This is a night like many nights, and we are sitting at the table eating a bricolage meal, trying to keep our kids at the table long enough to actually eat. It’s been a crazy day. I used to be rather take-it-or-leave-it about drinking. Not so much, now. (cue “Mother’s Little Helper.”) This happens to be the dinner of my last blog, on the day when L threw up because he didn’t eat enough and D was so happy about that tiny carrot from the garden. The cheap-date-lightweight-pro-sobriety-healthnut (that’s me) is drinking Tequila. Our dinner table conversation finds its way to a subject the boys have never asked about, and we have never explained: the fact that we used a donor to create them.
We used a donor from a local bank to conceive our kids. About a year ago, we discovered donor siblings online, and became part of a Facebook Group of families that used the same donor. It’s the coolest thing. A couple of families even live in San Francisco. It turns out that we have mutual friends with one family, and they have a girl the same age as our boys! Our kids have always been content with having a Mommy and a Maddy. They’ve never asked about a Dad, nor have they been all that clear that their Maddy is actually a girl. We’ve been content to give them all the information they ask for, and nothing more. Lately, I’ve been talking to Maddy about how I don’t want them finding out from other kids or in a way that’s troubling that this friend-of-a-friend is actually their donor sibling. I’m being careful, even here, not to use the terms, “dad,” “sister” or “brother,” because I think those terms can be really confusing for kids. They can use them if they choose to later. This is new territory without much precedent, so, as with most things kid related, I’m learning (or making it up) as I go. This subject could be a big one for these little, blossoming identities, and requires some attention. As if answering my wandering brain waves, the Universe conspired to have us randomly run into the other family with a girl the same age. Maddy, the boys and I were out for dinner, and were seated at the window table. This family walked by, and there was a flash of recognition between the adults. They came in. We chatted. The kids were too tired or distracted to really notice each other. Strangers. It was a non-event for them. A few times now, our paths have crossed at the park. Once, our kids even played in a group together, not knowing they are related. I chatted with the mom, but why would my kids think anything of that? I realize they are not going to question it, and while other adults have commented on the kids’ similar features, the kids themselves don’t notice.
So Maddy brings it up after this crazy day, while I’m drinking Tequila, and while the kids are bouncing in their chairs like Superballs. “Hey kids, did you know that your Mama and I used a donor to make you?” They don’t respond. I jump in. “Yep. It takes parts from a man and a woman to make a baby, and since Maddy’s a girl, we had to go to a store to buy parts from a man.” They still don’t say anything, but the bouncing slows. We go on a bit about how the tiny egg in a woman needs a seed from a man, and we got that seed from a seed store. They are listening, I think. We explain that there are other kids made from seeds from the same man, or donor. They still say nothing. They have no questions. They know enough about pregnancy to know that a baby starts out really tiny, then grows big before it is born. That feels like enough information for one night. When released, they shoot from the table like arrows. I tell Maddy, “That went well,” and take another drink.
The next day, I ask if they have any questions about the donor conversation. L asks if our friend, who’s pregnant, went to the seed store as well. I explain that she got the seed from her husband. L ponders this, and verifies that parts from our friend and her husband were used to make their baby. He wanders away, back to his toys, and doesn’t bring it up again. D just listens.
The boys go to a cooperative preschool, so I, like all the other parents, sometimes work at the school. At the end of the day, a goodbye song is sung. The kids whose parents worked get to choose different words to use to sing the song. They choose things like, “Elsa-Anna,” “Light-Up-Shoes,” “Mama-mama” or any combination of words, and the entire song is sung repeating those words. For almost the entire school year, L has chosen, “Red-Fast-Train,” and D has picked something right along those lines. The past two times I worked, D chose, “Sparkles-Rainbows,” and L chose “Mommy-Daddy.” …So something is percolating in there.
I ask the boys if they’d like to play with another kid whose parents went to the same seed store as us- a kid who is made from seed from the same man as they are. They ask the kid’s name, and L recognizes that they’ve met before. I recount playing at the park, and tell them this girl happens to be friends with some kids that they know. They don’t respond directly, but they both climb on my lap. They compete for space, so we move to the couch for a cuddlefest. D grabs two comforters, and the boys curl up underneath, creating a big cocoon over us. With my feet on the coffee table and my two HUGE boys trying to get comfortable on my belly under a big, green comforter draped up to my chin, I flash back to pregnancy. They jab my ribs and dig into my sides while I remind them they both used to fit inside my belly. They use the cocoon to hide from monsters, and the conversation moves quickly into a scenario with a shrinking machine that you can use to hide. The machine shrinks you and everything you are touching… and everything those things are touching… so that means our whole house will shrink, in fact, the whole world will shrink when you turn it on. I ask about touching air, and they say, no, the air can’t shrink! So I ask what will the birds who are flying do when the whole world shrinks? What about the kid on the trampoline who jumps up just as you turn on the shrinking machine, so when he comes back down he squishes the whole world? They stare at me blankly. I’m no fun. The story moves on to jets flying overhead. Hide! I wonder if talking about donor siblings makes them feel like monsters are attacking, but then again, their preoccupation with monsters is a completely age-appropriate phase. Did the shrinking machine come from a desire to become small again, to go back to the protection of my belly? Or are they just acting out an episode of “The Magic School Bus” or “Wild Kratts?” They spend so much time caught up in their imaginations these days, everything else, including me, feels like an imposition. The cuddlefest was a welcome break.
I have recently started attempting to garden in the back yard. I am a neophyte gardener. I don’t know what will grow, how good my soil is, when to plant or how much to water. Things grow that I didn’t plant, or they grow too close together, or sometimes they just don’t thrive. I don’t see my yard for what it is, I see its potential. I finally realized that if you focus on the weeds, not only do you get overwhelmed and cranky quickly, you get a half-weedless yard with nothing interesting growing. So you plant things in the weeds. There is too much going on to really step back and plan it, or to give the yard the time it needs. You do what you can with limited time, inspiration and resources. Its the same with kids. You plant seeds and ideas, water as often as you hope you should, choose the worst weeds to pull and do the best you can with the resources available. I’m always surprised by the results. My job, so often, is just to wait and see. Will they ask about their donor siblings? Will they care? If we maintain a community with the other families, will the kids benefit from this? Will they recognize something special about their donor sib? Will they embrace this part of themselves or run from it? What will it mean to them? Will this grow? Will it blossom? Will it seed?
Mamagrit 