Random Personal Stuff

My Bunny Turns 4

My daughter turned 4 today. It is kind of crazy that four years have passed. Today I went to her preschool and read the kids a story and we donated the book in honor of her birthday. The kids all made her a crown--the coolest crown ever--and special book of drawings for her. She goes to a lovely orthodox Jewish preschool so they sang Happy Birthday to her in English and Hebrew and then her teacher and I lifted her up in the air in her chair four times for four years old. Then they had banana chocolate chip muffin cupcakes. What fun.

Breaking Up with God's Timetable (and then Getting Back Together)

It's hard to know where to start to explain all that I feel and why the unexplained urge to share. I am really a very private person, but here we go. Recently, I ended a relationship that was off an on for about 18 months. Break ups are usually not easy for me, even when I am the one that ends it. But I am feeling remarkably fine this time. Perhaps because I did most of my grieving last year, the first time we broke up. This time around, I went through the stages of loss much faster and with no broken toes. The thing that I had the hardest time with, however, was accepting God's timetable--again! Grieving the fact that I will not be moving forward and growing in a partnership and having any more babies any time soon. I have blogged about surrendering to God's time table before. Well, it turns out that even if you master the art of surrender once, it doesn't get any easier. I was just plain mad.

So I went to my hypnotherapist. We talked about this and he said something so obvious. He said, "Well, whether or not you accept God's time table, you are subject to it." Ha! Oh brother. This is what is so great about seeing a therapist. They state the obvious that you can't see. Then he put me into a deep hypnotic sleep and did some hypno-awesomeness on me and now I feel so completely relieved that God is in charge and not me. Whew. I also feel happy and energized and alive and like the good catch that I am.

So here is the next part.

Sharing DNA

I was talking to a pregnant friend of mine the other day and somehow it came up that she donated her eggs in college. I have never known anyone who donated their eggs, so I asked her a ton of questions about the procedure and all that. I think the biggest question I had, though, was, "Isn't it weird knowing that there could be kid out there that is yours."

In her case, she knew there was at least one successful pregnancy and child that had resulted from her donations (she donated several times and was selected by 5 couples). Her answer was interesting. She said, "I don't really think of myself as her mom. More like an aunt or something. I mean, it's only half my DNA. I didn't have any part in carrying or birthing the child or in choosing the partner or raising it."

This made sense to me. It is just DNA....Well, that brings up the whole nature/nurture question, but I won't even go there.

After that conversation, I couldn't get the thought out of my mind. I have great DNA and it is not being used right now. I'd hate to see it go to waste. I know how that sounds--conceited. While I have a healthy self-esteem, this was not conceit. It was more like the thoughts came straight from my DNA.

I read about egg donation online and found out more about what is involved. It doesn't sound like something fun. I dislike artificial hormones and medicalized anything. But I keep thinking about the people who would actually use an egg donor and how much they had already been through and would go through, just to carry and have a child. I am also thinking about how much more I could empathize with my hypnotherapy clients who come to me for fertility enhancement or pain management. The procedure for retreiving the eggs is a short surgery (maybe 30 minutes?) but it requires general anesthesia--which I wouldn't do--but if they would let me use hypo-anesthesia, I might actually consider donating.

When I have mentioned egg donation to people in the last week, people keep saying: "Oh yeah. You can make a lot of money doing that." This is a turn off. First of all. What is a lot of money? Maybe it might have seemed like a lot of money in college, but now, 5000 dollars is not that much. Not when you consider what you are doing. If I were to do it just for the money, I don't know if any amount would be enough.

One of the articles I read said that the donors who leave the healthiest (mentally) are those that think of it as a donation and not a money making scheme. So I have been considering it as if there were no money involved. I like it better that way. But the fact is there is some compensation. But then what do you do with money you made by sharing your procreative powers. It feels weird. You can't just pay bills with that money or buy a bunch of clothes. Would I put it in a college fund for my daughter? That feels weird, too. I'd probably take it and donate it.... But to whom?

This is all very crazy, and I still haven't made up my mind, but I am meditating on it. I would love to hear any thoughts or comments on all this.