Where to begin? From BB's "Single Mom 2B" (which you should all read, if you aren't!), I just followed this link to an online interview/article about Holly Finn, a wannabe SMC and author of an e-chapbook available on Kindle.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903461104576458134196248312.html
My reaction, I have to say, was quite visceral. I was so overwhelmingly sad. Not for me. For the author. As you all know, I too am a big fat failure when it comes to IVF. I could be on the same path she's on: trying again and again with her own eggs, with less than a 5% likelihood that it will be successful (and let's face it, the stats I was given were MUCH better than that, because I'm 4 years younger than she is). Instead, I'm pregnant and will, in all likelihood (knock wood, cross your fingers, and all that hocus pocus), be holding a baby in my arms when I hit 39 on November 29, two days after my due date. I could be on the same path she's on, if continuing with my own DNA was more important to me than getting pregnant and having a baby. Because I firmly believe what Sprogblogger told me almost a year ago: choosing to continue with my own eggs was equivalent to choosing infertility (and why the hell would I want to do that?!).
Now I'm certainly not saying that the choice to move to DE was easy for me. (If you've read here long enough, you know I struggled with this decision for almost a year after it was first proposed to me; I will always struggle with my infertility diagnosis, because fixing my childlessness didn't fix my body. Certainly my first choice would have been to have a child genetically connected to me and LG.) And I also know that DE is not a choice for everyone. The choice to do IVF with one's own eggs, do DE, or stop treatment altogether is a highly individualized one. I wouldn't judge anyone's choices any more than I'd want them to judge mine.
But, man, does she have it wrong if she thinks DE is "having someone else's baby."* This baby wouldn't exist without me. The particular combination of donors that make up my son's DNA was chosen by me. It's my body that accepted him as a tiny embryo and it's my body that supplies him nourishment. As epigenetic research makes abundantly clear, if he'd been transferred to someone else's uterus instead of mine, he'd be a completely different kid. This baby exists because of me, a fabulous RE and embryologist, and sheer will (not to mention the generosity of the two strangers who supplied necessary genetic ingredients!).
Someone else's baby? Seriously? Holly Finn, if you ran into me at the grocery store, all you'd know is that I'm a happily pregnant woman. My son is kicking away in my uterus as I type. Why would I choose anything but that?
And so, blog friends, go read this article. And then come back here to chat.
*The other issue I could take her to task for is the assumption that infertility is basically an age issue. I gotta say, I certainly didn't have it easy at 29 (although I was lucky enough to conceive LG). And I know many female bloggers who needed high tech approaches, including donor egg, well before they turned 35. Yes, the odds are against us as we age, but trying sooner doesn't guarantee success.
Wow. Just, wow. How this poor woman must feel. I remember being devastated that I was going to have to use IVF, but the decision to go with donor eggs after so many miscarriages was such a simple choice--did I want a live baby that came from some other woman's blueprint, or did I want to keep making embryos that would die before they'd ever be born?
ReplyDeleteWhen I realized that if a stranger walked up to me on the street, said, "here's my kid, wanna be a parent?" I'd jump at the chance, I knew DE would be an easy 'yes' by comparison. And it was.
Also, the best choice I ever made. I love my son more than anything in this world or the next. He wouldn't be here without the generosity of spirit of his egg donor, but that doesn't make him any less MINE! (And yeah, we paid for those eggs, but IVF drugs are AWFUL and invasive and you have to have a good heart to submit to such a thing for a stranger. Believe me, she was generous!)
How terrible to feel so trapped by biology that you can't move on and find happiness. How awful to care more about the shape of your future child's thumbs than about having a child to love. (Yeah, I'm having a really hard time with that image. If she does manage to get pregnant, what if her child has the father's thumbs? Will she love that child any less? Seriously? Yikes.)
And for the record, I don't remember saying that so starkly, but it is how I feel, more or less, so I must have!
So glad you're a happily pregnant woman. I figure the more of us that are out there, making our own happiness happen, the fewer women there'll be like this author--she'll at least have other experiences to consider, other ways of looking at her situation.
Half empty or half full? Yeah, sucks to be infertile for whatever reason. Sucks to be unable to have sex (or IUI) & get pregnant. But how marvelous to be living in a time where we have options! Our choices might not be A#1 ideal, but they're SO MUCH BETTER than they would have been in our mother's generation that it's hard to really wrap my head around how LUCKY we are to be here. With our sons. (Can't wait to "meet" the Boy, btw. And hope to catch you when you're in NYC...)
S, that might not be an exact quote (forgive me!), but, yeah, that was the kick-in-the-butt that I really needed to move to DE. That, and seeing Henry's first pic on your blog! Because really, nobody chooses to be infertile...but if there's an almost guaranteed "fix" and you don't take it, that IS choosing infertility over pregnancy/kid.
ReplyDeleteI thought the same thing, about the thumbs....I like the way you put it.
I thought her quote "I resist having someone else's baby" was quite harsh...A baby is a baby.
ReplyDeleteDid you read some of the reader comments about her article? Some of the comments were a bit judgemental too-- about single women trying to bring babies into this world.
Oh well, can't please everyone.
It's not just harsh; it's inaccurate and fails to consider how important pregnancy is as a factor in human development (which is ironic, given that Finn is desperately trying to get pregnant herself). It's not like I adopted this baby, and it's not like he was a donated embryo who *could have been* "someone else's child." He simply wouldn't exist under other circumstances. Same with my daughter, who is, genetically, as well as biologically, mine. I'm not suggesting that DE/DS is somehow a better option than adoption or embryo donation, but Finn doesn't seem to have a realistic grasp of what it entails, or how maternal connections might be formed beyond seeing one's physical traits in one's offspring...
