Part II: Monopoly of a Gray Vortex
The day ended on a high note by paying $40 for a small bowl of soup, a chicken quesadilla off the appetizer menu and a small side salad.
Behold the monopoly that is Room Service.
My phone rang and a minute into the conversation my $40 dinner was left to congeal as Erin shared the fact that Arden announced she is allergic to penicillin by becoming a demented Dalmatian covered in bright red hives.
I KNOW she was well cared for but how can I put into words that the only thing I wanted was to be there to fuss over her myself? In fact the only thing keeping me from holding up a plane to get home was Arden WAS with her Mommy.
Any chance of resting easily vanished and I was up well before my 5:30 wake up call.
After finishing the business part of the day I returned to the airport. Where once again: “Folks this is the pilot speaking, air traffic into MA has been delayed due to high wind. The airport needs the gate so I’m going to have to pull back. Estimated wait is one hour.”
At this point I am so close to going to see my baby I can feel her weight in my arms. Part of me just wants to cry. I’m tired. I’m sore from a rock hard hotel bed and I’m sick of pumping. All I want to do is snuggle Arden, check her hives myself and start the peace of the weekend.
Boston area commuter traffic sucks. It starts at 3 pm on a Friday and can back up 10-20 miles. By the time we managed to land it was after 3.
I was on 93 for about a minute before I hit an ‘expressway’ of parked cars.
Weary, drained, I made my way up to my parent’s chocolate factory which happens to be next to Arden’s daycare just after 5.
Her smile enveloped me. Her mottled skin concerned me.
The feel of her mouth sucking my cheek as she ‘kissed’ me soothed the ache of missing her.
As I nursed her my mother pulled her apron off and sat down for a chat.
Usually she queries my life in the busy way all American Italian mothers are prone to and like a well conditioned solider I report in.
Today she opens with “Have you heard from KD (known donor)?”
I hadn’t. We have regular, almost daily contact with him because we are involved with the same volunteer circles. He knows how Arden is but most conversations are surrounding what is next with the volunteer work. We are careful to keep it that way.
In the beginning, even though the contract stipulated discretion on who knew about our arrangement he made a public announcement in our presence once I was pregnant. Literally. A public announcement that he had donated to us. We weren’t even announcing we were pregnant yet.
Like a single shot in the air, that one announcement that he was our donor set off an avalanche of effects.
He told us he planned to take paternity leave from his company and wanted to come over and help right after she was born. He started having opinions on our choice of names and wanted his friends whom we didn’t know to come to our baby shower.
Our tidy situation, so black and white on paper was spiraling into a gray vortex.
Like I’ve mentioned before, the pregnancy changed what, originally was a hands-off arrangement. In fact 100% hands off was the only way he agreed to do it. It was as if now that I was pregnant the situation that a baby was on the way altered his views.
His interest intensified after her birth. Despite asking him to wait until we called he showed up at the hospital (actually we didn’t tell him where we delivered on purpose he called around and found out), after I had been through a 22 hour labor, hadn’t had time to clean up and get to know my daughter with a strange woman I had never met. We were friendly and welcoming.
I wanted to tell him to go to hell. But I couldn’t. He still had legal rights to Arden. We were/are friends with him, we adore him and did adore him well before he was our donor but now he held a stake in our lives that we could never walk away from no matter what happens.
I just hurt so badly. I didn’t want one face there that I didn’t even know and I did not want the world treating him like he was a parent. And they did.
So you had me that had given birth, he who had donated but not taken care of me for 39 weeks and Erin who did all the work and support that comes with being the other parent.
Where did that leave Erin?
In that moment the realization that we would never escape this reality hung thick in the room. In what should have been the most glorious day for Erin and I we had to deal with our first battle of WHO were the parents in this arrangement.
