You know, I think that the closing lines of this piece were hysterical.

But I also think that it matters to YOU and may never matter to Dennis.

I am adopted. That's a very important thing to know when you're growing up. It means that biologically, you are not related to your family and that someone made a choice to give you up as an infant.

The only time I believe that letting a child who was conceived through IVF know that he was conceived through IVF is important is when one or both zygote donors are not the child's biological parents. From a paperwork standpoint alone as he or she grows up, that can be huge. It means that medical histories may well be blank slates for them and that alone would make it important.

But if you and your S/O are Dennis' equal, biological halves, then the fact that he was conceived outside of the womb is, in my opinion, irrelevant. You share the same biological material, he was carried in-utero, born out of your body and is being raised, lovingly, in your home. Just because his earliest weeks as a newly created embryo were not in keeping with reproductive traditions doesn't have any more bearing on the subject of his being "borned" than whether or not he was c-section or natural delivery.

If your post was really about your feelings (which is perfectly valid), why did you end it with "But when are they old enough to know everything? Readers, any suggestions?".

She asks the readers for suggestions because it's about expressing feelings, but also about interaction with and among the readers (even if disagreement)... which is the wonderful thing about blogs. Thanks for sharing this Erica. I'm blessed enough to not have known what TTC meant and am so glad you're now skipping, and sometimes limping, along through motherhood right with us. I love your perspective and your humor as we raise our children in this crazy mixed-up world. :-)

I get that what you're talking about is your own ambivalence about the subject.

BUT...

Our cultured narrative is wrong. It tells us that you grow up, decide to have a child, and then you get pregnant and nine months later a bouncing healthy baby.

It's a LIE

We help NO ONE by perpetuating it.

I don't have to share the story of my miscarriage with my daughter when she's older. Many say I shouldn't. But maybe if I had heard that my grandmother had had a miscarriage and my great grandmother had had three I wouldn't have felt so defective. Instead, I learned this about 6 months AFTER my miscarriage. So I will share the story of my miscarriage with my daughter to help shatter that cultural narrative.

It's my friend's stories to share or not, but I have several friends who have needed help to get pregnant. Clomid, IUI, IVF...the whole 9 yards. I hope that they are brave enough to share their stories with our children as well.

As for the whole healthy baby thing...my daughter was born and then caught an infection and almost died at a week of age. We have had no relationship to the "normal" story of a child's first year.

Everyone wants to stick their head in the sand and pretend that these unpleasant things don't happen, but when we do, we just continue the pretty lie that they don't. And our children, should THEY have reproductive challenges, will not be thanking us for it. They'll feel just as angry and lost and isolated as we did.

Two random comments - one to the original blog post: I completely relate to struggling to separate my own feelings from my child's. Having gone through IVF, I have photos of an 8-cell entity that eventually became my daughter. Will she want to see that someday? How will I know? And will it just be old hat by the time she's old enough?
The other, to c: I agree wholeheartedly. When I lost a baby to a cord accident at 39 weeks, I took GREAT solace in remembering the stories of my aunt and other women who had been through this. Sharing this with the women in our lives and our families is, I agree, incredly powerful.

Dennis is adorable!

Thanks mom! When did you get the Internets? - EN

$2,400/month day care? From 1998 - 1992 I paid $800/month, and that was FT, and the child-care provider (family day care) was excellent.// I was adopted, wanted to know EVERYTHING about my medical history. I see no problem with telling a child - in age appropriate ways - as s/he grows about conception, pregnancy and delivery. I think age 14 is a good, medium time to tell all and wrap up the story.// I didn't know what TTC was until Erica told us the other day. Thank you - I was Fertile Myrtle, and thus my heart goes out to those couples.

C I totally agree with you. Although I have not been through infertility or miscarriage or loss myself, my mother delivered a baby at 24 weeks who lived for a few hours and she was always open about that, as well as the fact that her own mother had a late-term loss. I know so many couples who feel like freaks or failures because of not being able to conceive, or carry a pregnancy to term, or having a stillbirth or other tragedy. These things are so painful but I think we owe it to each other - especially women but the men who go through these disappointments and losses too - to share our struggles so that those going through this don't have to feel so alone.

As mentioned in the prior post, I am carrying twins for another couple and have been very open about that. As I tell people about the pregnancy, I hear story after story of infertility, adoption, surrogacy, etc., often from strangers and I think that it's great that we're getting to a place where this isn't such a hush-hush thing anymore, shrouded in secrecy.