The Making of a Parent

The NYT's article (no I am not trying to beat a dead horse) brought up a good question, one that all of us in the IF world ask ourselves at some point. "What makes a parent?" On some level, I think that everyone fears that his or her child will look at them one day and use the words of Dr. Seuss, "You are not my mother, you are a Snort!" All children, regardless of how they came to be, will one-day wish that their parents were anybody else. For all of us there will come a day when our sweet, darling, loving child will rip our hearts out and stomp them into the dirt.

I grew up in a very blended family that has prepared me well for dealing with the feelings of not being the biological parent of my child. I am the adopted child from my mother's first marriage, who has been raised by me "step" father since I was two, and my sister is the biological child of my mother and "step" father. My "step" father is my DAD. He has been there ever since I can remember. Over the years, he has mended my boo-boos, suffered through my math homework, dealt with my teen years and loved me through every moment. I am his daughter and I dare you to tell him any differently. My mom has been my mother since I was 12 days old. She loves me just as she loves my sister, who she birthed. We both drive her crazy, make her worry, and we are both the fabric that makes up her heart. My parents are my parents because they love me not because we share genetics. All of us are a family because we share our history, not because we share our DNA.

Birth mothers, surrogates, egg donors, sperm donors, and anyone else I have left out, are very special people who give us the ability to become parents, but they are never the parents of our children. Parents are the people who know more about us than we know about ourselves. They are the people who would rather die than see their child in pain for one moment. For every moment of our lives, they celebrate, cry and feel every emotion a thousand times over. I know this, just as I know that it will be dark when the sun sets.

One day my child will wish that I was not their mother. When that day comes my heart will break because he/she are getting older and are able to imagine a day when he/she will not need me to care for them, it will not break because I believe that maybe I am not their mother. I have been his/her mother for all the years that we have tried to make him/her a reality, and I will be his/her mother forever whether they like it or not. I am his/her mother because I love them so deeply and care about them so much that I could not begin to use words to convey these feelings.

This is the strangest part about IF; we become parents long before we ever have a child. Many of us spend years living our lives around people who do not exist. There are moments when I feel like an insane person living with this being that is very real to only me. For many years now, this being occupies most of my days. At some point, I began to realize that what sometimes feels like insanity is just the world's longest pregnancy.

Over the years, I have watched my friends prepare for the birth of the life that had overtaken their bodies. Not one of them prepared in that same way, but there was always one common denominator. RESEARCH. In their own ways, they reduced their anxiety about becoming parents, by becoming experts in their chosen field of neuroses. I have done the same, only I started a little further back in the process. I went into depth with all our options to become parents, adoption in all its various incarnations, infertility treatments, childlessness and surrogacy. Each subject got my complete attention for months on end. When surrogacy and egg donation became our chosen path to parenthood, my focus of research changed. I now research furniture, safety measures, schooling options and the thousand other things that children bring with them. Many of the conversations that parents have during pregnancy and after birth have already taken place between Joe-Bob and me. In fact, some of our epic fights have revolved around the non-existent being that lives with us.

One day my child may see me as a Snort, and that is okay because I know in my heart that our souls are made of the same matter even if our DNA is not.

the surrogacy waiting game

nothing is happening, we are in a holding pattern. which means nothing is happening except that my mind is racing. these are the times when i start to question everything, i am trying to stop this. these are the times when that dark monster finds a way to invade, and this time i am going to win the fight.

one of the blessings and curses of infertility is that you get to decide when you want to start trying to have a family. the really bad side of this, is that there is never a "perfect" time to have a family. something is always standing in the way, there is always one more thing left to do, one more trip to take, one more dream to accomplish. the depth of this struggle makes us want to be the "perfect" parents, while we know that there is no such thing, and that we will fail miserably in this quest within the first hour of our child's life. we just are not perfect people types, we are the type of people who do everything in life the hard way. we question everything that comes easy and deem it not worthy of our attention, those are the things we toss aside. it is my biggest fault and the thing that i would change tomorrow if i could, unfortunately it is just not that easy.

our child will start their lives with a father who is tattooed up one side and down the other, a mother who only wears makeup when her mother makes her. yes i still worry about what my mother thinks, which leads to another point, my child is going to be raised by someone who has never felt like an adult. do you need to feel like a grown up to raise children? i know grown up things and can handle some big situations, but i have never felt like an adult. i told you that monster was trying to get in my head.

fact is that i know we are going to do the best we can and that will be enough. we are going to manage to raise a perfectly fine child. we just need to get one and start the raising process. we just need to give up the idea of the perfect time, because no such thing exists. times that are better than others sure, but not the perfect time. i feel like a kid the month before christmas, my letter to santa is all written and now i just have to wait and i hate waiting. i have been waiting for this all my life, i want to start doing. it is coming fast, and i know in a few months this will all seem silly, but tonight i hate the waiting.

telling the kid about surrogacy

now that we have decided that this is the path we are taking to have our family, we now have to answer the big question: how are we going to tell our child about how they came to be?

one of my most clear memories, is the entire day of my life that culminated in my parents telling me that i was adopted. i was in the 2nd grade. that afternoon i had my two bottom canine teeth pulled. while sitting in my nana's den, eating an orange jelly candy, my mother asked me where i wanted to go to dinner that night. oh the sheer joy and excitement, my parents wanted me to give input on what i wanted. they really cared what i wanted to do and i got to make a decision and they were going to comply and i was not going to have to scream and yell or hold my breath until i turned blue. i started counting all the teeth i had yet to loose and wondering how many the dentist would pull. pulling teeth obviously led to this great and glorious day when i had power, real and true power handed to me without question. there was no question, we would dine in the wonder that was the Old San Fransisco Steakhouse, the fantasy world of all little girls, who aspired to walk across bars. they had a red velvet swing above the bar, and they let kids swing being pushed by a woman dressed in late 1800's whorehouse costume, think Hollywooded up Deadwood. then they gave you a certificate. i probably collected hundreds. now if this was not enough they served this huge block of swiss cheese with a slicer cutty thing. I LOVE CHEESE. my father says, "if you put cheese on dog shit jaymee would eat it." that is a bit of an overstatement, but not too far off the truth.

