There has been a series of articles in my local paper's website from a woman who conceived her children using clo.mid. Her 5 year old has started asking questions about where babies come from - and she wants to know how to explain that she had to take special medicine to get pregnant. When I read the first article, my first thought was - why tell? I don't know her exact situation, but I know that my sub-fertility was totally unexplained. Not one test proved or reason was found for why it took us 3 years, clo.mid, an ectopic pregnancy, a miscarriage and 2 rounds of IVF to get pregnant. I don't think I'm passing on anything to my children that will cause them to be sub-fertile. The comments got me somewhat riled up though, as the question of whether fertility should be covered by insurance came up - and someone compared covering fertility to getting liposuction. Jesus.
But I let it go, because you know the world is filled with crazies - and I hate to comment on things like that - it just fuels the crazy.
In the second article, she acknowledges that she now realizes that her reaction to her son asking about how babies are made was in reaction to HER feeling about how HER babies were made. I get that. But, I must admit, that the further I get from it all, the less it bothers me. I think that I had it easy, as Aaron was a very supportive partner and I really had minimal side effects from the drugs. No matter how 'easy' I had it, during an IVF cycle you are totally wrapped up in the whole thing. Injections. Daily blood draws and ultrasounds. Waiting. Hoping. Freaking out. For me, all of this was done with a 40 minute one way drive into boston to my clinic for the daily blood draws and u/s, so my work also suffered. I will admit that after Hulk was born, I had pretty much made my mind up to not do IVF again. I figured we would try naturally for a while and if I got to the end of the 3 years of storage that we paid for, I would consider a frozen cycle. Who knows - maybe by then the awfulness of the hope/freak out/sadness/hope would have dimmed, and I would have considered IVF again. I'm not sure.
But will I tell Hulk that he is an IVF baby? I'm thinking I will just because the whole family knows and I'm sure it will come out somehow. And I will explain that we had a little help getting pregnant with him and it was totally worth it (kind of like my mom says that the disastrous relationship she had with my father was worth it because she got me out of the deal). When he asks where babies come from? I'll start with the whole - from their mommy's belly, and move up to the age appropriate definitions as he gets older. But I'm not going to give him a huge medical breakdown on blasts and ultrasounds and all that. I just don't think it's necessary.
What you are all planning on doing when the time comes?
7 comments:
Your idea sounds just right. I think we put a lot into this "where babies come from" that children don't really need when they are young.
As I posted on my blog a few months ago, I feel a duty to be honest with my children, particularly because whatever has caused our IF may be inherited by them. It was a Thoughtful Thursday post, so there are all sorts of opinions from others in the comments...
http://babysmiling.wordpress.com/2009/02/26/duty/
I know I will never keep it a secret where Ruby came from. I have been open about it from day one and I will continue to be that way.
Maybe one day it will be a normal part of life and more accepted if we all treat it as such.
How exactly I tell her, when she asks, will depend on her age and maturity but she will know the truth.
During our IVF, I was very open about the process, talking in their language... "baby eggs" instead of embryos, etc. And while talking about it, I always mentioned it's because mommy's belly was a bit "sick" and I needed special things to get a baby. So I guess I'll be pretty open about if treatments too.
I will explain where "most" babies come from and then explain how my babies were made. Obviously, age will be a huge part in determining how much I will share with each of them.
I think it is great that the mother acknowledged that it was her reaction to her experience that was pushing her to explain the clomid etc.
Since not matter how we get pregnant we'll be using donor sperm, we already have a story we are choosing to tell. I think that the essence of what you said is right: namely the explanation needs to be age appropriate. Especially since my husbands translocation has made him infertile, we won't be passing it along, but if we were like a couple who's translocaiton let a few 'normals' through, we would absolutly tell them.
Also, how else will I be able to explain why I have a picture of them as 3 or 5 day embryo? ;-)
I hope someday to explain the way you will. Starting out with the "normal" babies come from to you were super special and Mommy had some help... see here you are frozen, kidding. Anyway I agree with you about not fueling the crazy, when i see stuff, i think twice about commenting...cause there are some, hateful crazy peeps out there....
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