Sharing
I’d like to share a passage I read today in “Conquering Infertility” by Dr. Alice Domar. It’s very appropriate for anyone considering egg/sperm (gamete) donation or adoption. I tried to read it to Chris and we both ended up in tears. I suppose it’s more meaningful to us, since we’re in the middle of it. I’m almost finished with this book and I highly recommend it. It’s been right on target with my thoughts and feelings.
“If you don’t believe you can accept adoption or gamete donation-if you’re thinking as you read this, ‘Forget it. If I can’t have my own baby I don’t want any baby’-I urge you to push those thoughts aside for a short time and read this chapter anyway. Even if the idea of adoption depresses you, if egg donation seems unnatural and surrogacy seems freaky, I still encourage you to read on. Here’s why: Very few people start off liking these parenting alternatives. But other time most couples come around to being okay, and eventually very happy, with these choices. They read, they discuss, they think, they let it simmer. They talk with other couples who have taken these paths. They read some more and think some more and agonize some more. Gradually their discomfort turns to acceptance. Their acceptance turns to excitement. And when they hold their baby in their arms-their adopted baby or their sperm donor baby or their egg donor baby or their gestational-carried baby-their excitement turns to sheer, unmitigated joy. Finally, after all those years of dreaming, they are parents. Maybe not genetic parents, but real parents nonetheless-the people who will love and raise and parent that child forever. You may think of the word ‘parent’ as only a noun, not a verb, but I disagree-in my mind it is the most perfect of verbs. What matters most is not where a child came from or whose genes she’s carrying around inside her, but who will love her, who will hold her all night long when she has a 103-degree fever and a double-ear infection, who will help her with her math homework, who will walk her down the aisle on her wedding day. Her real parents are the people who parent her.”
“If you don’t believe you can accept adoption or gamete donation-if you’re thinking as you read this, ‘Forget it. If I can’t have my own baby I don’t want any baby’-I urge you to push those thoughts aside for a short time and read this chapter anyway. Even if the idea of adoption depresses you, if egg donation seems unnatural and surrogacy seems freaky, I still encourage you to read on. Here’s why: Very few people start off liking these parenting alternatives. But other time most couples come around to being okay, and eventually very happy, with these choices. They read, they discuss, they think, they let it simmer. They talk with other couples who have taken these paths. They read some more and think some more and agonize some more. Gradually their discomfort turns to acceptance. Their acceptance turns to excitement. And when they hold their baby in their arms-their adopted baby or their sperm donor baby or their egg donor baby or their gestational-carried baby-their excitement turns to sheer, unmitigated joy. Finally, after all those years of dreaming, they are parents. Maybe not genetic parents, but real parents nonetheless-the people who will love and raise and parent that child forever. You may think of the word ‘parent’ as only a noun, not a verb, but I disagree-in my mind it is the most perfect of verbs. What matters most is not where a child came from or whose genes she’s carrying around inside her, but who will love her, who will hold her all night long when she has a 103-degree fever and a double-ear infection, who will help her with her math homework, who will walk her down the aisle on her wedding day. Her real parents are the people who parent her.”
posted by Stephanie @ 5:43 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home