| Original Message |
Vianna (no login)
Posted Jul 6, 2009 2:26 PM
Thanks very much, dee, for taking the time to answer my question about women who had told their children about DE and who had regrets. I appreciate your consideration of that question. I am very interested in the blog you mention, and what this woman is going through, I think it would be very helpful to read. But at the same time, the perspective of one woman who still only has a baby isn't really where I am going to find what I am looking for, which is the long-term view.
I understand what you are saying about the issues that could potentially come up because of this choice to use DE, and some of what you say seems to make a lot of sense, and that is to be judicious in whom you are telling. I can't imagine ever telling co-workers such a private thing, unless I was very very close to them outside of work in a very proven relationship and could count on their being discreet and supportive. I'm so I'm sorry to hear that this woman who writes the blog is having regrets about sharing this with people she works with. It sounds like her judgment was not very good on that point, and that that is the real source of her stress. Though I would find it very helpful to hear the kind of issues she is dealing with, this particular situation, to my mind, has not much to do with what is right for her child as far as knowing or not knowing about DE.
As for what you said: "I want you to think like your child, how would you feel if you found out that your mother wasn't your biological mother, that you don't have that tie, or you are tied to your dad but not your mom. Do you want to know about sisters and brothers from your bioligal mom? Do you feel like your "Real" family is out there somewhere?"
As one poster here says, not one of us here can actually "think like our child" because we are not that child number one, and most importantly, none of us were born of DE. And, also, attempting to put myself in my child's perspective in an empathic way is the very reason I am leaning toward telling. I believe it would be easier in many ways to not tell, but due to a nagging feeling that my potential child would have a right to know, is why, as difficult as it might turn out to be, I am realizing that I believe I must be honest.
It sounds like you have a lot of anxiety about what might happen if your child found out about DE, and I guess, as another poster here said, I am tending more now to feel that that kind of anxiety will only increase if I don't share the information in a loving positive way. Diffusing the issue by being honest rather than stuffing the issue, and, again, as another poster here suggested, risk making the issue a real negative when it isn't a negative.
I still very much want to speak with women who have a long-term perspective -- not only women who might still be adjusting to motherhood, a new baby, or having told prematurely or told people they very likely should not have in the first place. Again, I think that moms and dads who used sperm donation many years ago will likely have that longer perspective that I would like to have some exposure to to help me prepare for dealing with the decision we have made. (Though egg donation is different, I realize, if only for the effort involved on the part of the donor.)
Lastly, even though I have some ambivalence about telling, I have already begun a journal for my potential child (or children) about how much we wanted him/her/them. My husband has promised to start one very soon as well. It's not going to be a journal of the process or medical details, it's going to be a journal of the excitement and fears we are feeling as we take the steps toward creating a child together. The goal is to create a sort of love letter to our child, and that would be a jumping off point for answering any questions that child may have.
I think it will be helpful to have these conversations over the long term with one another. So, when you, for instance, being no tell, find a way to deal with something that comes up because you are no tell, such as when you're child asks certain questions, how you deal with answering those questions. And visa versa--when a "tell" person has difficulty with something because they are tell, how they find ways to, for instance, comfort their child with their love along with the facts.
Speaking of facts, we all should forgive ourselves our future errors, because the fact is, we will all make them--tell or no tell!
Thanks for the opportunity to hash this around. It's a tough issue, and we are all walking a hard road. That's actually the thing I comfort myself with--I believe that my child will respect me if I demonstrate that sometimes difficult decisions need to be made in life, and we can still make them, and have self-respect and that what other people think about our decisions shouldn't be the main reason we make them. We are all courageous here, and I believe my child will ultimately see this and be inspired by it. In fact, the way I finally was able to overcome my ethical concerns about DE was one day, when I was going back and forth over whether this is an unethical issue to hand over to a child's life, and was I just being selfish I came up with an unexpected answer. I had asked myself this question so many times and I kept coming back to doubt--thinking that it was just purely selfish of me to move forward so intentionally with this decision when I knew the issues my child could have with the decision, but this day, after another miscarriage when I was grieving so much, I thought, "What if I had a daughter, and I was watching her go through this horrible loss, and the option of DE was presented? What would I want her to do?" And I just sobbed and sobbed and realized that I'd want her to do DE. And that was it. Here I am.
Good luck to you, Dee!!
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