Performances and family connections...

Yesterday my son was alternatively bored and elated at his grandfather's 70th birthday party. He wanted to go home and not stay in the restaurant but he also loved singing "For he's a jolly good fellow" with grandpa. His emotions are so great to watch as he got so excited. He spent the last half hour of the party taking the menus out of their wall box and handing them to all the guests at their seats even though the dining segment of the party was clearly over. He even gave menus to restaurant guests who were not part of our party.

My sister put together a scrap book of photos of my dad from birth through to today. A great shot of him holding all four of his grand-kids. I wonder if my son will see them differently than he will photos of my wife's family.

At one point my son tried climbing up an empty wooden high chair. The kind that every restaurant has. He fell off hitting his head on the base of the wall and needed to be held to be comforted. It was at this moment that I was called upon to say something in front of the assembled celebrants. I mentioned that how even though only his siblings were here and not all the nieces and nephews I knew they all cared for him very much. As the youngest of his siblings my dad became the special uncle in his family and that the love they had for him was well deserved and they all wished him congrats even though they were at the table with us today. Again my thoughts momentarily wondererd what my son's connections will be to this extended family of mine that is spread out across the country. And for that matter their thoughts of him once they learn of his origins. Most of us lose connections over time to our parent's cousins distant and near ...does it make it easier or harder for a DI child to do so?

The donor and how we chose him...

Over time we actually chose three donors. The first was to be used only as a backup for the two full ivf / icsi cycles in case the urologist could not retrieve usable sperm from me.

The second who I do not recall too many facts about was used for the bulk of the DI cycles which obviously all failed. Funny that I don't recall his facts now. I do recall authorizing the destruction of the remaining vials when we were sure we wanted the third.

Picking a donor is like a combo of looking through the personals (or now like on line dating) mixed with the knowledge that you can now improve the gene pool. Meaning picking attributes better than what I have.

The main items on our checklist for the donor were that the donor have the same religious background as me, same race, same blood type and perhaps have a ancestral background similiar to mine. The donor we chose had all of these but unfortunately had as many health issues in his family as my own. So there went the idea of improving the gene pool. My wife liked that he was / is well accomplished education wise. The donor bank we purchased this donor's vials from actually classified him as a premium donor resulting in added cost of $30 per vial.

The bank we used was Fairfax in Virginia and now they even offer non scientific analysis of the donors facial composition. Meaning did the folks on staff think the guy was cute or hot. When we dealt with them in addition to on line downloadable bios (the basic stats, health, family, generalk thoughts etc) we bought a CD of his voice. Only recently did we request a copy of a picture of the donor as a baby. They actually sent a pic of him as a toddler which explained the color tint of my son's hair which did not jive exactly with the donor's bio.

We actually dealt with both major outfits California Cryo and Fairfax. Both very professionakl and both very thorough in their approaches at least in our experience.

My Dad's 70th bday....

Today we celebrate his 70th with a surprise party at a restaurant with family and friends. Not sure what I am thinking. Will my kids do this for me? Technically I am doing nothing as Mom is throwing this shin dig but you get the idea. If I am alive at 70 I'm sure there will be a party. Silly thought but you always wonder will there be a point where they will reject you. You know the kids will think of you always as dad but that thought is always there especially when a toddler is a toddler and is just talking back as they always do.

I told my wife about this Blog...

I was not sure whether I would tell my wife about this blog or not. I at first figured it would be my thoughts alone without her comments. Sort of like the thoughts I shared with the psychoanalyst when my wife decided she had enough (she was also finally pregnant) but I continued on to deal with my thoughts re DI and a few other of my own foibles.

But here it is I told her. Not sure why. Probably because it was midnight and I was surfing the net to see if I could find other sites dealing with DI. I started by going back to the Oprah Winfrey site (more later re this link in a future blog) as they had an episode dealing with DI but more from the child's point of view (i.e. grown up kid learns origin now looking for bio dad). Anyhow I was tired and I thought she'd be amused and I was curious as to her comments.

