Over the past year or so, a number of people have reminded me that their kid looks nothing like them either. I know this is meant well, so it has never upset me. But it’s never quite been the comfort that the person intended it to be either. I’ve thought about this for a long time and have figured out why not. My child not looking like me is nothing to do with narcissistic disappointment that I haven’t replicated a ‘Mini Me’ — it’s a reminder of the journey.
– OnFecundThought • January 19, 2015
A couple of weeks ago, I had a conversation with a fellow mom via egg donation about our experience. It was interesting to learn that not only did she never see a photo of her donor – not even as a child – but she was okay with that.
I’ve come to understand that it’s fairly typical for some clinics (they tend to be on the East Coast) to limit the amount of information about donors; whereas my clinic on the West Coast not only shared photos of our donor, her son, and our donor as a child, but also a fairly lengthy questionnaire she completed, along with the results of her genetic and psychological screening.
Being able to pick our donor based on what she looks like was important. I wasn’t looking for a supermodel, just someone who looked like she could be in my family. I wanted someone I could relate to and who shared similar interests. How the hell would my RE – a man I met only once – be able to pick someone?
The thought of blindly being matched by a stranger fills me with something akin to horror. For me, not having control of who replaced my genes, but also surrendering that choice to a doctor who knows only a limited medical history – certainly nothing important about me that makes me ME – is not something I could have agreed to. My conversation with this other mom was illuminating. It really does show how different we all are!
The conversation came about because this mom said V looks just like her dad, which she does; but I responded that I can also see a lot of Nellie in her too. It’s like Nellie’s facial features, especially her eyes, have been painted on DH’s skull! And, to the other mom’s surprise, I said I like seeing Nellie in my daughter and was glad I know what her son looks like – and he looks nothing like V.
My comrade said she would find it hard to know what her donor or her donor’s kid looked like. We chuckled at how we are the polar opposites on this. For me, it’s kind of like my contribution. I know, I carried V to 37 weeks – a pretty lengthy contribution, and equally important as the sperm and egg that fused together – but seeing flashes of Nellie soothes the pang when I witness others cooing over who their baby looks like more.
Maybe only other third party / adoption parents can fully understand this, but: I’ve stopped remarking on how much someone’s kid looks like them. It’s hard for me to resist because I come from a family where we all (even my parents) look alike – I’m a photographic morph of my parents, and my brother and I have been mistaken for twins. So I stop myself from saying how the baby has his daddy’s eyes or his mama’s hands, because I am envious that I will never have that experience. If you’ll forgive the psychobabble self-analysis, I guess it’s because in my family’s likeness gave me a sense of belonging, so the inverse is that by not having that with my own kid it taps into a fear of not belonging.
Which is logical, but ridiculous.
First, of course V and I belong together. Whose mother is hers, if not me? Whose daughter is she, if not mine?
Second, we none of us belong to each other. We are individuals, not objects. But I am aware of how so many of us have parents who live vicariously through our achievements or connections. One friend, born into a family of doctors, briefly contemplated not going to med school until she succumbed to familial pressure. I studied languages at university because I was never particularly academic and it seemed the ‘easy’ choice – but looking back, I think I cultivated French and Spanish because these were skills my mum envied and therefore encouraged.
V is musical and verbal (two qualities I relate to) but also athletic (she likes balls and is very active), which is not something that I relate to at all. I want my daughter to be free to be whoever she is and I want to support all of her interests, even the ones which hold zero appeal.
V is also a terrible sleeper. She hates naptime and still, at 13½ months, does not sleep through the night. Some days nights I wish I knew why. How much easier it would be to know my aunt or brother had been poor sleepers! How reassuring to be told the approximate age when they did begin to sleep through the night. Alas, there is no such light at the end of the tunnel, proverbial or otherwise. It’s just who she is.
Tonight I’m wondering if one of the advantages to not passing on your genes means it’s easier to see your child for who they actually are and not who you want them to be.
I am going to try to get my comment posted because I am interested in your response on fostering relationships between V and (his/her?) maternal relatives; You mentioned that V has a brother but that there is no resemblance. In my experience reuniting separated families (many involving absent parents who were gamete donors), resemblance is less of a driving factor than having originated from the same person or people. I have a lot of friends who have absent parents that were donors, and they grew up knowing this all their lives but were made to feel like their missing maternal or paternal relatives were not supposed to qualify as being their family and were not as important as the families of the people raising them (both biological and non biological). They were encouraged not refer to their own family members using normal kinship terms like mother/father/sibling/grandparent because it seemed to endearing and I guess made the people raising them uncomfortable to be reminded that they were related to all those other people. The explanations they were given were really hurtful saying that their biological parent whose absent did not donate to become a parent and does not think of them as family and of course even though its true its quite hurtful and even though they might not think of themselves as parents or family to their offspring they are it is a fact and it was not received well. Those that were allowed contact and could freely refer to their siblings as siblings seem to me to be less angry than those who were told to call them cousins or diblings or “the donor’s children”. You were saying that you like not expecting V to act or do things a certain way and that is encouraging. I’ve just seen a lot of heartache for the children and other relatives of donors and hope people raising donor offspring these days are not as inclined to try to stifle relationships with donor offspring’s other relatives. I’m sure V loves that you are comfortable and confident commenting on resemblance to maternal family – that is HUGE and rare and great of you.
