I was chatting with a friend of mine the other night and she asked a really good question....one that we had thought long and hard about before starting this journey.
How have we explained the surrogacy to our children? Do they understand this isn't our baby?
Since we have 5 children with a twelve year difference between the oldest and youngest it's hard to explain it to everyone the same way so that they will understand. We were very honest with the 12 and 7 yr old. We told them that this couple could not have a child of their own and that the doctors were putting the already fertilized egg into me where it would grow. We explained that it would not be a sibling of theirs and it would go home with the couple once it was born. My step son seemed to understand right away and said "oh like the movie Baby Mama" yep...something like that!
Our 1yr old twins will not really understand any of it. They might just notice Mommy getting bigger and much slower in the end but they won't know why. Now C-man he may wonder what the heck is going on. At 2 1/2 he's asking questions about everything. Since I run a home daycare and he sees how the kids go home at the end of each day we are going to use that to help us explain it to him. We'll tell him that this baby is like a daycare friend but I'm watching it in my belly until it's ready to go home with it's Mommy and Daddy.
Thats a great way of explaining it to everyone!! The older kids are really going to learn something wonderful from you doing this. Kuddos!!
ReplyDeleteI love the way you are explaining it to C man! That is something he can definately relate to.
ReplyDeleteI have a couple questions of my own. The first is that I was wondering if the embryo's are thawed first and monitored at all to see if they are still viable or is it a 'bake from frozen' process. My second question is about when the baby (s?) are here. Does you IM have any desires to breastfeed and/or will you be doing any pumping afer the birth? Not that formula isn't a great option but I've read that a woman can start producing milk and was just curious if that was something she was interested in doing. I hope that my question isn't too personal...I was just curious! :)