Welcoming our daughter

Our daughter conceived with my sister's donor eggs arrived safe and well on February 13 - much to the delight of my husband and I, after six years' trying to conceive

Our dear daughter is now 11 days old. She is absolutely beautiful and perfect in every way. She hasn’t even inherited my one-eared deafness which I mentioned in my last post, which I inherited from my own aunty.

She arrived safely via c-section on 13 February and every day since then has been wonderful but hectic – hence my tardiness posting this news.

We still can hardly believe she is here. I forget all the time that she was conceived with my sister’s eggs as she is very much my husband’s and my baby. But that doesn’t mean that we won’t tell her about her genetic heritage – we are being open about this with everyone we know well and will tell her of her special conception and birth story from as soon as she can understand.

Thank you to everyone for your love and support leading up to this – I just hope that everyone else in hope and need of donor IVF is as lucky as we are.

Sixteen days to go

Walking our dog Daisy - I'm big but still mobile

“Oh my God – you look great! You must be due very soon!,” said my hairdresser yesterday. And she’d be right as there are only 16 days until our baby arrives by c-section – unless he/she decides to come early.

At 36 weeks, the only ailment I have is really sore feet – my heels are swollen, hot and bruised. When I get up every morning I hobble around on them like how I imagine the little mermaid walked when she traded in her tongue for feet.

I’ve been so lucky this pregnancy – many women suffer from bad backs, bad skin, varicose veins (in your bum and your legs!), stretch marks and other delights. But I’ve just got bigger and bigger – and I haven’t even started waddling yet. It’s sounds like I’m gloating but it’s just so nice to be able to do being pregnant well – especially when it was so hard for us to fall pregnant.

But much more exciting is feeling and seeing our baby move in my belly. It literally looks like my stomach is having a mini earthquake when the babe gets going – my belly rolls, dips and jerks. The thought that there is a little being in there moving spontaneously around is just amazing.

I wish everyone had the chance to feel these sensations – it is such a privilege.

Childbirth – a pain in the bum

One of my workmates says her sister in law won’t have children as she’s too scared to go through the pain of labour.  I don’t blame her really, especially when I hear all the horrible stories of blood, guts and poo from my friends and family who have already gone over the to other side ie: gone through labour.

But I am beginning to ask seriously – why is it that we are expected to go through all this pain, when for any other procedure in which pain is expected, pain killers are made available?

I have had a several operations over the years, including bilateral bunion surgery, laser eye surgery and two incised bartholin’s cysts (not fun and very painful). I have also had all my wisdom teeth and four molars out (thank god we live in the era of orthodontics as without it I would have had a serious mouthful of fangs).  For all procedures, I have been knocked out under a general anaesthetic with lovely analgesics to ease me through the first few painful days afterwards.

So why are we still expected to suffer the purported agony of childbirth?

Does it tie back to the bible in some way? Or is it linked to some kind of misogyny?

Or is it that women themselves want to experience that pain and wear it as a badge of honour? Listening to some women comparing notes about labour is fascinating – it is like they are posturing and jostling for the position of the woman who had the worst/longest/most dangerous/most painful experience – why??

Does anyone have the answer to this?  Why don’t we all just have epidurals or spinal blocks right at the start of labour, or cesareans, so we don’t have to experience apparently excruciating pain? Would this be so humiliating if it meant avoiding what is sometimes days of painful labour resulting in painful, stitched-up derrieres, blood loss and exhaustion?

An unnnatural conception – and delivery

Like the clouds from this spray can, my pregnancy is completely manufacturered and quite magical

The only thing unmanufactured about my pregnancy is my pregnancy itself, which explains in part why I am expecting to have a cesarean delivery.

The conception of our baby was entirely aided by synthetic hormones and IVF. I took oestrogen to thicken up my womb in readiness for the wee embryo I received in June, while my sister took drugs to stimulate her ovaries and release her eggs to donate to me. During the conception period, I filled myself with progesterone pessaries to create a welcoming environment for the embryo to settle into, and hey presto, after lots of manufacturing and unnaturalness, we have a pregnancy!

The pregnancy itself is chugging along nicely without any drugs – my placenta has now taken over that role. So that is natural and normal.

I love that something so fantastic can come out of something so manufactured – it makes me feel very borg-like and connected to the future. I am eternally grateful to have the science available to us to be able to create life within us – to me it is a real crossover between science and magic.

So why not continue the artificiality with a cesarean – it only seems natural (!).

My obstetrician brought up the subject of delivery on our last visit, saying that given this could be our only baby, we should consider a cesarean to avoid any potential birthing complications. And having watched several knuckle-biting episodes of One Born Every Minute, I’m very happy to accede to his recommendation!