Donor egg pregnancy - feeling unsettled

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You're going to love your baby. All babies are extremely lovable. Even if you found this one in a cabbage patch you would love it! Trust me - when the baby is born you are going to be so busy loving it and being tired as sh*t that you won't give it a second thought.

One of the really nice things about motherhood that I didn't anticipate is that I LOVE ALL BABIES now. I always like babies, but now it's like there's one giant world of babies and toddlers and I am all of their moms. It's really universal.

It’s really not. I adored MY babies but I didn’t particularly like any other babies.

That’s pretty normal too.

[Anonymous]

All of your feelings are completely normal. Someone once told me, when you hold your baby in your arms, you will know that it's meant to be. Of course that's hard to imagine until they arrive, but it's true. My DE baby is almost two and it's weird to even think back to all of my fears and the fact that we don't share genetics, because I am so in love with him, he is so in love with me, and we have such a strong bond. Hang in there and allow yourself to go through whatever emotions you are having and just trust that when your baby is here, it will be the most amazing thing ever.
If you haven't already, join PVED.org (parents via egg donor). It's a great resource and support group

[Anonymous]

I completely echo the PP with one OE child and one DE child. I could not love them more. My DE child does not look like me one bit and very rarely do I wish we shared genetics or had a less complicated story. However I love everything about him so so much and I would not want him to be anyone other than exactly who he is. I just feel so lucky to be mom to him and to my OE child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have one OE and one DE. I love them the same. The feelings about genetics are different than the love and affection I feel. There's a recognition you feel when there's a visible genetic link but plenty of people have kids that favor their spouse exclusively or don't look like either parent (lots of recessive traits). I do still wish in a tiny way that my DE kid had come from my egg but he's a pretty amazing person with some fantastic qualities and I wouldn't want to change him.

This is me. One of each and love them the same.

I think pregnancy can be scary! My first was so much older and we had been trying for years that when I finally got pregnant I was like “what have I done!” “I’ve messed it all up!” We were free of childcare expenses and all that! And we were about to start over. Even though the pregnancy was relatively easy we didn’t believe it pretty much until the day baby was born. I didn’t talk about it. I didn’t really get a belly so most people at work had no idea until I was out on maternity leave. No Facebook post. Family only knew because there was a wedding and my dress made it obvious. (My parents passed away so no one to spread the word so to speak.). It was weird and felt weird the whole time.


DE kid is amazing. Can’t imagine life any other way. She’s exactly who she needs to be and we are so lucky to have her!

[Anonymous]

Another OE and DE mom here. I had some similar thoughts during my pregnancy, and in the first few weeks after she was here, just wondering if it would feel different or I’d always have it in the back of my mind or whatever. But we really wanted a second and this is what it came down to. She’s almost two and I pretty much never think about it anymore. She’s so cute and fun (and nuts - gearing up for terrible twos) and I just couldn’t imagine her not being here. You’ll get there OP. Your feelings are fine to have but you will work through them.

[Anonymous]

Common fear in a DE group on FB. But another common comment from DE mamas once the baby get here--my only regret is waiting so long.

And pregnancies after fertility struggles are weird. Don't panic about the way you are feeling, unless it is getting in the way of your life/enjoyment. At that point see you OB about possible perinatal (or postpartum) depression or anxiety.

Just feel your feels.

[Anonymous]

I have an OE child after trying with a DE. DD is three now, and I still sometimes think "I couldn't care less that she came from my own egg". I felt really disconnected throughout the pregnancy, and it also took me a little while to really bond. Pregnancy after infertility is so hard. But, like a PP above, having my baby so profoundly expanded my capacity to love all babies. Not in the "I want to run a daycare" sense, but in sense that I'd pretty easily take in any baby who needed me. All of this is just to say that, after totally wrapping my head around DE and then ending up with an OE baby, I see how miniscule the actual egg is once this baby is here.

[Anonymous]

OP, it hits you hard when you realize you have no option with your own eggs. But after the baby is born, it does not feel anything different. You are giving birth, you had the baby in your womb. Genetics does not matter when you see the tiny infant. You will love the baby and will forget that it was from a DE. Wishing you all the best!

[Anonymous]

I have one OE and one DE kid. Love them absolutely the same. But I have never stopped feeling some degree of sadness that DE kid doesn't have my genetic material. It's a small regret but it's not like you forget. That feeling has nothing to do with the love feeling which is completely separate. It's normal OP.

[Anonymous]

OP, I’m just curious, will your child have a way to connect to his or her genetic ancestors? I know you will be his gestational mother as well has the mother who raises him, so it’s different than adoption, but just as you have some mixed feelings about your child not having a genetic connection with you, I wonder if you’ve also considers that he or she may one day want to know his or her blood relatives from the egg donor. I have been struck, after connecting with a generic half sister, by how profound and deep a connection I feel with her and her children. Which doesn’t at all erase or diminish her love with her family, too; I just have been floored by the intensity of our connection even though we were strangers. This is not at all a criticism of DE; I think ART is wonderful. I also think that DNA testing is going to keep open a connection to genetic families that was not really conceivable 20 years ago and wondered, completely curiously, how you feel about it.

Also, I’ll just say that I felt a lot of ambivalence dur g pregnancy for totally different reasons, as my marriage was and still is pretty awful, and while I was overjoyed to be unexpectedly pregnant at a very advanced age, I was also really really unsure about bringing a person into the world under those circumstances. I think ambivalence is really normal and responsible during pregnancy in general. Life is complicated. Our country and planet are teetering I a terrible abyss. Second and third and zillion years thoughts are okay. You can still be a great mom and have great joy in motherhood even if you carry ambivalence always. My son is my greatest joy, my greatest love, my favorite person, and I am infinitely lucky to have him. Even so, I am still sometimes ambivalent about having brought him into a world with an unstable marriage, a father who is morally unsound, and a world with so much darkness. I think it’s okay to be ambivalent. You are not a bad mom or a bad person if it never completely goes away, but you can still have happiness and be a great mother. I’m really happy for you and wish you all the best.

[Anonymous]

Mid-pregnancy update from OP. I just wanted to provide an update and thank ALL of you for the supportive messages. Some of them (babies are incredibly lovable) I used as mantras when my doubts surfaced. Maybe sooner than expected things started to turn around for me and I am now in the full excitement, anticipation stage with this baby. I think the turning point was getting good results on the NIPT and finding out the baby's sex (girl). I could visualize a little person I would get to love. And until then I realized I was really holding my breath waiting for the other shoe to drop, even though the whole point of a donor egg baby is the odds are much better.

This board has been a go-to resource for years and my only wish is I read it sooner as we got some terrible advice at the outset of trying to get pregnant and I learned here to question cookie-cutter approaches and to be my own self-advocate (seek a 2nd opinion, demand an ERA, etc.). Thanks again and I wish all the very best of luck to everyone here.

[Anonymous]

Great update, OP! I'm so happy to see this. Enjoy the rest of the pregnancy and that sweet little baby when she gets here.

[Anonymous]

So happy to hear things are going well. Congrats.

[Anonymous]

Congrats OP! I’m doing my first DE transfer later this month and I have benefited from this thread, thank you to all.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the happy update OP and congratulations!

I'm a mom of 2 from DE and I actually almost never think about it anymore. I make a point to bring it up regularly as part of the story of how much my kids were wanted, but it really has receded so far into the background of what I think about that it's astonishing.

And there is just zero question that these kids are mine. Zero.

Please update us again when you're holding your daughter!