Just Between You & Me (and the rest of the world..)

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Secrets are funny things, and problematic ones to those of us who blog – you see, it’s against human nature to hide stuff – we have a yearning to talk it out. But sometimes the fear that those we ‘talk it out’ to may in turn ‘talk it out’ to others, can often prevent us from telling those closest to us some very important things. So we blog them instead, blatantly sharing our private innermost thoughts masked by an often false sense of anonymity.

I was chatting to a friend on the phone the other day, she is also a blogger and the only real life friend I have who knows about my blog. She enquired as to weather or not SIL & I had spoken to the rest of the IL family about the impending egg donation - the answer to which was not yet, the only people who know are you, me and.... well, the rest of the world.

It then dawned on me how potentially writing about this could hurt my husband’s family – what if they find out about my blog one day and become aware that the whole cyber world knew something they didn’t that would affect them directly for the rest of their lives?

SIL, BIL and I had the ‘when do we tell?’ discussion again after our FIRST IVF APPOINTMENT.

It has already been decided that the child and of course family in general will know about the donation and who donated – my own children will (when they are old enough to understand) know that their cousin/s are genetically their siblings.

The IL family are already aware that SIL & BIL would most likely need an egg donor, but they don’t know that I offered, they accepted and now we are going ahead.

To talk about one’s infertility is hard, to decide if or when to discuss IVF is a deeply personal decision that only those going through it can begin to understand.

I have told SIL that it’s a choice for them to make, and not me as they are the parents of this future child – I am purely supplying a piece of DNA for the puzzle.

If we told the family, I think MIL would be happy, after the 8 grandbabies her sons have produced, I think she is really looking forward to her little girl carrying a child whatever the means, plus she would be able to help with babysitting during any awkward IVF appointment times.

This being said, SIL has also commented on feeling like she is constantly being monitored for signs of pregnancy by the people that know of their previous IVF attempts and I have been getting little “Ooh she didn’t have wine at the party on the weekend, do you think she might be pregnant finally?” comments from people, so those feelings are justified...

The truth is personally I would rather they waited until there is a confirmed pregnancy, but for purely selfish reasons.

I know my IL family and feel like there would be lot of pressure to ''perform'. Whilst I am young and tick all the right ‘Egg Donor’ boxes, I secretly worry, what if there is something wrong with my eggs? What if there is a genetic condition that makes BIL& I incompatible? What if the pregnancy doesn’t hold?

I also now know that my other SIL (SIL2) went to her doctor to find out if she was able to donate, but due to a thyroid condition she cannot. SIL2 and I have a rocky past and I wonder how she would feel that they are going to use my egg. That her children will not be genetically related to the potential babies?

I like to think that when all is said and done all anyone wants out of this is to see SIL & BIL with a happy, healthy family and hopefully any ill feelings of not being told will be forgotten when a baby is born.

But for now, let’s just keep it between you and me.