April G/L chatty preggo/parents thread

[AussieJenn]

I thought seeing that it is now April and the March chatty thread is already over 100 posts, that I'd start a new chatty thread. I hope that's okay? I'm thinking Dawn that you are going to be rather busy with Olivia, and may not think to start a new one just yet?

Carrying on from where the last one left off....

I forgot to give you an update on our equivalent to the Sibling Register - we have just started email contact with two families - one lesbian couple with two boys aged 3 and 5, and one single woman with a daughter aged 4 (she hasn't replied to our email yet). We've also been provided a list of all the children born using the same donor - with their sex and birth month and year, although these others are not on the Register so we have no way of contacting them....yet... There are 4 sets of maternal siblings. The most exciting part is that we have had email contact with the first family, and seen pics of those two little boys and they don't look anything like Mason. You've no idea how relieved I am. I guess I've been worrying ever since I really started thinking about the possible up-to-19 other half-siblings mason may have, that they are all Mason-clones. I can't really explain what I mean, what I was feeling, but by seeing that these two, although very cute kids, look nothing like my son, it made me feel like Mason is more my DP's and mine rather than????? Oh I don't know...it really sounds silly trying to put it into words. Maybe Mason does look like me - I can never see it, but everybody tells me so! Anyway, sometime soon we will be meeting up with this first family, and possibly the mom and 4yo girl for a playdate at the park or zoo - these two families have already met a few times and they tell me the children have a real connection! All of this is something we never thought we'd be doing when chosing our donor back in 2003. We thought it would be Mason trying to make contact once he was an adult....

Okay enough from me, this is meant to be a "chatty" thread, not a thread all about me

So how are the new pregnancies going? and how are all those gorgeous babies and their exhausted moms doing?

[2moms2be]

Originally Posted by AussieJenn

I can't really explain what I mean, what I was feeling, but by seeing that these two, although very cute kids, look nothing like my son, it made me feel like Mason is more my DP's and mine rather than????? Oh I don't know...it really sounds silly trying to put it into words.

I understand what you are trying to say. You want Mason to be ALL yours and your DPs not look like he could belong to someone else.

BTW I love your pic in your siggy. It is beautiful!

[LauraH]

Jen - I completely get what you are trying to say & it makes perfect sense to me.

A - You're right. I hadn't really separated in my head the difference between knowing the donor and knowing other sibs. I mean I have thought about it breifly, but not in depth. It's all so interesting!

Dawn - glad you got a minute to post! I remember those days well (OK, it was only 5 weeks ago )It sounds like Olivia is in her 3 week growth spurt. Hang in there - the non-stop feeding won't last long!


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[A Squared]

Dawn, I concur with Laura--it's probably the growth spurt that happens around 3 weeks.

Jenn, It's funny that you are glad that Mason doesn't look like the other kids. I'm excited that Lachlan DOES look like the other kids. Maybe b/c I thought he didn't look like me and he seemed kind of foreign for a long time. My mom sent a pic of me as a baby and Áine looks JUST like me. It's pretty funny how much we look alike.

[Tasha521]

Thanks ladies for all of your responses. I really appreciate the welcome and info. I am really struggling with trying to choose a sperm bank. This was so much easier when we knew the donor. Now I am forced to pick some guy that I know nothing about and since I am the ultimate control freak this really bothers me.

[Care75]

The discussion has gotten rather interesting. I guess we are in a unique situation because we didn't get to pick a donor so to speak as we had to pick the embryos. The embryos were left over from a cycle where a couple did donor egg/donor sperm so they have full siblings from that pregnancy. I'm not sure if it's just one child or multiples though. I'll have to ask when I fill out our follow up paperwork. The egg donor herself has 2 children. She's local but it's an anonymous donation. I do have a picture of her two children because I selfishly said I wanted Susan to see their picture when I went to an appointment without her and I snapped a picture of the picture. I checked the donorsiblingregistry on the sperm donor and haven't found any yet. So they may never know much about their genetic background. My dad is adopted and like Laura's family never wanted to know his birthmother. He did meet her at age 50 mostly to get family history for my brother and I.

People keep asking if they look like me as a baby. I usually just answer with "I'm not sure"!

[Care75]

BTW- Harper had 2 good nights (sorta) in the crib. Last night we slept in the chair because she had 2 diarehas and felt bad.

It makes me feel good to know that others are co-sleeping. DP makes it seem like it's SUCH a bad thing!!

[Tasha521]

Care- Wow, I have never heard quite a story like that before. How do you left over embryos and sperm? Just curious how that works. Where are the parents to the embryo and sperm that were used, have you met them?

[AussieJenn]

Thanks for sharing your "story" Carrie. When my DP and I decided we were not going to use the embryos we had stored on ice, we looked into adopting them out, but in the end it wasn't an option open to us here in Australia, sadly. Isn't it a wonderful brave new world we live in, that there are now all sorts of ways for people to start their family - only wish my country would get with the program and stop being so archaic - lesbians aren't even legally meant to ttc let alone adopt - and thats just the tip of the unequal rights iceburg! (okay, off my soapbox now!)

[2moms2b]

Jenn- The entire situation with regards to donors is an interesting one. I think I "get" what you are saying and agree that there really isn't appropriate and discriptive language for it at all. I guess we are just all in a really different situation and all feel differently about it. It is a brave new world full of possibilities, but of course also questions... too bad anyone's government has a dang thing to do with it at all!

