Just one moment

It must have been somewhere this summer. Suzy is 5 years old. She knows her DE story, and loves it when I tell it to her, especially intrigued by the part where I am crying because I can't have a baby. And she knows I am happy because she is here now.

Her world is growing, and I cannot always predict how.

She was up in her room, she stood up and looked at me:

 "Mom, you are not my real mother"

I took a deep breath, a thousand thoughts going through my head.

"You are my stepmother and I am Cinderella"

OOOooooohhhh, okay, of course my darling.... better start sweeping that floor then (and back in the box you thousand thoughts)

2018

2018 is almost over.

You know how you keep composing blogpost in your head? But never quite get around to write and hit publish?

I would love to write a summary of the year. But I've only got 1 hour.

What I wanted to say is about donor eggs. Well, about anonymous donation really.
It has been in the papers the last few months. People from all kinds of backgrounds. People who are professors at universities, in very diverse fields. People who speak 'for the children' wanting to protect their ' best interests'.
I read closely and I worry. Adoption gets dragged into it. Illegal adoption. Human rights. The right to know your genetic heritage, the right to have a family relationship with your genetic family. (huh?)
While some reasoning is not based on logic (Have these people not heard of divorce? rape? disaster? child abuse?) it is mostly the tone that worries me.
It has been our way to tell Suzy she is made from an egg from an unknown lady. She knows. She does  not understand, but she knows.There may be a day that the realisation hits her, but it will not be a discovery. If you know what I mean.
I may have to add to the story that not everyone agrees it was a good idea. i may have to add she may find it a problem.

The adoptee in the news today knew she was from an adoption where the paperwork was wonky. It only bothered her when she was pregnant herself, and unable to answer questions like 'does high blood pressure run in your family'.
one little sentence got under my skin: she was wondering if her adopted sister was really her biological sister "because their bond was not very warm".
(Turned out she was swapped as a baby, and the family she found in Sri Lanka was her sisters', not hers. )

Not sure why it bothers me. I guess there is so much to say about love, family and genetics.

The other day at work a colleague showed me a picture of his little baby, just 4 months now. He said people tell him she looks like him, but he doesn't see it. I tried, didn't see it either. I showed him a selfie of Suzy and me, he said she looks like me. I decided to not say anything.
Another time, I did tell him about Suzy starting out as twins, because he has a twin sister himself. But yea, the DE thing is Suzy's story to share.

Anyway, if anyone reading this who is trying to decide about anonymous DNA, I do feel like I have 'taken' something from Suzy, a story a cannot tell her. My love might make her a happy person, but the knowledge about her dna I cannot give her, it is something, maybe like a scar, something lacking in her life forever.
Acknowledging this is the best I can do.

I think rating it among other things that can happen does not make it better or worse. My mother had breast cancer, so supposedly I have a higher chance of it too. Her donor family would have been screened to not have scary genetic stuff happening, but I don't know what exactly.
(But hey, how many people out there decide not to use their own DNA because of what runs in their family? See, this gets me nowhere)

Anyway, lots of love happening here and only a tiny little worry that may not become relevant for the next 20 years or so.

More Milestones

15th December 2017 it happened.
We could see it coming for some days: Suzy had a bottom tooth that was wobbling more every day. Not even 5 years old. It happened at school, the teacher put the tooth on a piece of paper with sticky tape and wrote the date and her name on. (I will spare you the visual)

Another milestone on the way from baby to child. No more baby (No Suzy, you cannot try if I still have milk! Keep off!) No more wobbly toddler (rides a bike and a kick scooter (?) with 2 wheels)
She can write her name correctly now (it started out with mirrored letters or backwards)
Dutch Santa is on the 5th of December, with friends and gift and traditional sweets. I found it not the right time to introduce yet another gift giving fairy tale for a tooth. Still quite ambivalent from the whole Santa thing as Dutch society is transforming away from some racist characters. This means the narrative changes too. My adult brain is happy but my childhood memories feel distorted or something. Also struggling to give her some magic while leaving a back door in the story and not telling blatant lies.
At the same time amazed that she made a drawing telling me "Here is Santa, and that is his mother Lola". (why did it never occur to me Santa would have had a mother??)

On the first anniversary of FIL's passing on December 16th, MIL spent the weekend with us. On that day we decided to just have cheese and crackers and other snacks instead of dinner to remind us how much he loved that. Such a modest and polite man, it was amazing how much cheese he could balance on a cracker ;-). DP nor his mother would admit to many emotions but everyone was glad we could spend the time together and reminisce.

DP won some kind of reorganisation jackpot at work. He will lose his job April 1st, but due to rules and arrangements he doesn't have to work since December 1st . Also dutch law allows children under 5 to be taken out of school outside of official vacations. His boys are 14 and 18 now, and can make do without him for a bit. This combination of circumstances opened up a once in a long time opportunity to travel far far away with the three of us.
We are leaving next week! First stop is Bangkok for 4 nights.

 Then on to New Zealand where we pick up a campervan and tour around for 4 weeks. winter here, summer there. Yay! Looking forward to meet Mali for real, who I once invented to be Suzy's ' internet auntie'

oh, never got around to share with you about new babies down the family ranks. Probably because the emotional impact is so different when not in the middle of my own infertility struggle. C4 had another boy (November 2016 already), C8 had a boy (February 2017) and C5 and his wife had a girl (May 2017) with a ton of dark curly hair. They named her after the late mother of C5 and C6, and chose the exact name I had chosen had C6 donated her eggs. It also would have been the name for Suzy's twin if she had lived. And I did say the last bit out loud. Suzy doesn't understand completely, so when we talk about it it is confusing conversation (no that baby is not in my tummy anymore)
It does make the bond with C5 and his wife more special, and also makes it feel really good to give the tons of baby stuff I kept to them. I always made sure I paid with my own money, always refused to sell it, resisted DP's pressure to clean up.
C8 is a keen recycler too, she always sends pictures if her boy is wearing something 'new' from us. Just that in the way of clothes it will soon stop completely as Suzy was always in a lot of dresses when she could walk.


With all these babies the family had become too big for the annual christmas-3 dinner my mother was hosting since 2004. Since the whole family was keen to continue the tradition I volunteered to host this time. 1 aunt & uncle had already booked a trip away, as well as my brother. That meant there were "only" 27 people at the tables.

Cousins tending the fire

Was a lot of fun to organise (rental chairs, crockery, cutlery, tables) shopping was a bit much, cooking was totally worth it!. made sure all dishes could be cooked and frozen in advance. Defrosting day before, in the oven on the big day.
And it came in very handy we had a big bag of baby toys ;-)

Wishing you all things good, fun and healthy for 2018