I've officially become *that* woman.

It’s getting harder and harder for me to find the time to write this blog, and I’m super sad about that. I have a lot to say. If you’ve noticed, I actually really don’t talk too much about the twins, it’s more about my feelings and what it’s like to be a mother after everything we endured. Everything is really still settling in my brain, and you get hit with random emotions when you meet other moms, even if they used ART to get pregnant.

In six months, I’m sure I’ve been walking somewhere in public and caused hurt and pain to a woman walking by and seeing me with the double stroller. I hate that, it causes ME pain. I don’t ever ever want to make someone feel how I felt for so long. I never make a big fuss in public, or use that mommy high screeching voice so loud that freaking everyone in the store can hear you (I never understood that- WHY must you be so loud? We get it, you have a kid! Now shut the fuck up.)

Then, the other weekend was a family reunion of sorts on DH’s side. One of his cousins followed me into the room I was changing one of them, and she told me how happy she was for me and that she and her DH had been trying but had “technical difficulties” and had decided to live child free as they simply can not afford to explore more treatments. She started tearing up and I just about died. Here I am changing my 5 month old, and there is a woman in front of me crying and terribly sad over her failed IVFs and knowledge she’ll never be a mother. I picked up the twin and literally held him behind my back so she didn’t have to see him, and I gave her a big hug. It was awful for me, I was so sickened that for past three days everyone had been ohhhing and ahhing over my kids while she and her DH stood in the background and watched. I had no clue. I would most definitely had tempered my actions if I had known…..

She was pretty strong and even offered to help feed them, and she would bring them up in conversations (nothing I would ever ever EVER have done.) I said if there was anything I could do, don’t hesitate…

I had just signed a contract to donate my egg donor/sperm donor embryos to a couple I met through that whole Surrogate Parenting Center of Texas/Merritt Patterson debacle, otherwise I would have offered them to her.

My, how life has changed. I am still trying to figure it all out in my head. This is deep shit, you know?

But anyway- we are cleaning house! I signed the forms to donate my Cornell embryos to stem cell research (the cycle I got pregnant with D.I.J. on). It’s time. I cried when I sealed the envelope, and I gave it a kiss. This is it. This is the final goodbye to that half wondrous/half most traumatic thing that has ever happened to me in my life. Again, it’s weird.

And as I mentioned above I am working with a lawyer out in California to draw up the embryo donation contracts (pro bono!) for that couple who also got scammed by Merritt. So, those will be gone too, soon.

That just leaves us with the frozens from our successful cycle, and I feel like a “normal” IFer again- I will then have in the freezer what a normal couple/person should have in the freezer, not three sets of embryos created from three different sets of DNA.

Lastly: Kelly and her DH are coming here to NY for a visit tonight! We are flying them in and they’ll be here through Sunday. They’ve never been to NY so we are going to check out Manhattan all day tomorrow (without the twins, it’d be too hard) and then we’ll hang out around here the rest of the weekend. Tomorrow night we are having dinner at my aunt’s house and my sister-in-law and her whole family and my mother-in-law will all be there, so everyone can meet Kelly and Kelly can meet our family! Wooo hoooo!!

Till next time!

Comments

[mash]

What a lovely post! And so sad for that girl who can't afford IVF. I've been wondering how Kelly is!!! So exciting. I wonder how it will feel for her to see the twins!

[Kate B]

You have not become "that" woman. It's impossible to go into every situation and know if someone there has experienced infertility and may be pained by seeing your children. When you learned about it, you did the right thing. You are the kind of infertility survivor who has crossed over, but not forgotten what it was like on the other side. Thank you for that.

[Mrs. Sarah]

You should send this post to the politicians you lobby to underscore why it is so important that treatments be covered!!!