I've been asked if I want a Jewish Egg Donor - the answer is "I don't care."
Technically, if you carry the baby the Rabbis consider it Jewish, but this really doesn't matter to me either.
The only thing that matters is that the baby is healthy. That said, I do have guilt about not carrying my genes forward. Does that sound weird? I think about my great grandparents who left Eastern Europe to come to America to make a better life for themselves and their families - for some odd reason (maybe odd) I feel like I am betraying them by not passing along their genetic material. I am also, ofcourse, mourning the loss of that genetic connection to a child - but that is less about the Jewish piece.
When I asked my RE about the Jewish Donor Egg agency in NYC that works with the young Israeli girls, he told me he had visited their office and that it reminded him of a "catfish farm" (he is from New Orleans ergo the catfish reference). This gruesome image was enough for me to drop the issue altogether.
Last week New York magazine ran an article entitled Israeli Egg Farming how ironic - or should I say, accurate!!!
3 comments:
Hi Jade,
Thanks so much for the comment on my blog. I really appreciate your support.
I agree with you, as long as the baby is healthy - everything else can be on the back burner. I think that it is normal to feel loss for not being able to have a biological child. I still struggle with this myself. Hang in there.
Hi Jade - I ran into your blog by chance. I am also waiting for DE treatment to start.
I am a Jewish woman myself, so I completely understand what you are going through. I am pursuing egg donation in Czech republic - it is what I can afford right now.
Hi Jade:
good luck with your cycle. I did egg donation after many, many pregnancy losses--figured that God was trying to tell me something. For me it was important that the donor be Jewish--it felt as if a sister were donating eggs to me. However, I disagree with your RE. I used Ruth Tavor at NY lifespring and totally did not feel that "catfish" atmosphere. I was very happy to be able to see a photo of the donor (most RE's will not let you look if it is from their donor pool) and everything was done super respectfully. I chose a donor whose interests matched my own but who did not look like me. My son looks like a clone of my husband and if I were to give a wish list to God of the perfect child, it would be the one I received. The whole experience is wonderful Just so that you know, I couldn't give two shits about my own genes now that I have this baby and wish similar happiness to you and to anyone else waiting for a donor cycle.
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