Today You Are Three

How did it get to be three years after you were born? Three years from the day that Daddy and I watched you pulled screaming into the world, so beautiful and tiny. Three years from the day of such enormous exhaustion and relief that you were here, and we didn't have to worry anymore about whether we could get pregnant, whether you would be ok during my pregnancy, whether we would have any complications to your delivery- there you were. You changed our lives, and every day we are grateful and filled with joy over the miracle that is you.

Today you woke up excited and chattering about your day, your party, your presents, and your Nonni and Poppi who are up visiting. You bounced and smiled and laughed, and your happy face takes my breath away.

You are such a little man. You are articulate and smart, creative and kind, and you have such a sense of crafty glee and humor. You are independent and often crabby with it, and so loving that you melt my heart constantly.

You are potty trained, my big boy, but you still wear pull ups at night and we have moderate success with dry mornings- I could care less if it takes you another six months to have dry nights, you are doing SO well during the day! We are so proud of you for this. And, Eddie, we are just proud of the person you are.

Everyone loves you. Everyone who crosses your path comments on how beautiful you are, inside and out. You are helpful and fun, and always considerate of those who are smaller than you.

I knew I wanted to have a baby. Desperately and unendingly. What I never knew was that I really wanted you and just you. And the universe aligned so you could find us. Because of you I believe in fate and destiny. Your Daddy and I lived our lives taking all of the variant and many faceted paths we did until we found each other again JUST at the time we did, to decide to have a baby JUST at the time we did, to go through all of the difficulties and loss, the journey we took all at the right time to have you ultimately find us.

Eddie, thank you for finding us. We love you beyond measure, beyond words, beyond any price. Every day of our lives and beyond. Happy Birthday my sweet boy- you light us up from the inside out.

Outing Myself

I've been writing this blog for a long time now. Since early 06 when we went to South Africa for our Egg Donation journey, coming back successfully pregnant. I wrote through my pregnancy, about my fears and doubts, my physical difficulties, emotional turmoil, and then the birth of Eddie. I've blogged about how I feel about Egg Donation as a mother of a child born by such means, and more, the last number of years, just about life and being a mom to a young child, as we are now a normal family - as normal as we could be given our oddities - and all of our infertility struggles faded to dust with daily life with our beautiful and precious son.

And during a lot of the last number of years I pushed aside the thought that my journey was one I wanted to always keep with me, and do something in the field of infertility which would be more of a passion than just a vocation. Thus my moving ahead finally with opening my Egg Donation Agency.

I am hoping to launch my site and agency within the next month or so. And when I do this, I will no longer be just Roni, the Eggy Journey blogger, but I will be Roni ________, operating out of _________ state. Known to anyone who wants to know me. Outed by myself.

This is not a problem for me, personally. I do not care if the world knows that I am the mother of a child born by Egg Donation. What matters is Eddie.

In a very true sense I will capitalize on my son. Just by virtue of marketing myself as someone who has been through all of this, who understands the process, the emotional pain, the grief in the beginning and then the choices- I call out that by being a recipient, my child is not my biological child.

And for those that know me, do we become the oddity? Does Eddie get treated differently? And am I ruining the fact that this is his story to tell?

Frankly, other than my parents and MIL, we have no itention of telling our family. They can know, but I'm not going to offer it to them. Eddie can offer it whenever he wants in life to whomever he chooses to tell. If they find me via online search, well, then ok. Basically telling people in my immediate sphere that I have an agency which helps infertile women achieve their dream of having a child doesn't have to be an invitation to say, "and by the way it's all about Egg Donation and, Eddie is a product of that scientific miracle."

I would always be happy to provide the site if people ask, and if that's how they find out, well then, ok. And if it means just by virtue of talking about the agency, rather than myself, that people tell me their infertility struggles, then there are more people I can tell that they are not alone and hopefully offer some comfort and support, no matter where they are in their journey. Because I truly feel that this is my calling.

So I am ok with this, or I wouldn't be doing it. But I still worry and struggle.

And with the fertility community online, I am ok with everyone knowing who I am. But what worries me is the anonymity between me and my donor.

Yes she is in another country. Yes she understood her commitment was donating tissue only, and although I was her first donation she donated after doing so for me. And yes, I have a legally binding contract and my name on Eddie's birth certificate. But I still have the fear that probably every mother of a non-biological child has somewhere in the recesses of her head - what if donor (or biological mom if anonymous adoption) finds me?

We are in the tell camp. Eddie will know his origins, and we've already started telling him about it. And it means NOTHING to us as parents other than the fact that this is what was able to give us the joy that is Eddie- to us he is our child, not our child via Egg Donation. There are wonderful books for children which do a great job of providing the right level of information to young kids so that the knowledge doesn't come hard and shockingly later in life ("The Egg Lady", available on bittersweetbooks.net, and "Mommy Was Your Tummy Big?" available on am.a.zo.n.com. for those interested. And for those grammar officianados who are wondering why I didn't correctly underline the names of books, I can't figure out how to do underlining on this @*(#&(*@#& blog template). And maybe, some day, if Eddie is old enough and wants to meet his donor- and I don't know what age would be "old enough" yet- and his donor is amenable, maybe we would say ok. Of course after he is 18 it would be his choice, and one that I would be pretty sure he would make. And why not some time in his life if his donor is willing- someone else who might some day love him, or at least appreciating knowing him, who can provide him with one more link.

But now - I'm not ready for that yet. And while I doubt that his donor is scouring the web looking for someone she knows only by first name, I worry.

All of these issues do not deter me from what I feel is doing something about which I am intensely passionate.

