It’s National Infertility Awareness Week, and this year’s theme is #FlipTheScript.
What Was it Like Choosing an Egg Donor?
In a word: weird. I mean, how do you choose someone to genetically replace you? You have to think about what’s important to you.
(If I had to choose a donor again, knowing what I know now I would choose a little differently. Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post!)
I wanted someone tall, with angular features, and a head of wavy hair, like me. Ethnically, I didn’t care about specifics, but wanted someone who looked like she could be a family member. I never imagined back then that I would eventually be as open as I am, and felt that if we chose a donor who looked very different from either of our families of origin, people would think I’d cheated on my husband!! Most of all, I wanted someone I could relate to in terms of talents and interests.
There were other considerations too: We wanted a proven donor (someone who had successfully donated before) to minimize further heartache and disappointment. And it was important to choose someone who was already a parent. By choosing another mom who had donated before, I felt that she knew exactly what she was committing to. Plus, I felt it showed that she had enough of a positive experience donating that she was happy to do it again.
As for me, looking at a database of young fertile women made me feel like a dirty old man! Joking aside, I wrestled with the grief of my own DNA failure, anger of finding myself in a position where IVF with my own eggs wasn’t even an option, and despair that there was no one good enough to replace me.
Yeah, it sounds arrogant. It is. But if you had to choose a stranger to represent the best of you, wouldn’t you be more than a little picky too?
I had just about given up when I refreshed the page, and there she was: a woman who looked like she could be my sister. A mom who, in her own words, said she wanted to donate her eggs so that “others may experience the joy I felt when holding my son for the first time.” A creative, sensitive soul who was drawn to the part of Spain where I grew up. A day later, I got the email: we were matched, and would cycle a few months later. Three months later, she and I exchanged emails. Just under a year later, I held my baby girl in my arms.
♥
I’ll be posting something here on OFT, as well as on Instagram (@OnFecundThought and @TheTryingTimes) every day this week.
And because I’m “out-out” about our infertile struggles and how we came to create our family, I’m also sharing to my personal Facebook and Instagram accounts too. #FlipTheScript
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