This Mother’s Day will be the first one I can celebrate as a mother of humans. I spent many years celebrating Mother’s Day as a mom of furry four-legged critters, but of course it wasn’t the same. In actuality, it hid the emptiness I had – an emptiness brought on by years of infertility and loss.
Women who are currently in the throes of, or those that have been through infertility, most assuredly can relate to these feelings. It is because of this emptiness that on this first Mother’s Day and all that shall follow, I shall celebrate it feeling grateful – I don’t want it to be a celebration in honor of me as a mother since it is I who has the honor to have been blessed with my two baby humans.
Yet, I can’t help but contemplate the emptiness of the remaining members of the moms-in-waiting alliance. It’s a club no woman wants to be a part of; you don’t volunteer for it and you certainly don’t search it out. But you pay your dues – you have no choice in the matter. As a matter of fact, you pay years of dues reluctantly learning that often this quest for motherhood is a journey, not a sprint. At least for us in the club.
But I say “screw that “- the unfairness of it all just pisses me off sometimes. That is why my husband and I decided to do what we could to help other moms-in-waiting, and we put our six remaining embryos up for adoption.
Nonetheless, it wasn’t something we thought we would do. In fact, when it came time to decide how we were going to disposition our six frozen embryos, we were undecided. We knew we weren’t going to use them, since we considered our family of four complete. So we had three choices – donate them to science, dispose of them or adopt them out. I remembered the last time we were in this position, the fertility clinic recommended we dispose of them; donating them to science or another infertile couple was next to impossible.
But, this time it was different. Our frozen embryos were literally the cellular siblings of our own kids. Oh my gosh – how could I ever just DISPOSE of my kids siblings? We even knew the sexes of the embryos – are you kidding? DISPOSE of boys and girls? Never giving them the chance at life? I just couldn’t wrap my head around this. And, time was ticking down. We had less than four days to decide before our appointment with the notary who would legally document our embryo disposition decision.
With little hope, I decided to one more time ask the clinic about the possibility of adopting out our embryos – and this time the answer was different – they were actually excited that we were inquiring about donation. We learned that in the years since our last independent attempt to get pregnant, the clinic had instituted an embryo adoption program. The program was so popular (and one might say so necessary) that there was a six-month waiting list for healthy embryos. It seems there were many families just waiting for the chance to adopt, many families still stuck in the journey; many families who were just like we had been and many moms-in-waiting.
When I floated the idea to the ladies in my surrogacy support group I got mixed reactions. Some thought it was a great idea – a real gift – others spoke of the uncomfortableness of knowing there could be full blooded siblings of their kids running around and they would never know it. Although not a concern of mine, it certainly does present some interesting questions – potential situations that we can only wonder about – I can only imagine some of the odd topics we might see on the Jerry Springer shows of the future… but those are musings for a different day.
Today, I learned that our embryos were selected for adoption. But these aren’t just embryos as I pointed out before – these are the cellular siblings of our kids – boys and girls that carry DNA similar to our kids. And now they will have a chance at life – a miraculous chance at life.
So soon a mom-in-waiting will finally have her chance to celebrate a Mother’s Day as a mother of humans. Perhaps she has been celebrating years past like I did – with humor, but humor that masked a hollowness. And, she can choose to accept her Mother’s Days as a day in which SHE will be honored, which she will certainly deserve. But I bet she, like me, will be moved by those deep feelings of thankfulness and will make it one in which she will give thanks.
As for me? Her happiness is just one more reason – well, actually six more reasons, for which this Mother’s Day, and those in the future, I shall be profoundly grateful.