One who went before me...

About a year ago, when my mind was going wild with making a choice I was put in touch with a lovely lady who was about to give birth to a baby boy via donor.  

'Janet' told me her story of how she had chosen the donor route.  Like me, she was involved with men casually but none of them were long term material and she wasn't interested in being tied to them for the rest of her life!  

This meeting was the best thing that I could have done to give me the strength to choose the donor path.  Here was a beautiful, 'normal' woman who had chosen to use a strangers sperm to get pregnant.  She wasn't judged by her friends/family or colleagues... had huge emotional support for the most part and didn't feel like a failure for not having met the right man.  

When Janet told some of her friends her plans, they merely warned her about the workload of having a child on her own.  They had told her the same thing when she bought a house on her own.  Like me she's a fiercely independent woman who isn't afraid of challenges.  

When I met Janet  she was 9 months pregnant.  A week later I went to visit her and her perfect newborn son in hospital.  She was beyond happy and I finally thought "I really can do this!"


I have always been my hugest critic... for the most part I don't care what people think of me but I do care what people think of my future child.  I am scared the child will be teased or feel inadequate for not having a present father.  I don't know why this worries me so much as my own Father was hardly present and I know plenty of people who have made questionable second parent choices and they seem to be doing okay... however, I still worry. 

I've never been religious but for some reason this concept has my mind whooshing around some big questions regarding messing with the order of nature - CRAZY!!!  I've never been a church goer, a bible reader or an anti choicer and I am totally for stem cell research... I don't know why I'm up at night worrying about these things.  

But do you know what's been the hardest thing for me?  The thing that I've had the most time letting go of?  It's a picture... a picture that I'll never have; 

I wanted this picture!  You've just given birth and the man that you love and adore and created this being with just loves you both more than words can say... but the picture says it for him... it looks so magical to me....

I know it's just a picture... that the truth that follows is a man often overwhelmed by his new responsibilities, or one who has trouble bonding with this lovely blob!  Maybe it's a bad relationship or one about to break but in my fantastical mind, just for an instant it looks perfect.  

I wanted perfect and maybe one day I'll find it but for now I'm going for a different kind of perfection.