When we met with him at a coffee shop a few weeks later he had gifts galore from a baby shower his friends had thrown him. He said they all wanted to meet her. He took pictures and the following day sent out an email with the subject “I’ve become one of those people who can only brag about his kid”
She, by contract and over 10 months of talking, negotiation and written contract is NOT his kid. She is biologically related to him but he is not her parent. Despite all the lip service and signing of paperwork, to him she will always be ‘his kid’. This isn’t bad thing, it is just a facet in our family that Erin and I were not looking for.
We made the decision to carefully pull back. Keep our friendship exactly what it was because we love this man and want him in our lives; we just want to make sure our message is consistent to him. That our contract is what we envision, not just blather.
(as a side note, a donor agreement has never been upheld to our knowledge by a court, anybody using a known donor, realize your agreement --ours was done by a lawyer-- may not be upheld if your donor changes his mind following the birth…MA people, if you are married you do have an additional layer of protection in that your spouse is automatically included on the birth certificate and in theory assumed the other parent)
That brings us to the moment in the factory, the defining end to my crappy Friday.
Slather my mother’s obsession with KD over the above selection of background, sprinkle in my past 48 hours and really, you can see how her opening line of conversation with an inquiry about him made me cringe.
Tomorrow… THE CONVERSATION.
Behold the monopoly that is Room Service.
My phone rang and a minute into the conversation my $40 dinner was left to congeal as Erin shared the fact that Arden announced she is allergic to penicillin by becoming a demented Dalmatian covered in bright red hives.
I KNOW she was well cared for but how can I put into words that the only thing I wanted was to be there to fuss over her myself? In fact the only thing keeping me from holding up a plane to get home was Arden WAS with her Mommy.
Any chance of resting easily vanished and I was up well before my 5:30 wake up call.
After finishing the business part of the day I returned to the airport. Where once again: “Folks this is the pilot speaking, air traffic into MA has been delayed due to high wind. The airport needs the gate so I’m going to have to pull back. Estimated wait is one hour.”
At this point I am so close to going to see my baby I can feel her weight in my arms. Part of me just wants to cry. I’m tired. I’m sore from a rock hard hotel bed and I’m sick of pumping. All I want to do is snuggle Arden, check her hives myself and start the peace of the weekend.
Boston area commuter traffic sucks. It starts at 3 pm on a Friday and can back up 10-20 miles. By the time we managed to land it was after 3.
I was on 93 for about a minute before I hit an ‘expressway’ of parked cars.
Weary, drained, I made my way up to my parent’s chocolate factory which happens to be next to Arden’s daycare just after 5.
Her smile enveloped me. Her mottled skin concerned me.
The feel of her mouth sucking my cheek as she ‘kissed’ me soothed the ache of missing her.
As I nursed her my mother pulled her apron off and sat down for a chat.
Usually she queries my life in the busy way all American Italian mothers are prone to and like a well conditioned solider I report in.
Today she opens with “Have you heard from KD (known donor)?”
I hadn’t. We have regular, almost daily contact with him because we are involved with the same volunteer circles. He knows how Arden is but most conversations are surrounding what is next with the volunteer work. We are careful to keep it that way.
In the beginning, even though the contract stipulated discretion on who knew about our arrangement he made a public announcement in our presence once I was pregnant. Literally. A public announcement that he had donated to us. We weren’t even announcing we were pregnant yet.
Like a single shot in the air, that one announcement that he was our donor set off an avalanche of effects.
He told us he planned to take paternity leave from his company and wanted to come over and help right after she was born. He started having opinions on our choice of names and wanted his friends whom we didn’t know to come to our baby shower.
Our tidy situation, so black and white on paper was spiraling into a gray vortex.
Like I’ve mentioned before, the pregnancy changed what, originally was a hands-off arrangement. In fact 100% hands off was the only way he agreed to do it. It was as if now that I was pregnant the situation that a baby was on the way altered his views.
His interest intensified after her birth. Despite asking him to wait until we called he showed up at the hospital (actually we didn’t tell him where we delivered on purpose he called around and found out), after I had been through a 22 hour labor, hadn’t had time to clean up and get to know my daughter with a strange woman I had never met. We were friendly and welcoming.
