The family that is going to donate their embryos to us hasn't completely disappeared. D wrote to me the day after I posted about their month-long silence (her ears must have been burning) and told me that the legal agreement looked fine to her. Which is Really Great News, right? I should be thrilled. But she hadn't had a lawyer review it yet. And she said nothing about when she expected that they might see the lawyer or sign the agreement. She told me that she'd had a lot of family staying with her (I'll admit, it sounded pretty chaotic) and that one of her parents had to have surgery in a few weeks, and she had to deal with that. And then she dropped off the map again. It's been another 2 weeks with no word. Yet, her last note also said that she was sending the release form to her clinic, authorizing transfer of the embryos to our clinic. Our clinic won't initiate that process until they receive the signed legal agreement, however. So there it is. Progress, and yet it just doesn't feel that way.
I don't know what to do about this. I feel like I can't just say "no thanks, you're not moving as fast as I want you to, so I'm moving on" -- because, after all, she is still saying that she's willing to give me the most incredible gifts someone can give to another person -- little frozen cells who, if they live and thrive, would be full siblings to her children. How can I insist that we rush that process without being ungrateful, rude, and insensitive?
And yet ... there is something that bothers me about all this. I guess in some ways, I'm disappointed. I really thought someone who had been through the IF process, as D has, would have understood how urgently I would want to move forward once we had made the decision to connect our families in this way. Certainly, it seems odd, at the very least, to let weeks go by without even dropping me a quick note to say "so very sorry, life is so busy, I haven't forgotten you." I suppose what I'm saying is that, if I were in her shoes, I'd handle things differently. But I can't judge her or blame her. The fact is, I'm not in her shoes. I don't know exactly what's going on in her life, I don't actually know her very well, and the little I do know tells me that her life is at least as busy as mine, probably more so. I understand all that -- and yet ... I'm still feeling down and frustrated and wondering if this is really the right fit for us.
But then, the universe does astonishing things sometimes. Maybe I'll get a note tomorrow, telling me they consulted the lawyer and everything is a go, and the signed agreement is in the mail. Or, it could be several more weeks before she writes to say they're still working on it. If that happens, I'm not sure I can follow through on this.
The biggest problem is, I'm getting older with each day that passes, and I'm painfully aware that, with each hour that passes, the chances decrease of my carrying a pregnancy to full term -- even a pregnancy using embryos created from lovely 20-something-year-old donor eggs. And even if I do, the older I am when I have the baby, the more tired I will be and the longer it will take me to recover. I can't pretend that I'm not in a hurry. Nature has already decided that for me. I don't have time to mess around.
And there are other factors at play. You see, I have The. Most. Amazing. Stupdendous. Lovely. Friends!! -- friends I met out here in blogland, friends I've know for years and feel quite close to, even though we've never met in person. Over the past few weeks, not just one but two of those amazing women have offered me their frozen embryos. Each of them currently has one child. I want to say more about them, but I also want to keep this very anonymous so that you don't try to guess who they are. I want you all to imagine that anyone you know in the IF world may be one of these generous human beings. What an awesome group of women are out here (once you sort through the folks who aren't so awesome -- we've all met them!) and what incredible generosity of spirit exists among these fine people that two of them would step up and say "by the way, I've spoken with my husband, and we'd like you to consider this ..."
I'm pretty much speechless, as I've told both of them. And honored, very deeply honored. And, quite frankly, in awe of their open hearts. I'd like to think I could be that kind of person ... but since I never got anywhere close to having leftover embryos to freeze, I'm still in the habit of thinking selfishly about my own precious embryos, clutching them to me like an old woman clutching her pearls. Which is downright silly, when I think about it. It's been years since I've produced any embryos, and the universe made it perfectly clear to me that the embryos I did produce were not meant to survive. So, just as I've learned to drop the dream of having a bio child, I need to drop my old habitual way of thinking about "my" embryos (or, in this case, my hypothetical embryos). I have to imagine what it might be like if I had been able to conceive. If Squeaker had been my bio child and if we were finished with our family, could I let my genetic material wander off into the world? I'm pretty certain I couldn't do it in an anonymous donation. I know that I'd want to know what happened to my genetic offspring. But giving them to someone I knew? Someone who I trusted to be a good parent? A friend, even? Yes, I can imagine it ... and, in many ways, that kind of situation makes a lot of sense.
So that's where things are. Stay tuned. The next few months should be interesting ...
Comments