Daylighting Our Donor
The whole known donor thing has proven to be easier than I ever expected. Easier as in we often forget how Finn came into being. I know it took a long time to get him and a lot of work, but sometimes I swear he magically appeared. There was no chance union of sperm and egg, and where that sperm came from matters even less.
Top it off, DtD isn't even around. He was such a part of our lives and now he's an occasional email and a lot of memories. He's living one life, we're living another and I hate that they aren't intersecting much at the moment.
All of this means that M. and I don't have a lot of pressure to deal with the donor issue. It's easy to say he's not around, it's easy to keep his identity from our family, it's easy to not talk to Finn about how he came to be. Before we know it Finn could be three years old and we haven't actually managed to normalize having a known donor entirely by accident.
This is why we've decided to start the daylighting process. We're pulling DtD very slowly out of the donor sperm closet and starting to introduce him to the world. Starting with Finn.
Finn has a little photo album that has pictures of his family. It's the kind that he can rip at, tear, and basically abuse but not hurt the pictures. He loves it. It has pictures of mommy and mama, of Grandpa and Grandma D and Grandpa and Grandma K. It has pictures of his cousins and his Godmama KMBKH. Now it has pictures of DtD and BF. Because they're part of his family and it's our very first step toward the openness we always planned.
I'm a little nervous. We're officially opening ourselves up to our families finding the picture and asking questions. If I were doing this for myself I would never tell them, but I'm not. I'm doing it for our son and us being open about where he came from is really important.
posted by Sacha @ 12:51 PM
7 comments
7 Comments:
it's been interesting navigating these waters even before sparky is here. our donor is very known, ie our families and close friends know.
we are so grateful for the openness, and there is much, much trust between h and me and our donor and his parents. still, it's hard not to feel vulnerable at the same time...
i look forward to sharing this known donor relationship journey with you.
x
I think you are doing absolutely the right thing. It's far better to be open and honest. If you start from when they are so tiny hopefuly it will just be 'normal' to them and something that is just part of them and their life. We didn't use a known donor. Our daughter is three and half and has started asking questions over the past six months (why do I have two mummies? Why does so and so have a mummy and daddy? etc). She hasn't yet asked where her daddy is but it can't be long... We have answers for most questions already kind of formed and we are now in the process of making sure that family and nursery know what we want the answers to be too!! For example, we don't want anyone to say she does't have a daddy but rather that she has a different sort of daddy called a donor. We don't want her to feel like she is missing out on something. We also don't want people to say she is 'special' as we want her to know rather that there are different sorts of families and everyone is special - we don't want to give her an unrealistic label to live up to either! It may seem a bit extreme to make sure everyone is saying the same, and of course people will have their own way of talking about things, but it is too important to risk someone saying something which will cause problems later on or confusing her with things that are incorrect. We don't expect it all to go smoothly, i'm sure at some point she will be quite happy to throw it all back in our faces, but if we just are open and honest she can never acuse us of not telling her the truth.
Nic
We have exactly the same sort of photo album for our daughter. It was a Christmas present from one of her aunts, and it's wonderful for a child who's living oceans apart from half of her extended family. Nayeli is too young to make any sense of it yet, but her known donor couple (who are also her godparents) are in it, and she can see them any time she likes. Of course, it's also very nice that they come to visit frequently. We aimed for openness and have stuck with it so far. We hope to keep it up when the questions start coming.
I am also interested in watching this unfold with you guys and hearing how it is going when he starts asking questions. We also plan to be very open with Z about his donor.
I really love reading your blog and I think you guys are doing such a wonderful job with Finn. But, here comes the but. It really drives me crazy to hear you often refer to your TTC days as taking a "long" time. In the grand scheme of things and given your age, your TTC journey was pretty short and sweet.
We have also been open with friends and family about our donor and plan to as well with Braden. It is a part of who he is and we are proud of it-- afterall it is what brought him into this world. i think all of us that took this route should be proud of ourselves and our families:) Just share that same attitude with Finn and I think he will come to embrace it as well.
So how do you plan introduce your donor? Will he be referred to by his first name? I assume he won't be explained as "daddy" because he isn't taking on that role...but I really hope once you're parents/family find out who he is, they can respect your choices enough not to refer to him as "your daddy" to Finn.
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