Is it harder to get a donor for number two?

This is a terrible blog post title-- because who am I or anyone else to say what is harder, right? It's all relative. Getting a donor for number one is friggin' hard, and you don't have a kid yet-- but...stay with me...I have a friend who I've written about before. She got off IF Island by the skin of her teeth with the last frozen embryo from multiple cycles. She has done two more cycles since and multiple transfers for an attempt at number two and outlook is not so good. She's older and the last IVF resulted in zero embryos. Now she is trying to decide if she continues with more IVF or if she should move to a donor. She might be more ready to move on than her partner-- sometimes we forget that decisions are not ours to make alone. But she said something interesting that I've been thinking about. She said something to the extent of if she had to go the donor route with her first kid she feels like it would have been easier, but for some reason having a healthy genetic child suddenly brings more to the table with getting a donor for number two.

Why?

Fear of comparison? Fear of what the donor conceived child might think or feel? Fear of differences? It's hard to articulate and I know there are people more equipped than I am to share thoughts on this subject so please do. I'm just throwing it out there because it's not the first time I've heard someone say this, yet a donor the second time around might even be more common because everyone is a little bit older second go round. 

I can only share my own experience with the few weeks I thought we were going to have a genetic child after having Momo (via embryo donation). These thoughts about the what-ifs came up but oddly it was always something about how a genetic kid couldn't possibly be as awesome as Momo. I know that sounds terrible, I'm just being honest here. I assume most people think their kid is amazing, and maybe assume number two will be also. But when there is a definite difference, maybe comparison becomes more prevalent? My thoughts were always fleeting-- Momo is amazing and any other child will be and can be amazing in a different way. A genetic kid (and notice how I don't say "our kid" because I think that language is an important point here) of ours likely wouldn't be as tall, or as blonde perhaps, but we don't know. We never know what we are going to get with genetics or with a donor.  Each child, each person is unique and has to be seen as such.

My worry was sometimes about how each child might feel-- would Momo feel more special because of everything we did to get her, of all the people who wanted her to be? Would she suddenly feel different that her sib shared our genetics? I decided, and this was just that, a decision, that it didn't matter. That if it mattered to my kids then I would be there to process their feelings and validate them, but the only things my kids, however they come to me, should feel is loved and valued and special and appreciated for their differences and for their similarities-- because genes or not there would be both. That's how I chose to deal with it and conceptualize it. I would love any child of mine regardless if they came form my egg, my body, my sister, a stranger, the moon. I'm confident about that. But I also respect the identity building process of a child/teenager and would support my kids in whatever way seems most appropriate. I think it's good to think about these things as parents of donor kids or when thinking about alternative family building because being thoughtful is important. And making sense of it all for ourselves first is imperative to feeling confident and proud of our choices and our families.

Anyone have more interesting thoughts on this?

Comments

[Don't Count Your Eggs]

Also, Deb, DE is usually donor egg. I think. ;)

[Don't Count Your Eggs]

Thank you so much for responding with such insightful and thoughtful comments.I think it really helps when those with direct experience share their thoughts and feelings!

[C]

I would say there are always moments of doubt but overall genetics don't matter so much unless you let them. We have severe male factor that requires IVF with ICSI and then I didn't respond well to IVF. We miraculously got pregnant with our daughter the first month, so we learned of our infertility after she was born when we tried for a second and thus my experience of it all is slightly different. We had several failed IVFs then chose embryo donation. Since we had a child with both our genes we didn't want a child with only one of our genes. That was our view, I'm just sharing, please don't take as a judgment! In fact I'm aware it's probably a result somewhat of the fact that we had male factor and yet we were supposed to choose donor eggs. In addition, the doctor said we could also try donor sperm with IUI, it might work, if chances were smaller at least it was less costly, less invasive, no leftover embryos. We hardly even struggled with the decision, it was clear we wanted the third way, embryo donation.

Our daughter and son are seven years apart. The age and especially the gender difference may help with the fact that they don't have the same genes. They do not look alike objectively and yet people think they look like us and even think they look alike! It's so funny. We told ourselves, yes, if we did donor egg (or sperm) they might have looked more alike and more like one of us, but we don't care what people think...and people surprise us by thinking that they do have resemblances! (We have shared our son's story with very few.) And yes there were moments of doubt at first after our son's birth, especially for my husband, it was indeed a little different from our daughter who had so easily come into our family and who also had our genes, but we just went through the motions of mothering and fathering as before and as time passes we think of his genetics less and less and love him more and more. In the one year since his birth I'd say doubt has been almost completely replaced by certainty that I wouldn't trade my son for any other baby. One child was a gift we hardly asked for and the other...well you ladies suffering infertility know how special our children are.