So these are my thoughs. And ultimately, the real decision I have to make here is what to do about this blog - all of my personal life details, pictures of my boys, etc. Do I password protect this blog after I open the agency? Do I offer the password to clients so they can see my challenges, fears, doubts, triumphs and joys? Or is that too much of me and Eddie to share with those who are coming to me?

Eddie

My baby. I am so blessed.

For those of you considering Donor Egg who are not sure whether you could love a Donor Egg child as much as you would otherwise love a biological child, I'm here to tell you that your fears melt away with the birth of your baby.

This little boy holds my heart in every single way. The fact that we don't share biology is meaningless. Completely and utterly meaningless.

Circadian and Other Rhythms

It's almost 5am and I've been up since 1:30. Of course, this is after falling alseep at 9pm. Being on medical leave is really screwing with my patterns. While my job and life has been insane, it had a structure. Now I feel very much like I'm drifting, without following the normal boundaries for appropriate behavior - like sleeping in late, not sleeping at night, not knowing what to do with myself during the day other than sleep more, try to walk a bit and then fart around on the computer becuase my brain only seems to fire in spurts right now.

Speaking of those spurts, I've been working on my business plan, but I'll have maybe 4 hours of good brain activity and then I'm so exhausted from it I basically sleep for a couple days.

Paul took me to the surgeon for my follow up today, and although I'm healing well he warned me that this fatigue, both physical and mental, is a normal outcome of major abdominal surgery. His phrase was "we basically assaulted you in the most invasive way possible, and your body will need to heal." Makes sense to me given how I feel. When I asked him how long this fatigue could last, I was told up to 6 months. I was too tired to work up surprise or irk.

I did tell him that I didn't think I was going to be able to go back after 8 weeks. My job is so demanding and I am so drained and still with so much pain that I can't imagine being ready. He said that whatever I need he'll give me. So we'll see. I'm thinking maybe 2 additional weeks.

That said, today I interview for a true legal position again, not only within my organization but actually working on the same exact project on which I now work. I've been in quasi-legal roles for a number of years and this last role was a true business role. I would LOVE to be doing legal work again, and if I'm able to switch over then I can give myself more time to get the agency up and running. Ideally I would like to switch to the legal role, move to a part time schedule within the next several months, and eventually leave when the agency can support itself (and me). It's a good thought, and I'll see how everything plays out.

In the interim I'm planning on doing as much work on it as I can in between sleeping and trying to walk enough to make my ass move up a bit from my knees, where it has dropped since the surgery. I mean seriously, I look like I have the ass of a 70 year old. No disrespect to those who are that age, but hey, I'm 44. The very good news, though, is that it is a significantly smaller ass that has gravitated downward, as I am now 35 pounds down from my starting weight in late April. My goal was 47 lbs (based upon my starting weight) but I'm making it an even 50. I can't believe I only have 15 pounds to my goal. I actually look like a different person - one I remember vaguely (although last time I saw her her face also stood up a bit better).

All in all, given all of the surgery complications, I am close to where I am expected to be at this point, albeit maybe a tiny bit behind. I can handle that.

Now I just have to make sure I remember to take a ben.a.dry.l before the "real" bedtime so I'm not composing posts when the rest of the world is sleeping.

I do have a lot to write, though, and will write more in the coming days. Things to do with my older son (here's a teaser, stupid and busted up at college), losing my uterus and how weird that is even though I was done with it, and of course, many things Eddie that have been brewing.

My beautiful Eddie. My oasis, always.

Still Kicking

12 days post-op.

I'm still wearing a Fol.ey ca.the.ter (actually had it out last week and then in again the same day at the ER). I've barely moved from bed until yesterday, although today I feel exponentially better - actually went up and down the stairs a number of times, and stepped outside.

7 incisions later (one 8 inches long), a yet unknown number of bone screws and new mesh, one uterus lighter, brand spanking new bladder sling and numerous other repairs, here I am.

Tired, aching, zoned out and trying to reboot myself somewhat.

And yes, still kicking. Just not really all that high yet. Soon.

Surgery Today.

Thanks to those who offered good thoughts and prayers. Catch you on the flip side.

Surgery, Medical Leave and Eddie's Pe.ni.s

First some pics......









And now that I have shown off my beautiful boys, on to the post.

Surgery is Tuesday. I am FREAKING OUT. I keep having these daydream things about what it's going to feel like to be cut open, what happens if the dr dies while he's performing the surgery, what if the hospital blows up, etc etc. I need it to be Wednesday. Sorry for those of you looking forward to the long weekend. Me, no so much.

And tomorrow is my last day of work before a 2 month medical leave. Totally weird. I am so exhausted, and my job is so thankless and disgusting (with a new boss who treats me really shittily) that I am just relieved to have a break. And hopefully I'll be working on a new role plus my agency, so I'll be primed to move on. But 2 months not working and not for maternity leave so no refluxing 24/7 screaming baby at home? Other than the excruciating pain and hard recovery it seems like a long vacation. And as much of a control freak as I am, I refuse to be checking work email or taking any calls to help people out. This is my recovery time, and the reason why I'm having surgery signifcantly more major than the one I had 10 months ago for the same things is that I didn't give myself healing time.

And on to Eddie's thang. He is doing wonderfully with potty training - 4th day in big boy underwear, 2nd day with no pee accidents and first day of no poop accidents and an actual real poop in the toilet- YAY!!!!!

So he runs out of the bathroom with no undies, stops and starts shaking his stuff, holding it like a firehose, yelling "MY PE.N.IS IS A VACUUUM!!!!" Then he proceeds to shake around his hips while holding it, making vacuum sound effects.

If I had been drinking milk it would have definitely been coming out of my nose.