Tuesday, July 20, 2004
only a draft. it may never happen. but it was on my mind.
Dear (potential) child.
If you are reading this, you have known, maybe from birth, maybe for one day only, that you are the result of an embryo donation.
This means a lot of things. It means that your parents wanted you very much. I don't know who they are, or why they chose embryo donation. It most likely means that they had been waiting for you a long time before they got you.
You may have brothers or sisters. They may be biological siblings or not. There may be other people out there who were also "donor babies" who are your biological siblings.
You may want to know about your biological relatives.
We are now, in ..., aged ... and .... . We have two children. The first, a boy, was born in November 2003 after IVF treatment. The second ,....
After they were born there were ... embryos still stored at.... Many people decide not to try to achieve pregnancy with all their embryos; some allow them to stop dividing in their storage tubes, others allow them to be used for important medical research.
We looked at our children and decided we wanted to give some other people a chance to have babies too. We love them and, perhaps with some vanity, think they're gorgeous and smart, and that perhaps from those stored embryos someone else could get wonderful kids too. If you're reading this, we're sure they did.
There were many, many issues we worked through before coming to our decision. The most important ones were around you and our children; what you would think of your origins, of the existence of biological siblings who weren't part of your family. In the end, we couldn't imagine how it would really affect you. And we took a risk that our children's lives would not be damaged in any way. We chose to donate believing that life is, in the end, a good thing and that you wouldn't be angry with us, or your parents, that you would understand that you were loved even before you were born, and that technicalities of origins don't matter as much as the hard loving work of parenting.
You may wish to contact us. We will be ready to talk to you, by letter, email or phone, in person if you wish, and to tell you whatever you need to know. If you choose not to, we are happy with that too - as long as you are happy. If sometime in the future you need to know more, even if we're not around any more, there will be more letters for you telling you about medical issues, our history, our children and so on, from which you can choose to find out as much or as little as you need.
Dear (potential) child.
If you are reading this, you have known, maybe from birth, maybe for one day only, that you are the result of an embryo donation.
This means a lot of things. It means that your parents wanted you very much. I don't know who they are, or why they chose embryo donation. It most likely means that they had been waiting for you a long time before they got you.
You may have brothers or sisters. They may be biological siblings or not. There may be other people out there who were also "donor babies" who are your biological siblings.
You may want to know about your biological relatives.
We are now, in ..., aged ... and .... . We have two children. The first, a boy, was born in November 2003 after IVF treatment. The second ,....
After they were born there were ... embryos still stored at.... Many people decide not to try to achieve pregnancy with all their embryos; some allow them to stop dividing in their storage tubes, others allow them to be used for important medical research.
We looked at our children and decided we wanted to give some other people a chance to have babies too. We love them and, perhaps with some vanity, think they're gorgeous and smart, and that perhaps from those stored embryos someone else could get wonderful kids too. If you're reading this, we're sure they did.
There were many, many issues we worked through before coming to our decision. The most important ones were around you and our children; what you would think of your origins, of the existence of biological siblings who weren't part of your family. In the end, we couldn't imagine how it would really affect you. And we took a risk that our children's lives would not be damaged in any way. We chose to donate believing that life is, in the end, a good thing and that you wouldn't be angry with us, or your parents, that you would understand that you were loved even before you were born, and that technicalities of origins don't matter as much as the hard loving work of parenting.
You may wish to contact us. We will be ready to talk to you, by letter, email or phone, in person if you wish, and to tell you whatever you need to know. If you choose not to, we are happy with that too - as long as you are happy. If sometime in the future you need to know more, even if we're not around any more, there will be more letters for you telling you about medical issues, our history, our children and so on, from which you can choose to find out as much or as little as you need.
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