ReplyDeleteOver the past couple of years of blogging, I have found that the salt in the wound of infertility is how quickly women seem to turn on and judge one another for making different decisions from their own. It was like this in high school over clothes/boys/music and I hear it's the same when it comes to childbirth/daycare/parenting, etc. These choices we are all making about how we become mothers are so intimate and emotionally complicated and it's such a shame to see someone reduce another person's path to such hurtful, and yes, inaccurate, terms.
ReplyDeleteLove,
Maddy
I read a few days ago, and then read an article written by an egg donor. My head is swirling with lots of things.
ReplyDeleteOverwhelmed with sadness for Finn. I do kind of understand what she was saying about the thumbs, though. Of course, epigentics may give her those thumbs through DE/DS. I get that it's hard and DE/DS is not for everyone. I wouldn't judge her too harshly. I'm sure she's had other feelings, but she's putting some of her stronger ones out there. That's hard.
I read a few of the comments and had to stop.
This year's message from RESOLVE was supposed to be "bust a myth." They wanted people to blog and bust a myth about infertility. They start their explanation of the campaign by saying that 1 in 8 couples will experience infertility. Had I been blogging, my myth would have been "Infertility is NOT Just for Couples (GODDMAMMIT)". So, I take my hat off to her.
I did look for a web site or some way to reach out and send an email, but only wandered around on the comments section, which seemed pretty useless.
Anyway, I'm leaving work early to go have dinner with the SoCal PVED crowd and finally meet MN in person.
I've got more to say, but must run. DE was soo the right thing for me.
xo
I also think it's great that she presented infertility as something that happens to single women. Really, my intent in putting up the link and commenting here wasn't to judge her...but there's something about how *public* (in the WSJ, for goodness sake!) her story is that pissed me off for how it represented her options. It comes across as a "woe is me" tale...and, damn, yeah I wouldn't want to be in her shoes...but I also made sure that I wasn't. I'm certainly not done grieving what I've lost...but at what point does that grief and that headlong desire to have a genetic connection really just stand in the way of one's happiness? Once I'd hit more than 2 years of IUI/IVF, Dr. G basically put it to me as "I don't want you to waste any more of your life and LG's and regret not doing this sooner." She didn't push me, by any means, and she was certainly willing to work with me for as long as I wanted with my own eggs, but she was also right that I'd given up enough of my life to infertility and sadness. Took me a little while longer to see that.
ReplyDeleteI also get the thumbs thing, insofar as I think there is something special about seeing yourself in your child (I certainly do with LG), but, really, it's just a roll of the dice that that happens, even *with* a genetic connection. I don't know yet but I suspect I'll see those similarities in my son, even without sharing genes...
I didn't mean to say that you were judging... the comments from the WSJ site really set me on edge.
ReplyDeleteI completely get your point - I agree she comes off as pretty whiny and woe-is-me-ish.
I wonder if her book carries that tone, and I wonder if that's how she really feels or if somehow that tone of misery plays better to a book audience? Does that make sense? I also wonder where on line she's been hanging out ; )
I wonder about that, too. Clearly we're not reading the same blogs :)
ReplyDeleteI've been gone on vacation, skimmed the Holly Finn essay this morning (following a link elsewhere), and JUST read your response. Have to process it all more and probably read more carefully--but as a DE mother, I don’t see Holly Finn's essay as necessarily her final answer, but as a captured moment in time, and one that I remember well. I recall getting my dismal numbers back after my Clomid challenge, running off to do furious research (even before discussing my results and options with the RE), and running up against DE as my “worst-case scenario.” I still remember walking to my car from the library, everything looking slightly shimmery around the edges in front of me, and pre-emptively mourning the genetically connected child I'd imagined. I already began to let go of the nerdy, wild-haired, Hermione-ish daughter I'd imagined, one with my father's knock knees and my mother's perfectly shaped eyebrows.
ReplyDeleteBy the time we ended up at DE, seven months later, I embraced it joyfully. Chances of successful IVF with my own eggs were about the same as Holly’s; we calculated we could afford one, possibly two, attempts at IVF; and I had seen my sister discover multiple incompatible-with-life birth defects in her unborn baby and make the agonizing decision to terminate. Not only did DE with a younger woman’s eggs make sense—I was thrilled to imagine telling my child someday about the wonderful anonymous donor and skilled medical professionals who’d helped to make our family.
Seven years and two precious-beyond-words sons later, my gratitude still reduces me to tears at times. But I also get tearful for the pre-DE me, and all she had to go through to get from “worst case scenario,” to acceptance, to joy. Honestly, if we'd had the money for more IVF attempts, we might have tried it first, and the journey might have been much longer. Of course I have no idea where Holly’s journey will take her, but I see some of myself in her. There's a lot of letting go on the way to DE, even if the end result is wondrous.
Heidi, I agree, of course, about all the mourning that goes into moving forward with DE, and yes, who knows where her journey will take her. Maybe Finn has more stamina than me. Maybe she has more money than me. Maybe (obviously?) she has more need to have a genetic connection to her hypothetical future child.
ReplyDeleteOn a really basic, level, though I accepted DE because the getting pregnant and moving forward was more important to me than my feelings about *how*. And I decided not to waste another $12K (or more) just to prove my RE right that my eggs were crap; it didn't matter to me, finally, why I wasn't getting pregnant. I just needed it to happen, and obviously I'm grateful to have had the resources--financial, emotional, and otherwise--to make it work.
Of course, I also came to SMChood a full decade before Finn, with absolutely no grief about not having a partner...
Interesting that most of the people who've commented here are DE moms. What do the rest of you think?