Laura and A - We had a GREAT day today, so maybe it was the growth spurt thing yesterday. She is still really hungry today, just not as fussy!

Tasha - It is a long story (maybe I will post it sometime), but we were going to us CCB when we weren't sure if using Greg was really going to be a possibility. We started the process of looking and it was SO WEIRD. Luckily, I had a close friend who was going through the same thing at the time... so I had someone to talk to about it. (Although she is straight, she and her husband discovered that he has a VERY rare genetic condition in which he produces no sperm.)

Care - VERY interesting story... thanks for sharing. Boy, we all have really different paths to our little ones! Glad Harper is doing well in the crib.

Well, my mom arrives for a week tomorrow. She wanted to give us plenty of time as a family before she "swooped" in to help. Apparently, this is something that her mom didn't do and she felt like when her mom left she was just continuing her mom's routine instead of doing what she had learned on her own. Pretty cool for her to be willing to stay away this long... I know it has been killing her... she calls like a million times a day. OY!

I am really looking forward to her visit... I know she will be a big help and she is looking forward to active grandmothering!

Dawn

[LauraH]

I just mentioned the sibling registry to Carolyn & she has no interest in looking at it right now. She feels it will be Caleb's decision. I'm glad we are on the same page on that.

It's funny about genetics - I helped to raise my niece's son (long story) for the first 5 years of his life. He is the son of my adopted niece. People used to say they could see a family resemblence between me & him. Not only are we not at all genetically related but genetically I'm Polish and he's 1/2 Italian & 1/2 Puerto Rican! Nothing about us looks alike - but we definitely have lots of the same personality characteristics. Still to this day (he's 10) he will do something goofy and I'll think, "Yup, that's Auntie's boy!"



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[Tasha521]

It is absolutely amazing that you guys are sharing all of your stories. Thank you all so much. Well it looks like we are going to have to go with a donor, but I talked to DP about maybe getting Donor a semen analysis to see if maybe if he changed some of his lifestyle habits he could produce healthier sperm. Don't know what the outcome will be, but every new test my doctor says " told you it wasn't you". My day will come one day when I can post on this board as an expecting mom-to-be. Gosh I just can't wait. Thanks again ladies and please share more of your stories, I really enjoy your success stories.

[JandS]

Tasha- I understand what you mean about being frustrated about having to pick a donor that you know nothing about. We felt that way at first, that it was just so overwhelming, but we stopped and talked about the things that were most important to us to have in a donor, and beyond that we weren't going to let the donor have any more power. We decided it didn't really matter who the donor was, we were going to get the baby that we were meant to have.

I'm know it is different for everyone, but when we were picking our donor we looked at one bank, and only looked at the long profiles (no photos, or recordings). We had a few specific criteria that the donor had to have (ex. good vision, no alcoholism in the family, ancestral background close to ours, identity release donor, CMV-, etc). But beyond that we just picked our top two choices based on the way they answered the personal questions, and picked the ones we thought we might be friends with.

When we called to place our order, our first choice wasn't available. So we inquired about our second choice, and the sales person said that she knew him and that he was cute and a really nice guy, so we ended up with our second choice. And Sharon got pregnant on the first try, so it must have been meant to be!

[Tasha521]

J- What bank did you use?

[JandS]

We used the New England Cryogenic Center, because it is local to us. We live in MA.

[A Squared]

Jacqui, Originally we used NE Cryo too, but that donor didn't work out so we went with CCB for the second donor b/c we like him so much. We also tried to pick someone we felt had certain basic characteristics (like eye color, height, cmv-, open donor). It was important to me to get a good vibe b/c, like you, we wanted to feel like we could be friends with the guy. We did get to look at a pic. He seems cute but the photo is such a poor quality that it's hard to tell what he really looks like. It's a teaser, really. We also looked at the staff impression report. For some reason it was really comforting to hear what the staff had to say about him.

We went for our first trip this weekend to visit my BIL. The trip went surprisingly well. We did have a few issues at our first bathroom changing station and both babies screamed bloody murder and the whole restaurant could hear, but other than that we had a great trip. IT's a good thing it went well b/c we are travelling to DC in 2 weeks and it's about 6.5 hours from here--and we're taking a longer trip. I'm a bit nervous about such a long car trip, but I think if we plan a long stop part way through it won't be so bad. We got to see my sister and her two kids, one of whom is 6 months old and MASSIVE. Our babies look so tiny in comparison.

[2moms2be]

The adoption is done!!!! We flew to San Antonio on Thursday and went to the courthouse on Friday, came home Saturday. There were 2 other families there also doing adoptions. We had a great time. Julie's mom and aunt came with us. It was really special. The girls actually raised their right hand too (total accident but VERY cute!!) Traveling with twins is like being a rock star...you get stopped every two seconds for people wanting to look at the babies. Of course Emerson pooped on the plane on the way back to Fl and I had to change her in the TINY bathroom. They did great. The only thing is they did not seem to each as much while we were gone and I feel like they lost weight! So we are in eating frenzy mode here.

A- Im glad your trip went well too!

[WannaBMom74]

A & Patty glad to hear you both had good trips

Patty- Congrats on the Adoption !!

[A Squared]

Patty, That's great news about the adoption! It reminds me that we need to get going with ours.

[2moms2be]

Here is a picture of us and the judge after the adoptions were done...