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Historical Love

When I was younger, there was a boy I was always in love with. I could not explain the magnetism this boy had on me... he just had something, a sparkle, and I was enamoured. Throughout the years I grew into adulthood, this boy had a infintismal hold on me. childhood love, or rather the respect for what I saw... because that love was so pure, so genuine on both sides, and yet nothing ever came of it. I wonder if anyone else has experienced that.  A pure love that just sits and never amounts to anything but the joy that it happened? I sat there in my thoughts the other night thinking about this person who is a fully fledged individual and off in the world and I thought, wow that was something special... and then I started looking at the relationship and marriage I have now and was surprised to find that I found everything that i had wanted in that pure, early love, again but with my husband. It was also slightly eerie how similar they looked to each other, but that sparkle existed. T...
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Closer to the truth

 I feel like I am on my own with all of this. I have been unlucky in the sense that when my sister did her 23andme, she found out everything in one go. People had already found out the information and she didn't need to delve too far to find out who her donor is. I did my 23andme and found out minimal information. Subsequent tests yielded more results but still no where in the realm of figuring out who this person is. It has been tricky and difficult to find out information. It is also an isolating experience because while my family is supportive, they are terrified that I am going to go digging for a new family.  Their fears are somewhat warranted in the sense that I am pissed off at them still, but they will always be my family and they have been trying to atone for past grievances. It's hard to talk to anyone about this because honestly, most cannot relate. I am a 40 year old IVF/ donor conceived child who recently found out and am coming to terms with all the lying and the...
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Emotional work and christmas diatribes

 it is tibs eve in our house and I am listening to the quiet pitter-patter of my sister and her boyfriend downstairs.  I am trying not to be angry about the conversation I just had and the emotional regulation that is trying to be projected onto me. My sister doesn't want me to feel the way I do about my relationship with Mom. She has told me to stop talking about the way that I do and that I need to recognize that Mom loved us. While I get that my mother loved me, the truth of that is just as real as my experience with her was. The hardness and the difficulties I had with my own mother is still true at the end of the day. My experience with her is still the reality I grew up with and sugarcoating it because she loved me feels like a form of abuse. It reminds me of what the abused say in order to continually go back to their assailants. They love me, this was all just a misunderstanding. They loved me and it really wasn't that bad... They love me... all the while I can underst...
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finding out I am an IVF baby.

 Read the previous post to get caught up to speed, but here are the cliffnotes: found out from my sister that she was donor-conceived, potentially an IVF baby she has a bunch of siblings and found out through 23andme She suspects that I am the same.  Everyone knew...  Great, now you are caught up to speed.  I decided to take a DNA test on New Year's (postal strike delayed our tests getting to us for quite a while) with 2 of my favourite people. Andy and Doug. We all spit into tubes and sent it off... I could barely wait, but while we did, all of our friends placed bets on how many potential siblings I might have. The highest guess being 69, the lowest guess being only 1 (Douglas,) which ended up being accurate according to the test. In fact, I found out that I was one of the first IVF babies in the province of Ontario out of the Life Clinic in Toronto. My parents paid $14,000 in 1983 to start the process for me. It seems wild to think about that dollar amount now. Th...
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What makes a father?

 I have been taking stock in what it means to be a parent and have landed on the question of what makes a father? I recognize it would be easy to take the smart ass way out and just say, well, when a woman and a man get together and get busy... but that is just procreation, that does not make a father. It's the actions after the fact that make a father, and it's the lifelong work of a father that makes them a good one. I have a really great one, although this year definitely rattled the cages. I was told this year that a secret had been kept from me for most of my life. I am the product of the first cohort of IVF in the province of Ontario, and my father is not genetically my dad. Admittedly, genetics shouldn't matter, but they do in different ways. It was a way for me to console myself, thinking that I am like my grandma Ada, whom I had never met. It softened the blow from being so different than the rest of my cousins, from my sister. I am extroverted, I am artistic in di...
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Memories creep up

 There's an ache in my heart today.  I had a wonderful day, so why is there an ache?  I had a moment where I was reminded of you, Aunt Kathy.  I got another tattoo, and I reminisced on the first one I got. The bonding experience where you and I went and got tattoos together, and I was promptly told not to say anything to my mother on the subject. My mother was a scary woman and not to be trifled with, but that didn't mean that we didn't have such incredible bonding experiences. So while I got tattooed today, I thought of you. I thought of the laughs, and it made me want to call you and tell you about it. Realizing I can't, this felt like the next best thing... 
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I have heeded my own advice

I have stopped for what feels like a minute.  To take stock, to focus to do all of the required and cliche elements to slowing down and what I can tell you, they are not for me.  Slowing down requires you to actually stop, and I feel like I physically cannot do it, nor does time allow it.  My children have not slowed down with their exploits, nor has time actually slowed down for me to appreciate things, so I speed along with it.  Grayson is losing all of his teeth... he has caught up to Sterling in that regard and goodness, that child is 8 going on 20. He wants to be big so fast that it is alarm at what he is attempting to learn and accomplish, and completely by himself.  He is staunchly independent, like his parents, and all the while they grow and learn at an unfathomable rate.  I don't know who wrote it but I have heard this quote go around that "time is a thief" and when I was younger I didn't really fathom that, I sure do now. My little humans are not...
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