Saturday, Feb. 09, 2008 10:20 p.m.

on being an egg donor

It's as though I've been afraid that if I think about it too much, if I question whether or not I'm really prepared for possible future ramifications, that it won't work...and I want it to work, so I don't verbalize what I'm really thinking.

And even though I'm quite proud of this little part of my life, I'm not telling anyone about it yet. Because if it does fail, I don't want anyone to know that I even tried.

It wasn't about the money at all when I first looked into it. But over the past year, as finances severely dwindled, the money was definitely a temptation. I don't like that it was a temptation, but when you constantly have to stress about paying bills, you'll consider anything for a break from finances.

Hell, I even considered selling all my secrets for the right price (and it definitely WAS the right price!)

Now that I'm several days into the needle injecting, it's starting to actually feel real. That there is actually a couple out there that is hoping and depending on me and my eggs in order to have a child. I know nothing other than their first names and that they are a married couple - but I think about them a lot. I think about how much money they have invested in me. I think about what kind of people they are. About what kind of parents they will be. About how they will raise this child I am helping them create.

It is strange, knowing that I have so many ideas about how children should be raised, and that I am helping contribute to a child that could be raised exactly opposite from what I think is right. What will this child become?

I'll have to tell my own kids someday too. They'll need to know that they have a biological half-sibling out there somewhere so that they don't accidentally get married to them or something. What will my kids think at the news? Will they despise my decision? Will they feel an odd sort of betrayal to our family?

K understands all of this and is fine with my decision to donate...but I wonder if he's really allowed himself to think about it. There will be a child out there somewhere, biologically related to me, but not to him. Would he feel betrayed, if he thought enough about it? I often like to think of what our future kids will be like, with a combination of both our genes - and it's hard for me to imagine a child with half my genes and none of his existing.

So why am I doing this? In all the applications I've filled out and during the psych interview I was required to do, I've rattled off this answer: I think it's cool that I have the ability to procreate and I feel guilty for wasting it when others want it so bad...and while this IS true, it's not the whole truth.

I just don't know how to make the whole truth make as much sense.

I want to continue existing. I want to feel like I have contributed something that will go on, long after I've passed. I want my genes to be superior; I want MY genes to pass on. I want to feel as though I am worthy enough to reproduce. I suppose it boils down to an evolutionary thing, but I want to validated that I am the "fittest" and therefore worthy of survival.

And then, coupled with the monetary enticement and the benefit of dodging the responsibility of actually raising the child...what's not to love about being an egg donor?

I hope it works though. I really, really hopes it works.

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