Hi everyone,
I have some feelings that may be controversial, but I hope I can explain myself correctly. Sorry in advance if it long-winded.
I am a SMBC and have finally fallen pregnant after 1 1/2 years of fertility treatments - 4 IUIs and 2 egg retrievals plus some cancelled cycles due to cysts and a polyp removal in between. I got pregnant on my fourth embryo transfer (first from the second retrieval) and I was obviously ecstatic seeing that BFP at last. I honestly didn’t think it would ever happen for me.
However, once the initial joy and relief that my body was able to sustain a pregnancy faded, I began feeling an odd melancholy about my donor choice. Don’t get me wrong - I don’t actually regret my choice of donor. I chose him because he seemed like a genuinely good person (as much as you can tell from an extended Cryos profile), his letter to future children was the most sympathetic of all the ones I read, he was healthy and had lots of sporty interests, and he scored well on empathy, a trait that I prioritised.
However, he was also the 5th donor I tried, being encouraged to switch donors between IUIs and deciding on my own to switch again between my first and second IVF round after all three transfers from my first retrieval failed to implant. As such, I changed my mind a few times in terms of which criteria I prioritised (because I never came across that “perfect” donor who ticked all the boxes), and especially the two last donors I tried ended up being quite different from one another.
Out of all my choices, I got particularly “attached” to the donor I used for my first IVF round (which failed), despite the fact that there were parts of his profile that also really put me off. His positives were very appealing to me - he looked almost exactly like me and he seemed like a very exciting person with lots of hobbies that I imagined my child might be inspired by - but he also had some traits I didn’t like too much, like admitting he had a temper (which my child will already get from me) and scoring low on empathy.
Those “negative” traits niggled at me so much that, once I decided to change donors for what would be the final time, I deliberately went for someone who seemed like a kinder person with more altruistic values, and who scored higher on empathy, even though that meant compromising on how much the donor physically resembled me and how “exciting” I found his profile overall. He was a smarter choice, but a less instinctive one, who complimented me rather than resembled me, if that makes sense.
Objectively, I know I should be happier with the choice that worked than the one that didn’t, for the reasons mentioned above… and also because it WORKED! We were clearly compatible, and I will be happy to read his letter to my child one day. He was just so different from what I had initially gone for, and I think the dichotomy of those last two donors’ personalities and how random it made me feel like my choice had been really threw me, more than I could have anticipated. This was such a huge decision, and I essentially made it five times. And suddenly it worked.
Honestly, I don’t think the feelings I am experiencing are really about the donor (profile). If I had become successful with the previous donor, or any other donor for that matter, my subconscious would find reasons to second-guess that choice as well. And there would always be a reason. (If it had been the previous donor, it would have been the empathy thing.) I think it’s about the choice itself, and the process of switching so many times, which is retroactively hitting me now that I have had time to really digest how it felt to be in treatment for so long.
It is the randomness of it all. The fact that I had this huge choice to make (so different than when you fall pregnant with a partner), and knowing that suddenly, that choice is now entirely permanent. And I could have so easily made a different choice, at any stage, with any consequence.
I wonder if the fact that my child is a boy has something to do with my feelings as well. The gender is all I know about him, after all. And I can’t help imagining him as a tiny version of the donor, with nothing whatsoever of myself in him, whereas with a girl I might not have thought that much about the donor at all. My hormones are obviously also a huge factor. I can feel my common sense trying to break through, but my emotions are just so hard to control.
I am just so upset with myself and feel so much guilt for not just feeling uncomplicated relief that my final donor choice led to the best case scenario out of all the potential outcomes. I am actually pregnant. I am past my 20 week scan and my child seems healthy and perfect and my pregnancy has so far gone smoothly and exactly as it should. I am one of the lucky ones. Why is my brain doing this?
I hope and expect that once my son is born, all of these feelings will vanish. He will be a real person, not an idea that exists in my head based on a baby picture and a questionnaire. He will just be my child. But I worry, because these feelings are cropping up now, if I might always wonder a bit about all those other potential donors I didn’t choose.
Sharing this here in the hope that maybe other SMBCs or parents that used a donor have had similar thoughts during their pregnancy, and that you might share how you worked through them or how the birth of your child changed your feelings on the subject. 💜