Hi Marilynn,
To answer your question, I would like my daughter to have whatever level of contact she wishes to have with our donor. I very much see that as her choice and even before we cycled we made sure to take the necessary steps to enable her to make that choice when she’s older. But, to be honest, I don’t think I am in a minority of moms who feel this way.
That said, I must remind you of our exchange on BlogHer: I do not agree with your choice of language. I do not agree with you that V’s family is “separated” or will be “REunited” or that our donor’s family are her “maternal relatives” or that our donor’s son is her “brother,” and have and will never refer to them as such. I believe such language denigrates parents like me, and I believe it would only confuse and hurt my child/ren. I am not so arrogant to think I can convince you that I am right – but this corner of the Internet is mine, so, in the same way that I would ask you not to curse, I ask you to treat my blog with the same respect that I hope you would show my home.
The following response to your comment is for the benefit of the readers of this blog than to challenge you directly: I believe that the work you claim to do (“reuniting families”) may attract a certain kind of person who was donor-conceived. Your work obviously doesn’t attract happy donor-conceived individuals (par definition!), so I imagine that your choice of language must like a balm to someone who feels there is something (or someone) missing in their life. But when you only see the sad stories, I also imagine you don’t hear much about the happy stories, the people for whom third party conception isn’t a big deal. I’m not implying that everyone who is donor-conceived is happy and comfortable with it, but I think there are many more happy stories than you give credit for. I also think that if your work is predominantly with donor sperm-conceived individuals that doesn’t mean that such people face the same issues as donor egg-conceived individuals.
In my opinion (which is based on plenty of research of different kinds, including having adult friends who are donor-conceived), reinforcing the notion that “the real parent” is the one who donated their gametes can do more harm than good. What happens when a donor is united with the person they helped to create under the guise of “REAL FAMILY?” Your argument is that the title of “Mom” or “Dad” is the correct title because of DNA (of which we ALL share 99.99%) and that genes trump the years of love, support, and nurturing that parents like me give unconditionally and gratefully. Meanwhile, I have a hard time believing that most donors would see themselves as such just because you thrust this title upon them. Doesn’t that further drive the wedge between the donor and the DC person? Why not try to foster more positive language, that will help cultivate a relationship if there’s going to be one. Just because you call a donor “the real parent” does not make them someone who will love and support DC individual, much less at the level given by the parent.
I do welcome discussion, so I have approved your comment this evening in spite of your choice of terminology. However, for reasons which I hope are now very clear, I do not endorse your choice of words and I will not tolerate it on my blog. If you persist in describing donors as “real parents” and their families as “real families,” bestowing upon them the attributes that are rightfully mine and my family’s, you give me no choice but to disengage and trash any future comments with no explanation. Thank you for understanding.
Hi, I have twin girls, who are now one years old,through double donation ivf. I had my treatment, aged 49 at Brno, Czech Republic. Lots of people have said they look like two of my naturally conceived children. There are infact 3 biological parents. I have researched this and learnt that 25% the egg from egg donor, 25% sperm donor and 50% from me, the woman who carried my twins They look a lot like me and two of my other children. My eldest naturally conceived daughter, 27 years is really academic and determined to pass her honers degree in Psycology after getting her degree recently. She says she wont ever have children, as she is scared of giving birth. Totally opp of me in these areas. We are all individuals. Marie.x
Yes, we are definitely the biological mothers to our children – just not the genetic mothers. This is something I’ve done a lot of research into as well. Maybe my daughter looks similar to what my genetic children would have, had I had any. I’ll never know. But, as you say, we are all individuals! Thanks for stopping by! Lauren x
My situation is obviously different from yours, in that my child does share both my husband’s and my genes, but not imposing my will on my daughter is something I have had to be very concious of. I have a brief post about this coming up, but I will discuss the situation briefly here- I was thrilled when my daughter wanted to take dance. I took dance as a child, and continue to take ballet to this day. But now, she has decided that she doesn’t like it, and wants to quit and try something else. Yes, I am disappointed, but she will never see that- I do my best to hide it, because she is an individual, and just because she shares my genes, does not mean she is going to share my interests. My husband struggles with this a great deal. He is a professional musician, and is very passionate about his music. I think he will be devastated if it turns out that music isn’t her thing, either. Hell- he even seems rather rattled that she prefers to eat bagels untoasted when he prefers his toasted! I am CONSTANTLY reminding him that she doesn’t have to like what he likes! It just isn’t fair to impose our will on our kids. Maybe not sharing your genes with your daughter does make that easier, and I find that a really interesting concept to think about! :)
Yes! This is exactly the sort of struggle I was talking about! I think it’s natural to want your kids to share your interests. My life will be easier (and more interesting!) if V ends up appreciating music, arts, and writing. I don’t know how I will feel if she ends up being a football-mad. In fact – ha, you might enjoy this – she seems more interested in cats than dogs, which is weird because we are all “dog people” and even have a dog…
As humans I think we like to mentally categorise things. Sometimes the shorthand is helpful, but sometimes (as in the case of dangerous stereotypes) it’s very unhelpful and even harmful. So, I do think it might be easier for me to dissociate my heritage from my daughter’s because hers is totally different. That’s not to say I’ll get it right every time or that it’s easy, though!