Did you know that...

You can donate your eggs? Apparently, it's just like the girl version of donating your eggs. Facebook just put an advertisement on my page for one such donation place. Now, I knew there were sperm donors. I knew that you could be a surrogate, carrying someone else's child for them (baby mama would be a good example of this... funny movie by the way). I knew you could get your own eggs harvested and saved for later (or to do IVF), so I guess it makes sense that you could donate your eggs too. And I have to admit, the principle behind it is a really good one. If you're healthy and young and there is a couple out there who desperately wants a baby and can't have one of their own, why not donate your eggs? They could see who you are, and pick out exactly the kind of genes they want their baby to have. And if the fertilized egg takes (from I assume either the sperm of the male spouse or a donor from a sperm bank), then there you have it, a beautiful baby where the adoptive mother gets to experience what it's like to be pregnant and go through that whole process. She'll really feel like that baby's mother because she carried it for nine months and gave birth to it an everything. It sounds like a good idea, a kind and caring thing to do for someone. (Plus, as with sperm donation you get paid. Apparently the FDA recommends no more than $10,000).

But it's not for me. And here is why... I don't care that that woman carried my baby around for nine months. I don't care that she went through labor, or that she may (or may not have) paid thousands of dollars for he/she. The baby is still my child. That is still my son or daughter, the same way it would be if they had gone through an adoption agency. And the thought of a child of mine running around that I had never met, that some other woman had carried and given birth to, is unbearable. I have loved every single one of my eggs since I knew that I had them (and probably before that when I was old enough to know that one day I could have babies). You may think that's weird, but a couple of those eggs are going to get fertilized one day and grow into fetuses which will then become babies. So I will honestly be able to tell my children some day that I have loved them my whole life, and that I waited for 20 odd years for them to arrive. Giving away my eggs, even to a well deserving couple, feeling like I didn't really care about them after all. Like I'm saying, "Well, I wasn't using them anyway, might as well give them to someone who appreciates them." No, I love my non-existent children, and I want to be able to tell them that when they become actual people. I couldn't do that if I gave them away as eggs... never knowing what became of them... but knowing that one or more of them might be out there, wondering about me, wondering if I loved him or her, and I'd never be able to tell them that I did. That I loved them. Call me selfish, but the only one fertilizing my eggs is going to be my husband, and the only one carrying my kids is going to be me (unless for some reason I'm incapable of that, and then a surrogate might have to help me there), and I'm going to be able to tell each and every one of them how much I love them every day of their lives until they are so sick of it they're like "Mom, shut up, we know already!"