want our child to always know the person that gave the egg to create him/her. we also do not feel that we have the right to take the choice of knowing the donor away from our child. i know that right is a strong word, but it is the only one that i have ever felt right using when it came to this issue.
another consideration for us was having access to updated medical information. people do not always know their complete medical history when they are young. i have a disorder that was not disclosed at the time of my adoption that almost killed me, and no one knew what to look for. so, it is very important to me that the donor will at least be open to contact for medical information as needed. i am not asking for organs, just information.
many of my feelings on this issue stem from being the child of a closed adoption. it was always painful to me that i would never know who i looked like or who to blame for my enormous hips. many hours of my life were spent daydreaming of the woman who gave me life. i found her with a lot of detective work and the wonderful internet. at the age of 29, a picture made years of questions disappear.
my birth mother is a lovely woman who has been a good friend to me. my adoptive mother is still threatened by my speaking to her, to the point that she cannot remember her name. i know that my adoptive mother will always live in fear that i will love my birth mother more, even though nothing could ever be farther for the truth. i do not know if i will feel the same one day, but what i do know is that i owe my child all the information that they want, even if that information comes in a form that makes me want to squirm in my seat.
in the end, you have to make the decision that feels right for your family. i do not believe that there is one blanket answer for everyone.
i hope that your surgery goes well, you will be in my thoughts.
Wow! I never even considered the known donor egg creator issue. My center only offers anonymous donors. Tough choice. For me, I think I would be more comfy having the egg donor be anonymous... really the child will have plenty of moms already. :) But I can totally see the other side of that coin also.
I hope the surgery goes well. You have had some serious business happening!
I understand why you are torn about the known vs anonymous issue. For me, choosing the characteristics of the donor would be more important criteria than whether the donor elects to be known to the child. Just my own feeling about it, but I'd rather choose a donor who has a fantastic sense of humor, who is easygoing, brilliant, has an artistic side, and whose family has great longevity and health than worry about 15 years down the road whether my kid will even be interested in tracking down the donor for any reason other than curiosity to see what that person looks like. There is really no emotional connection for that donor (I wouldn't think) as compared, for example, to the teenager who carried her baby in her womb, gave birth, held the infant in her arms, then handed it over for adoption. Anyway, that's my 2 cents, and I stand ready to be flogged for it. :)
Oh, I wanted to mention too that I will definitely be thinking of you during your surgery, hoping it all goes well, quickly and without incident. Goodbye fibroid! Hello, baby!
i'll be thinking of you tomorrow and hoping all goes well.
interesting issue w/the anon/known dilemma. my only 2cents is that it seems like a good idea for both donors to be the same, whatever you decide. having one anon and one known seems unfair somehow...
Hoping everything goes well tomorrow, so you can get on with DE! Good luck and enjoy the good drugs! :)
Hoping everything goes well tomorrow, so you can get on with DE! Good luck and enjoy the good drugs! :)
Wow! Wishing you well tomorrow. I don't blame you for wanting the child to be able to locate both donors.
I'm an egg donor myself and I'm 25 years old and married for six years. I didn't want to be known because I felt I had no right. I'm not raising the child nor did I carry the child. The reason I even consider this was for the money but the second time I did it because the first time I almost died. My husband and I did it the second time to give life to a couple who could not create one themselves.
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