after all the glorious swinging and cheese eating, it was time to go to bed. i was told to go put on my pjs and come back out. i knew this was too good to be true, i was getting in trouble, it was never good to be told to come and talk. so in my nightgown i sat on the brown velour couch with my parents. the stress was building in my little body. "Your adopted, do you understand what that means?," my mother blurted out. according to my father she had spent weeks working out what she was going to say, and she had a whole speech ready, i never heard that speech. like all adopted children of the late 1970s i had "the chosen baby" book, it was one of my favorite stories, and through that i knew what adoption meant. i remember crying, i do not know why i was crying, but it was one of those awful snotty icky crying. i had suspected that i was adopted a year before they ever told me, and asked my nanny. my sister not being adopted, had pictures taken in the hospital, and i did not. my parents documented our lives so closely, you would have thought they were conducting research. the thought that they would not have a picture of me in the hospital could only have one explanation, i had to be adopted, there was no other option.

my mother then went and got a painting that she bought for our new house. it was 2 star gazer lilies on a black background. i don't know what happened to the painting, i assume my mother sold it when we moved. sadness fills me that someone picked up this canvas at a garage sale, they will never know all the emotions tied up in that piece of art.

being able to remember that day with such clarity is one of the best memories of my life, but it has taken me years to get to this point. i know that my parents wanted to become parents so bad, that they were willing to jump through so many hoops. i am not sure i could have endured all that they did, and i definitely can not imagine worrying for two years that someone could come and take away my child. (at the time i was born the laws gave biological parents two years to change their minds, this is not done anymore) in fact i know i would have been a wreck and there is no way that i could let myself love my child as fully as my parents love me, because i would paralyzed by the fear.

being told that i was adopted was an event in my life. i will always remember that day, because my whole self concept changed. my parents are wonderful caring people who could not love me more. they were working with what they knew, and did an amazing job raising me. out of all the people i know, there is no one that will not do something differently than their parents when it comes to raising their children. for me this will be my change. i will consider myself accomplished as a parent if my child grows up feeling half as loved by me as i do by my parents.

for my child i want something different, i want them to always have known how they came into the world. over the years i have had a lot of friends who were adopted, and it has been my experience that the ones who always knew they were adopted seemed to just accept their adoptions and never give it a second thought. for them it is a natural state of being, their adoptions never defined them as people.

our child will be the product of surrogacy. no shame should ever be attached to this fact. none of us asked for this to be the case. as a little girl, i never thought, one day i am going to grow up and have another woman carry my child. all the same this is how we will make our family happen, through a lot of work, tears, fear, joy, and people who really love each other, our child will come into the world. actually that is not much different than how most children get here, we are just adding a few more people.

a dear friend of mine sent me the book, "Hope and Will Have a Baby", which is a very sweet book. i am so happy my child will have their own version of "The Chosen Baby". still i am left with the question of how do i explain this process to a small child. i got my answer while reading the blog of a gestational surrogate. her young, adopted daughter surprised her with knowing that she was having a surrogate baby for another couple. she simply explained that sometimes women have broken tummys and other women have babies for them, please read the story here, it is simply one of the sweetest story i have read on this subject.

having all this time to think about having a child, makes you think of things that most people never consider. i can not begin to list all the crazy thoughts that have gone through my mind. a happy child, who knows we love them more than anything in the world, is all i really want for them. giving birth to a child in no way makes you a mommy and biology does not make you family. sacrifice, love, constant support, mending scraped knees and hearts, makes a family.

Dinner With The Parents

tonight my parents came through town, which is part of their annual exodus from the broiling hell that is summer in texas. we always have fun, even though they are exhausted from driving, and this time the husband and i were worn out from work and school.

somewhere in the process of talking about daddy's speeding tickets, can you blame the guy he is running away from a summer of many many consecutive days of temps over 100 after all. the conversation turns to my prowess at crying to avoid tickets.

hubby: "Jaymee just cries her way out of it"

daddy: "I am sure that the officer is afraid of the howling"
to be fair i have been known to crack glass

the conversation somehow turns to spankings

mom: "Do you remember 'Please let me hug you one more time before you spank me' "

me: "I don't know how you ever had the heart to spank me, I was so damn cute"

mom and dad "Sure you were"

dad: "I hope your kids do the same thing to you"

me: "I think you just got bored and it was for entertainment"

mom: "Yeah that is what we did."

me: "Great now does this mean that you are going to tell my kid this. I am never going to be able to spank or discipline them, cause you're going to have them pulling that on me."

mom: "You bet I am"

god, payback really is a bitch. they are really making me rethink this baby thing, or at least letting them alone with their grandchild, they know way too much. not to mention the fact that they video taped almost every embarrassing moment of my life. how am i ever going to get away with "You have no idea how easy you have it....", when there is video evidence. parenting is going to be a lot like small claims court, and the kiddo is going to have all the evidence they need. my one saving grace is the hubby's parents weren't that obsessive, so maybe we can leave all that up to him.

disclaimer: my parents are great and they never beat me. i was an awful kid at times, i was stubborn and hard headed (that hasn't changed much) and wouldn't listen to anyone.

it was a great night, and i am so happy that i got to spend the time with them. in fact i think that this whole surrogacy process has really brought my dad and i together.