Arty’s donor has been the perfect donor.
He completely understands and respects the difference between a donor and a father. He has no desire to be the latter, so we have never felt for even a moment that he might want to involve himself in our family in a way that we’re not comfortable with.
He is someone we love, admire and respect. He’s kind, gentle, funny, creative, intelligent and handsome, so we knew that any traits our son might inherit from him would be ones that we would love (and they are).
He was local, which made the actual process of getting pregnant as straightforward as could be.
Though it was nerve wracking and emotional, and full of new and unknown experiences for us, getting pregnant with Arty was almost embarrassingly easy.
Since deciding to try for Twoby, we’re gaining a new level of appreciation for how unusual Arty’s donor has been.
SJ and I have had a lot of thoughtful talks about logistics and potential donors. We made a (short) list of people who we’d consider asking, sat with it for a while, and continued to discuss the pros and cons of each person over time.
Some were too much a part of our daily lives to be sensible choices.
Some lived too far away for the conception process to work.
Others we knew would have too much trouble drawing the father/donor distinction.
Still others had too many question marks over their own family and relationship situations for us to feel that they’d be ok with turning their attention to ours.
In the end, everyone got crossed off the list but one.
A few weeks ago we sent an email:
Dear [Person] & [Partner],
We clicked send, and we waited.
The waiting was hard, but we told ourselves the whole time that it was great that they were giving it so much time to really think it through. Whatever answer they gave us, we were sure would be a carefully considered one.
Then, this weekend, we met up with them and talked about it.
They’d thought about it a lot, and come to the conclusion that they couldn’t do it.
We could see the regret that they felt in not being able to help us, but neither of them felt that they’d be able to maintain the emotional distance that all of us would need for it to work.
How would they feel if our child looked like someone from his family? How would they react if something happened to their own daughter, and they could see shades of her in our child?
There were too many what ifs, and all of them pointed to the fact that this wasn’t the right choice for any of us.
We were sad, grateful, and a lot of other things besides. That door was definitely closed.
This puts us in an interesting position moving forward.
We’re having to accept that the perfect donor for Twoby probably isn’t someone we know. That means we’ve got more new and unknown experiences in our future as we go about trying to bring them into being.