I wanted to tell him to go to hell. But I couldn’t. He still had legal rights to Arden. We were/are friends with him, we adore him and did adore him well before he was our donor but now he held a stake in our lives that we could never walk away from no matter what happens.
I just hurt so badly. I didn’t want one face there that I didn’t even know and I did not want the world treating him like he was a parent. And they did.
So you had me that had given birth, he who had donated but not taken care of me for 39 weeks and Erin who did all the work and support that comes with being the other parent.
Where did that leave Erin?
In that moment the realization that we would never escape this reality hung thick in the room. In what should have been the most glorious day for Erin and I we had to deal with our first battle of WHO were the parents in this arrangement.
When we met with him at a coffee shop a few weeks later he had gifts galore from a baby shower his friends had thrown him. He said they all wanted to meet her. He took pictures and the following day sent out an email with the subject “I’ve become one of those people who can only brag about his kid”
She, by contract and over 10 months of talking, negotiation and written contract is NOT his kid. She is biologically related to him but he is not her parent. Despite all the lip service and signing of paperwork, to him she will always be ‘his kid’. This isn’t bad thing, it is just a facet in our family that Erin and I were not looking for.
We made the decision to carefully pull back. Keep our friendship exactly what it was because we love this man and want him in our lives; we just want to make sure our message is consistent to him. That our contract is what we envision, not just blather.
(as a side note, a donor agreement has never been upheld to our knowledge by a court, anybody using a known donor, realize your agreement --ours was done by a lawyer-- may not be upheld if your donor changes his mind following the birth…MA people, if you are married you do have an additional layer of protection in that your spouse is automatically included on the birth certificate and in theory assumed the other parent)
That brings us to the moment in the factory, the defining end to my crappy Friday.
Slather my mother’s obsession with KD over the above selection of background, sprinkle in my past 48 hours and really, you can see how her opening line of conversation with an inquiry about him made me cringe.
Tomorrow… THE CONVERSATION.
posted by Mama2Arden | 7:51 PM
9 Comments:
I'm sorry you're having so much trouble with your donor. I think it's time to have a very frank talk with him to remind him of what he agreed to and let him know you expect him to abide by the contract. Did you stipulate in the contract that he couldn't refer to himself as Dad, Father, etc? We stipulated that he couldn't refer to himself this way when talking to the child, but didn't specifically mention it when talking to other people.
Hope you can all deal with this soon before it becomes an even bigger mountain.
Oh we have about two paragraphs stating he may not be called father, daddy etc. And additional language prohibiting him from sharing he donated (fat lot of good that did) and even more saying he was never allowed to share he (or his family/friends) was his donor with her, that we would share that information with a future child when appropriate.
Oh, what a mess. I so sorry it is turning out this way and I hope you are able to re-establish some boundaries soon.
Wow - I'm sorry that the whole KD thing has become so complicated for you. Your story just reminds me why we have chosen to use an anonymous donor. I'm not sure that I would be able to remain sane in such a situation. I admire your strength.
I wish you the best as this journey continues.
oh sweetie, I'm so sorry! How complicated and frustrating!
Wow...this kind of thing scares the hell out of me as we used a kd. So far so good...but wow. I hope cuddles with Arden and home time has brought some peace to the sould
Dora, I want to hug you. I am so sorry this is happening like this and I wish you all the best in re-establishing what NEEDS to be re-established. (I would offer you advice if I had any...pulling back sounds really, really right.)
This is so scary to me! I see/hear my MIL's fascination with "where the sperm came from" and just worry.... even though we are "safe", it doesn't feel that way. I hope you are able to re-draw some boundaries because it sounds like he didn't read/comprehend/care what was included in that contract. The best laid plans...
Wow, Dora, this is just so unfortunate. It sounds like you are doing what you can to make the best of the situation, and hopefully your kd will start getting it and move on to the next excitement in his life.
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