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.
