Saturday, December 30, 2017

He's Here!

Lucky, our donor embryo sibling, was born just after midnight on December 25th. Since his family celebrates Christmas (ours does not), he's a Christmas baby for them.

He was 7 lb 14 oz and 21 inches long.

Calliope and I were lucky enough to get to meet him when he was just 36 hours old.

He's gorgeous... unlike my newborns! 

I was very nervous to meet him -- but also glad I was going to be able to get it "over with" early.

But it ended up being very easy. I was thrilled to meet him like I would be thrilled to meet the brand new baby of any close friend. What's funny is, of course, that Leslie and I were not close friends at all before this all started. And now we are in this strangely intimate relationship where we have this amazing connection on one level and so many gaps in knowing each other on another level.

But being together was wonderful. While I didn't feel a particular connection to him, it was wonderful to cuddle a snuggle newborn... until Calliope politely made it clear that my lap was her real estate, not Lucky's. I was so happy to get to see her parents being so in love with their first grandchild, and to meet her proud brother and his wife for the first time. 

I read an article on FB today that was posted by an adoptive friend of mine. The article talked about the sense of loss that adoptive children often experience. And how using the language of adoptive parents "choosing" their children makes children aware, then, of how someone else didn't choose them. So nowadays it's apparently recommended that adoptive parents instead just say that the birth parents were unable to care for their biological children, hence the adoptive parents stepping in.

Reading this made me wonder if Lucky will feel a sense of loss as adoptive children do? I certainly hope not -- and certainly, this is different from adoption -- but I can't know for sure that he, or my girls for that matter, won't feel a sense of loss about his upbringing.
We are smitten.


Showing Lucky his Birth Day cupcake from Calliope



2 comments:

  1. This is amazing and beautiful. How wonderful that you were able to meet Lucky so soon after his birth. Congratulations to you all.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This is so wonderful it brought a tear to my eye! Lucky is a beautiful baby but your girls were too so it’s not a surprise! Congratulations to his parents! I really don’t think he will feel like most adoptive children do, this is a very different type of situation. That said, he and his parents will aways be able to reach out to you with questions and for reassurance.

    ReplyDelete