She at first read the mini bio and said this sounds like us and I replied it is us and this is me. She was amused and commented that someday the kids may read this. I guess that someday has always been in the back of my head. Anyhow now she knows. Hopefully that won't alter my future entries to this blog.

How we decided to use a donor...

We were convinced I guess by friends that we made who were also going through IVF and I guess the doctors. The idea being that the donor semen would only be used if my own could not be retrieved in a sufficient quantity for the combined IVF / ICSI procedures.

During each of the two IVF retrieval procedures that my wife underwent to retrieve her eggs I also underwent that day or within a day a testicular biopsey to retrieve live sperm. None of the samples I tried to provide had enough to use via an ICSI procedure.

ICSI is when they actually insert the sperm into a viable egg. Think of it as fertilization with an assist.

Anyhow during the first two IVF cycles we did not need the donor samples as they found enough each time when they operated on me. Unfortunately neither of those cycles resulted in even chemical pregnancies when the embryos were transferred into my wife. Costly disppointments to say the least. Not even addressing the emotional side of it. That was far worse.

At this point we did not know what to do as I could not undergo another surgery for another 6 months at least and only one more at that.

We decided we could not go this route again so we decided DI alone was we had to do if we were to have a shot of at least having a child that was at least biologically connected to my wife. We came to terms with DI based on that idea and that the half that was not biologically from me would be as if half the child was adopted.

This was a major step for us as when we began the IVF my wife was dead set against DI as she could not handle the thought of another man's sperm being in her. But with this new rationale and it really being our only chance to have a natural childbirth if it took we came to accept our decision.

Kissing cousins.....

This weekend we are visiting my family including my sister's daughters. Their younger daughter is basically the same age as my son. Both a little more than 3 years old. The way the two of them play and tumble around you wonder what would happen years from now if they knew they were not blood related.

I know for sure the idea of my sister as my in-law would drive us both crazy. My sister knows about the DI stuff as does my family. My wife's parents know as well. Sometimes I forget if my wife's brother knows or not. He is quite religious and I am not sure what his (and his wife's) views are on this topic. They don't have kids yet and hopefully they never have to go through all the IVF / AI stuff we dealt with.

Who knows about the DI....

Only our families and a few friends know about the DI. Most on purpose. Some not.

What's was at first real annoying but now is more amusing is how many people you meet who will comment that either of my children look so much like me. It must be that they are looking to say that and find a reason to be able to in their minds. Maybe I do share some characteristics with each of my kids but everybody does after all we are all humans.

How I learned of my infertility problem.....

About 6 months before we were to be married I went to a urologist as I thought I had discovered a lump in my scrotum and I was concerned that it might be cancerous. Turns out it was nothing. After examining me the doctor indicated that I should have a sperm count test as one of my testes was smaller than the other and he wanted to see if that had an effect on my production of sperm.

The results of the test was that my sperm count was so low that there were virtually none. Diagnosis: Azoospermia.

What hurt more was that this urologist who I picked merely because he was covered by medical insurance plan had no compassion and basically said I should forget about ever having kids naturally. My heart immediately sunk. My fiance almost jumped across the desk to kill this guy but restrained herself.

After we went back to my apartment and after she left for her own apartment I wept uncontrollably for what seemed like an hour or more. Later that day I offered my fiance the chance to back out before we were married as I knew kids were something she wanted too. Lucklily for me she did not.

How to Begin.......

I am unsure how to begin. Unsure re this Blog and unsure if how we tell our kids that they were conceived via Donor Insemination will be the right way to tell them. How to tell them that while their Mother is biologically their mother that I am not biologically their father. I know in my heart that I am their Dad but you wonder if they will always feel that way themselves.

We have two kids, a boy now more than 3 years old and a girl only just over a 1 year old.

I love them both dearly.