Sad that DE child doesn't look like me - could use perspective from DE moms

[Anonymous]

I have different eye color, hair color, skin tone, and a very different build from my own mother. No one has ever told me that I resemble my dad either. I was freaked out by people who looked like carbon copies of their parents when I was a kid. There are plenty of people who don’t have that experience with their bio parents.

Oddly enough, a few years ago, we received a Christmas card from one of my dh’s colleagues and I remarked that the guy’s tween dd looked exactly like her mother. Dh told me the wife in the photo was actually the teenager’s stepmom. I’m still shocked each year when we receive their card. The resemblance is crazy.

I have fraternal twins who are 15. One favors me and the other favors dh. By the time they’re this age, you rarely ever think about resemblance anymore; your kid has their own distinct identity. Larla just looks like Larla, you know?

Congrats on your beautiful dd.

[Anonymous]

My DD looks nothing like me. At all. I think she’s beautiful and I really never feel any negativity around that. I know people think she’s adopted when it’s just she and I. When my DH is around they go ‘oooohhhhh’. She’s his spitting image.

[Anonymous]

My DE daughter looks nothing like me, but people tell me all the time that she does. She once told me she was sad that she didn't look like anyone else in the family.

Sometime though, I'll take a picture of us and see similarities - like our hair color, or the way we're smiling, or the angle of our eyes. It's just chance (and the fact that we chose a donor who could plausibly be related to me) but it's enough and when I point it out it makes her very happy.

More importantly though, the older she gets the more like me she is in temperament, to the point where it's bizarre. She is SO like me in terms of people skills, assertiveness, sense of humor, mannerisms, etc... that it's uncanny.

So even without a genetic tie, there is an unmistakeable connection/inheritance from me. I've been very surprised (and comforted) by that over the past decade plus...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DD looks nothing like me. At all. I think she’s beautiful and I really never feel any negativity around that. I know people think she’s adopted when it’s just she and I. When my DH is around they go ‘oooohhhhh’. She’s his spitting image.

+1


My lovely daughter looks nothing like me, and I look nothing like my mother.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DE daughter looks nothing like me, but people tell me all the time that she does. She once told me she was sad that she didn't look like anyone else in the family.

Sometime though, I'll take a picture of us and see similarities - like our hair color, or the way we're smiling, or the angle of our eyes. It's just chance (and the fact that we chose a donor who could plausibly be related to me) but it's enough and when I point it out it makes her very happy.

More importantly though, the older she gets the more like me she is in temperament, to the point where it's bizarre. She is SO like me in terms of people skills, assertiveness, sense of humor, mannerisms, etc... that it's uncanny.

So even without a genetic tie, there is an unmistakeable connection/inheritance from me. I've been very surprised (and comforted) by that over the past decade plus...

Just found out Saturday that I’m pregnant with DE baby (yay!) and your post made me tear up. Thank you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DE daughter looks nothing like me, but people tell me all the time that she does. She once told me she was sad that she didn't look like anyone else in the family.

Sometime though, I'll take a picture of us and see similarities - like our hair color, or the way we're smiling, or the angle of our eyes. It's just chance (and the fact that we chose a donor who could plausibly be related to me) but it's enough and when I point it out it makes her very happy.

More importantly though, the older she gets the more like me she is in temperament, to the point where it's bizarre. She is SO like me in terms of people skills, assertiveness, sense of humor, mannerisms, etc... that it's uncanny.

So even without a genetic tie, there is an unmistakeable connection/inheritance from me. I've been very surprised (and comforted) by that over the past decade plus...

Just found out Saturday that I’m pregnant with DE baby (yay!) and your post made me tear up. Thank you.

Congratulations!! So glad my post spoke to you. For what it's worth, my twins are 12 now and the fact that they resulted from donor eggs almost never occurs to me. It is a non-issue almost all the time. That is not at all how I felt when I trying to get pregnant, or for the first couple of years after they were born. I worked hard at sharing the donor egg info openly, without shame or distress, so that they would never sense any of that from me. By the time they were old enough to understand the story of how they were born I had worked through my own feelings and was VERY glad I had done that work in advance. They have only ever heard gratitude, appreciation, and awe of science when I talk about how lucky we are. Just sharing that in case you're in the throes of wrestling w/ life's realities as I was.

And the similarities they have w/ both me and their dad really are uncanny, given the genetic differences. A mother's influence on her kids is deeply profound, with or without genetic ties.

Wishing you a healthy, easy pregnancy!!

[Anonymous]

I have 3DC/bio all. Strangers typically remark that my DC look nothing like me. When they were younger, cashiers would ask me if they all were mine.

[Anonymous]

If it makes you feel any better, I was always mistaken for my bio kid’s nanny when they were young.