I would have a different child?

[AugustMummyxo]

Saturday afternoon boredom sending me a little crazy....

Just thinking if you and OH had sex an hour/minutes/even seconds later and conceived would the baby be a completely different one to the one you got

We have a DS but if OH had stayed in the shower just a minute longer that fateful day I could potentially have DD a completely different child if the winning sperm was released at a different time.

Crackers I know, is this a thing?

[riotlady]

Yes, I think about this all the time! DD was an accident so if my friend hadn’t recommended her GREAT NEW CONTRACEPTION (spoiler alert: it was not great), this little person sitting on my knee would never have existed.

[iloveeverykindofcat]

Don't think about this too hard, OP - pretty soon you'll realise that absolutely everything would be different if infinite random possibilities hadn't turned out the way they did. Including the fact you exist to have the thought.

[tinylittleyou]

I saw in the paper a gay male couple who had some ivf babies, they had identical twin embryos frozen, had a baby with one embryo then used the other frozen embryo years later for another baby. So identical twins years apart, I’d find it really weird if essentially my clone was born whilst I was older

[Notgotanyidea]

Not exactly the same, but my first name was changed at a week old. Then age 4 I took my step father’s surname. I have wondered if this change made any difference. Would I have been put in a different class at school, therefore had different friends. Would they have influenced my decisions eg which uni to go to (which would have resulted in not meeting my DH)

[ThinkAboutItTomorrow]

Yes and in lots of way my DDs are different but they look so alike at the same ages the only way I know which is which is the date of the photo.

[TokyoSushi]

I think about this too, if I hadn't have had a MC then DD would never have been born, but then that starts me off down a slippery slope of 'who else could I create' which is a bit odd!!

[womanity]

@Jessbow

Try being adopted, then realise you could have had any number of different lives - staying with Birth mother to being adopted by...well, anyone anywhere!

I was going to say you should try having adopted DC - if you’d have been ready earlier/later you’d be parents to someone other than your DC but your actual DC would still exist in the world.

[Sunny4876]

I can vividly remember my nan saying to me that she wished I'd stayed with an ex because he would have married me and I probably wouldn't have been a single mum, I can remember saying"but then I wouldn't have dd" her reply"thats stupid,you would have had another child" hated her for lots of valid reasons but that one sticks out.

[Lelophants]

Frequently! And have been secretly sad about all the eggs I missed out on with each period

[Lelophants]

@Sunny4876

I can vividly remember my nan saying to me that she wished I'd stayed with an ex because he would have married me and I probably wouldn't have been a single mum, I can remember saying"but then I wouldn't have dd" her reply"thats stupid,you would have had another child" hated her for lots of valid reasons but that one sticks out.

Oh dear!

[iloveeverykindofcat]

@Sunny4876

I can vividly remember my nan saying to me that she wished I'd stayed with an ex because he would have married me and I probably wouldn't have been a single mum, I can remember saying"but then I wouldn't have dd" her reply"thats stupid,you would have had another child" hated her for lots of valid reasons but that one sticks out.

Ooof, that's cold. I know how you feel, my grandmother wasn't exactly a nice, kind old lady either.

[MuchTooTired]

My DTs are ivf babies, and we have another two embryos in a freezer somewhere. It freaks me out when I think about it - 3 were great, the other not brilliant. How did they pick the two they put in, and the fact that if they’d picked one of the others I’d have completely different kids, and their relationship would be different too.

I’m curious about what the other two embryos are like as people, and what sex they are. Sadly, I doubt I’ll ever know, so it’ll just be a lifelong mystery.

[deste]

If I hadn’t have had a miscarriage I would never have had my super talented, kind DD.

[earlyforties]

Yes this really freaks me out 😅

[GreeboIsMySpiritAnimal]

@70isaLimitNotaTarget

My DS is 21 , I love him more than oxygen but My God , his head is on a different planet some days .
The other sperm that didn't win the Egg&Sperm Race that day must've been floating about like Father Dougal , aimlessly.

DD though, I;m sure hers had a crash helmet , teeth , a rocket launcher and a Feck This , I;m First attitude

Ha, I love this analogy! My two are the same but reverse the genders - we call DD the Bimblebee because of the way she floats about in her own world. It took 18 months to conceive her too! DS, OTOH, was conceived after we had unprotected sex once.

[MinnieMountain]

DH said that he doesn’t regret anything that happened before the moment we conceived DS (we only have him. It’s not favouritism ).

[SimonJT]

@Jessbow

Try being adopted, then realise you could have had any number of different lives - staying with Birth mother to being adopted by...well, anyone anywhere!

I’m on the other side of this, I’m an adopted parent and I would like to adopt again. I regularly wonder if my future child is already born, have they been conceived, are they a boy or girl etc.

[SimonJT]

D’oh adoptive not adopted.

[MissMezzo]

Love this thread. Just what was needed after a boring lockdown groundhog day.

[Foodie68]

@GeorgieTheGorgeousGoat

I have a friend who had three embryos, one implanted and the other two frozen. She got pregnant and had a child. Then a couple of years later they decided to have a second child, implanting both remaining embryos for a better chance. Both implanted and she has twins.

So all three of her children were conceived at the same time and could have been any combination of singleton/twins. IE the eldest could have been one of the frozen ones and been a twin with one of the younger siblings.

Weird. Blows my mind.

Is the first born child similar in looks snd/or personality to the twins?

[GeorgieTheGorgeousGoat]

The twins are fraternal so they all look as alike as any other set of siblings. The sexes would have been different though, mixed twins vs same sex twins.

[SnowyBranches]

This is why I could never go back in time and redo my life (not that I can anyway, but it’s often a daydream, isn’t it!). Even if I got together with DH, we wouldn’t end up having the same children.

[ineedaholidaynow]

I’m adopted. My adoptive parents wanted a boy and a girl but didn’t mind which order (this was in the 60s when there were more babies to adopt so more choice). The first baby they adopted was a boy, so when it came to adopting a second baby they specifically asked for a girl and got me. I do sometimes think that if their first adopted baby had been a girl they wouldn’t have adopted me and would I have turned out the same but with a different family (I suppose the same could also be said if my birth mother hadn’t put me up for adoption either)

[TheSmallAssassin]

I regularly think that my two wouldn't be here if I hadn't had an abortion. I fell pregnant within months of getting together with my husband, I doubt we would even still be together if we had continued with the pregnancy. We're all here by accident!

[Livelovebehappy]

I tend to think too that we must be the best of the best because there’s literally millions of sperm swimming to join the egg, so to be the fastest in a race of millions is pretty spectacular!