[Deb]

I have a really stupid clarification question that I haven't found answered in all my infertile years of trolling DOR-related blogs and chat rooms: Is DE an acronym for Donor Eggs or Donor Embryos? It occurs to me that the issues women face in dealing with each are similar but also distinct. Sorry this is a bit off topic.

[Rese]

This is exactly my situation! I have an own egg IVF 3yr old son and a 1 year old son that was conceived using donor eggs. Would I say it is harder? Yes and No. After we made the choice, I have never felt that it was not the right choice for my family. We tried several cycles of IVF, with no real results (I have DOR). It was beginning to affect my son negatively and was certainly affecting me. However, we decided that we were very committed to bringing a second child to our family. I had a difficult time letting go of my own fertility and that has been the issue that has carried with me most of all. It was incredibly sad for me and I feel/felt like a huge failure. The therapist I have been going to about it helped me realize that I could both love my donor conceived child just as fiercely as I love my first born and also grieve my fertility and those are two different issues. And, I have found this to be very true for me. We have shared our choice with our family and close friends only. I am a very open person, but, I want part of the story to be my son's to share or not if he chooses. Hence, the boys are compared every day. My first son is a clone of me and our second son is a clone of his father. They don't look anything alike and are very different kids really. I used to worry about it, but now usually just make a joke when it is brought up. I don't really need to tell the hair dresser my whole story! And, the boys are their own people not an extension of me or my husband. There are times when I feel punched by it though. For instance, when my mother in law recently asked what his "real mother" looked like. It is in those times I realize that it will always be part of our family story. I think there will be times when it is more visible than others. Right now, It doesn't consume my thoughts every day like it used to when I was pregnant. But, I imagine as we begin to talk about it more with my son, it might feel differently. Not in a bad way, but I wonder if I will always feel a little sad or insecure. Sometimes I wonder if he will one day, as a teenager, angrily tell me I am not his mother and can't tell him what to do. But, in reality, I am sure all the fears I make up in my head are just that. I try to focus on the present. And I am so grateful that I have this particular little soul in my life. Yes, there are times that it feels harder, but I would make the same choice again.

[Pamela O]

I'm still childless after four years of concerted effort, but I understand that worrying you won't love your second child the same is a common phenomenon, whatever the genetics of each child. I know a woman who adopted and then became unexpectedly pregnant, and she, too, was afraid she wouldn't love the second child as much. I would guess it's because once you have a child, a real little kid in the flesh whom you love more than life itself, trying to imagine loving someone else just as much must be really hard. Especially when that "someone else" is still pretty theoretical.

(In this case, she actually had a harder time bonding with her genetic child, but that could have been the luck of the draw, with hormones out of whack or something. Soon enough everything was totally fine.)

Oddly enough -- and I know it's not the same AT ALL -- adopting a cat helped us come to terms with our donor embryo path. If we could love that crazy little guy so much even though we don't even share a species... probably we'll be just fine with a child.

Sadly he's been missing for the past week, and we're fearing the worst. Never imagined losing a pet could be this hard. (And we've been through plenty of hard stuff over the past four years. He was our bright spot, our silver lining, through a lot of it.)

[Jojo]

Well this definitely speaks to me because I have an own egg ivf toddler son and am currently pregnant with an ivf donor egg sibling after 10 failed cycles using my own eggs. It took me this long to convince my husband. I personally was ready for donor eggs (severe DOR) a long time ago. I am expecting a girl so the gender difference I am hoping helps lessen inherent comparisons but I still know they will be lingering. Here is what I know- I personally could care less about my own genetic link. I don't look for bits on myself in my son and see him wholly as a new and unique individual. To be completely honest- being pregnant with a donor egg baby takes the pressure off of my own genetic links or faults there of. I am aware my new baby could potentially have lingering feelings about the donor component but the fact that I feel zero sadness or difference this time around I am hoping will help. I also have more donor egg frozen embryos that I am hoping one day I can use so she can have an exact genetic link in our family just in case that matters to her. A long winded response but I guess the fact that I have no negative emotions or fears just open gratitude for another life in our family makes me hopeful we can keep that sentiment in our family as we all get older. I think little souls that join our families whether it be genetic, donor component or adoption really just feel like the only baby we would have ever wanted or should have had. I hope this feeling clouds out any other potential ones at the end of the day.