More random thoughts

1. I got all tied up in knots yesterday and furious with my mother (who despite being extremely well intentioned – when told that the babies would only be able to search out their biological father at 18 – put her hands to her face and said: ‘Oh No. I’ll be 85 years old before I ever get to see his face!’ I could explain why this infuriated me, but I no longer have the energy. And I have since calmed down).
2. I went to a Jewish New Year party on Saturday night. Two of the young people there were conceived using DI. One is a beautiful young woman, whose mother/s used an anonymous donor. She is the same young woman I spoke to before I started trying to conceive with DI. She is the one who said I should go ahead, otherwise I would regret it. She said her only regret was that she couldn’t trace her donor. The other is a fifteen year old boy who I have wanted to marry since he was seven. He has a ravishing mixture of intelligence and vulnerability. The gossip rather thrillingly went that he had kissed my god-daughter’s sister last weekend at a party, but on cross-examination of said girl, this turned out not to be true. The boy's biological father is known to the mother, and he is beginning to say that he would like to find out more (his sister has already met her biological father, a different donor.)
3. I have a stomach. Which is not big enough for maternity clothes, but is straining against everything else. The stomach gets bigger by the end of the day. It does not feel like a fat stomach. This feels all sort of taut and hard and round. It is hard not to rub it. I can see it in a silhouette. Most people would assume I just had a big waist, but when my father saw it yesterday, he laughed.
4. I went out to dinner last week with my family, for my father’s birthday. In the middle of the meal, my sister-in-law said: ‘So, we’ve been thinking [my brother and her]. It makes sense if you rent/sell your house and move near to us, maybe the same road. Then we can help you with the babies’. I was very moved. My father has also said that he will pay for a nanny for the first year, which will be more than helpful. I am very grateful to my family (even if my mother does drive me nuts sometimes).
5. Yesterday, I began all optimistic that this pregnancy would last (I’m 11w6d) and maybe it would be OK. And then somewhere down the middle of the high street I spiralled into a panic and thought it wouldn’t last and how on earth could I tell anyone I was pregnant in case I lost the babies.
6. Telling has now moved closer to the front of my mind. I am going to tell at 14 weeks, even though I wish I could tell later. Maybe I will just tell my relatives at fourteen weeks. I am looking forward to telling some people more than others. For example, my lovely hippy aunty believes that I have some life threatening disease, and that’s why I’m always popping off to the hospital and napping. She is not the first person to ask me if I’m ill (another aunty said, ‘you will tell me if you aren’t alright, won’t you?’). It will be good to get this out of the way. There are other people I don’t want to tell because I dread their reaction. This has made me think a lot about what I do want to tell people, and how and why. I am single, people know I am single, they unfortunately know about my rather sad romantic history. They will ask questions. But more importantly, I feel I have to be able to say that I used DI to get pregnant, with pride, because if I can’t how will it make my children feel? So I am going to be as open as I possibly can. My biggest worry is this: I lived abroad for a long time, and one of the countries I lived in, where I still know a great deal of people, is very conservative. I’m concerned about the reaction there. But you know what? I’m just going to have to be brave (and actually it is a country where women just go and get pregnant if they haven’t got a man so perhaps there won’t be too many questions?).
In my profession, it is surprisingly common for women to begin as single mothers. Most of them get pregnant with married men, or from affairs with men who are not interested in children. I know one other (by reputation, not directly) who has got pregnant using DI.
7. I also get flashes of ….sadness? Regret? Resignation? That by going down this route, at my age, I have made it very unlikely that I will ever find a boyfriend again. I like men, and I like relationships, and I like sex and I like affection and I like companionship and this is sad. My imaginary boyfriend hasn’t gone away. He is still failing to make me cups of tea and clean the house
8. I have always wanted to raise slightly wild, fearless children and I am concerned that it will be harder to do this as a single mother in London.
A few years ago, I met two children and when I saw them I was so full of admiration, both of them and of their parents.
I was in a very remote, very small village, a four hour drive from the nearest town along a muddy road (we had to pay people to push us out when we got stuck). There were only a handful of foreigners in this village and I wanted to visit them. I drove up to their compound, which was unfenced and open. There was a girl of about seven standing on the grass. She had a loose, tatty cotton dress which blew about in the breeze and she was holding a straining black dog on a leash made out of string. She had absolutely fearless straight blue eyes. She said: 'Hello'.
A few moments later her slightly older brother ran up. He had tousled hair, and shabby shorts, and he was carrying a catapult. I said: ‘I like your catapult, what have you been doing?’ And he said: ‘I’ve been stoning dogs to keep them away from the chickens.’ I said, ‘That’s not very nice’. And he said,'All the boys do it. We get birds from the trees as well.’ He pointed to a group of young naked boys just beyond the edge of the grass, hanging around, waiting for their friend to come back.
The brother and sister took me to the house to see their parents. The little boy showed me his picture books of animals. He wanted to be a zoologist. The mother told me that she home schooled six months of the year and the other six months she took the children to the capital so they’d learn to socialise.
I know that if (all goes well) my children are well and healthy (please) I could take them away to live abroad when they are five or six years old, if I can find the right job. But it will take great reserves of resolve and courage and probably money to do so. It would be so much easier to do this if I had a partner.
9. I still have mixed feelings about DI. I don’t have any mixed feelings about children. I’ve yearned for them for so long. I’ve lain awake at night crying. I’ve (pathetically) gone to sleep with an imaginary baby in my arms. I’ve talked to imaginary toddlers. I’ve been caught holding a soft toy in Hamleys Toy Store which had the heavy weight and heft of a little child. But I don’t think that DI is without problems. I feel bad that I am bringing children into the world with a built in question (who is my father?). This is why, of course, my mothers comment (Number 1, above) drove me crazy. I’ll do the best I can, but I don’t want to start off feeling guilty. I don’t want to start off feeling guilty because the children will pick up on it.
10. I want this pregnancy to continue. I want the babies to be happy and healthy and well. I don’t want there to be problems. I want everything to be OK.
11. I am occasionally getting donor panic. Why did I choose a donor without a photograph?
12. Tonight is my last cyclogest pessary... after ten weeks of having to stick my finger inside myself and then leak goo.
Hurrah!