It was suggested to me by a friend and fellow blogger that I write a blog post about donor eggs from the "other side." Now that I have donor egg babies, how do I feel?
The answer is simple: like a mommy.
Most moments - scratch that, 99.9% of moments - I don't even think about them being donor egg babies. It just doesn't come up in my mind or my heart or my soul. These are my babies. My body grew them and birthed them. My body recovered from the 9 month experience (scratch that: the FOUR YEAR experience). My body feeds them. And they gaze up into my eyes and smile and coo and fall asleep, my body cherishes them. These are my daughters, no doubt about it. And when people tell me "they have your eyes" (because, honestly, they do!), my heart sings. When my own mother told me that they look like me, we both almost cried. That they don't have my DNA is simply a technicality, not worthy of much thought. This process helped me realize that making a baby takes more than just having sex and converging DNA. It takes daily consideration for what mom eats while growing baby (and, for me, it was really intense because of the single placenta and TTTS risk). It takes careful planning and attention to detail. It takes love and patience and longing. DNA is, thanks to modern medicine, an afterthought. And, thanks to epigenetics, these babies have more of me than I used to think possible. My body was responsible for switching on and off certain genomes. My body made and grew these babies, and it did it well. My body responds to their needs and as of about a month ago, they are both 100% breas milk fed babies.
As I sit here, typing this between spells of checking on sleeping babies, with the Portland snow storm happening outside our beautiful front picture window, my last day of FMLA leave being tomorrow and my first day of official "leave of absence" until September (read: unemployment!) begins Monday, you know what I am NOT thinking about? Well, you know. My heart is full, my family is complete, my life is amazing, and my babies are as mine as they could ever be.
This post is simply beautiful and you are such an amazing mom.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely beautiful.
ReplyDeleteYou are absolutely right. Though half their genome is not directly from you, you played an incredibly important role is growing your daughters, from the epigenetic level (which is far more interesting and complex), to the hormonal level, to a nutritional level all the way to a physical level. In every way, these are your daughters.
So lovely. I am so happy your family is complete. What a wonderful feeling. You worked your butt off to get here and you have given those girls everything you could. Congrats.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful!
ReplyDeletethanks for sharing from the other side! it is good to hear- cause this is how all of us DE IVFers want to feel!
ReplyDeleteI feel much the same with my pregnancy right now. Thanks for all your help.
ReplyDeleteThis is beautiful to read. Thank you so much for sharing.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful post. Glad I stumbled here today.
ReplyDelete