Anonymous wrote:My sister is 42 and I am 38. She is married with two healthy, beautiful children, and I am married with three healthy, beautiful children. My youngest child is five months old and I just returned to work from maternity leave. My sister and I have never been very close. We grew up in a house with a lot of dysfunction and she did some particularly unkind things to me during our teens and 20s. We've matured and moved on and our relationship is now better than it was when we were younger.
She wants a third child and has been trying to concieve for about 4 years. She recently asked me if I would donate my eggs to her. I do not want to for many reasons, including that I am still nursing and raising three young children, I am not an ideal age to donate, we live about five hours away from each other, and most importantly, I think it would affect our family dynamic in harmful and unhealthy ways. I think donation would be incredibly complicated for me emotionally and that I would think of the child as mine, rather than as my niece or nephew. Assuming that the donation was even successful, I would be essentially be having a child with my brother-in-law. I told her my feelings and she said some harsh and hurtful things to me along the lines of you're selfish, I would do it for you, I have many friends that have offered to donate and can't believe my own sister won't. Given our history and dynamic, none of these statements really surprised me. I tried to be calm and rational with her during this conversation, but she just kept laying on the guilt. Some of her comments are still haunting me. I know she is hurting and her comments come from that place of hurt, but I am not swayed by them. Her reaction just validated my belief that donating eggs would be a big, heartbreaking mess for me and my family.
She has always has a sort of "entitled" mentality, like everyone owes her something. This just seems like more of that. Am I crazy for viewing it this way? Please, give me a reality check.
You gave a lot of reasons why you are not comfortable this. But the only answer she is entitled to is "no." This is a very personal decision and there is no right answer. You've given your answer. That's it. The end.