This morning was another grueling early one. I hate early appointments but that's the only time I can really do them and not disturb or arouse suspicion at my day job. Juggling donations and my real life job is sometimes quite a hassle and really hard on the body. I work alot during the night because I deal with a bunch of overseas suppliers. I often stay up late to make phone calls because of the time difference. I pay for it when I have to get up at 5:30 to make it to my appointment. I keep telling myself that this will be over soon and my body will be mine once again. I can't wait. It's hard giving up control of your body, your schedule/plans, and your life, in general to do something like this. It is also hard to see how your body changes during the process. If I was ever curious about what I would look like as a pregnant lady, I now know because of how much I swelled up after my first retrieval. My tummy is starting to puff out now that my ovaries are on overdrive and my follies are getting big. Not the most attractive, but I can live with it.

The appointment went pretty well. Most of my follies grew another 5mm in the last two days. I think that's some pretty good growth, but I am no expert, of course. The tech only measured 13 of them but said that there were a bunch of smaller ones in there. Hopefully this means that they have a chance to catch up, I don't really know what smaller ones mean. I may have to go in for another appointment tomorrow. It's Saturday and that's the last thing I want to do, but I guess if I have to do it, I will. Afterall, the way I see it, I am not the captain of this ship right now. It's on loan :).

This morning as I was walking out of the clinic, I was kind of surprised to see three Asian women walking in, all in a row. Not that seeing so many Asian women surprise me but just the fact that all three of them turned and looked at me. They didn't just look at me so much as study me. It was weird. I couldn't help but wonder if any of those ladies were my receipiant....granted, they take pains to keep us from ever running into each other. However, this clinic has not really been that organized in the whole time that I have been using them. My mind still couldn't help but wonder if this was the case.

I still think it's odd that they went from wanting to sit down and get a cup of coffee to not wanting me at all. It really is one sided, this whole donation process. The IPs get to know what I look like but I do not have a clue what they look like. I only say this because I could potentially walk right by them on the street with them knowing who I am without me ever knowing who they are. It doesn't seem all that logical to me, but what can you do?

Last night, I was thinking that the other couple would be almost 4 months pregnant. My boyfriend asked me what would I do if in twenty years the child comes to find me. I really haven't thought about it at all. I believe that "parents" are those that actually raised you, cared for you, loved you. They are the ones that tuck you in at night and walk you down the aisle on your wedding day. They are not someone that gave away some of their genetic material to help someone else. I told him that, and I also told him that I would be ok with talking to them and getting to know them because we would have the common thread of being biologically linked. But I would never see them as mine and if anything, I would just be a like a distant aunt that they see every so often.

I don't think that makes me cold. I think it make me a realist. I am doing this to help someone else have their dream of a family, not to achieve my own dream of such. If the results are that a child is born from this, that child is not mine, nor are we anything more than genetic relatives. I couldn't fathom taking away someone's years of love and hope and dreams and proclaiming them mine because we may share some of the same features. I think that is one of the biggest fears of those that use donor eggs. That one day their children will want to meet the donor and maybe somehow seeing more of themselves in that donor than in the people that raised them. All the contracts I have ever signed have been centered around never trying to proclaim any children mine. I wonder if those that use donor eggs would tell their children how they came to be? How do you explain it if they look nothing like you and they want to know where they got their nose? That's the perk of a donor egg, no one ever has to know unless you tell them. So would you?