How could he do that?
How could he make that offer, knowing what it would mean, without even asking her first?
And then, “I could have a baby!” he says, the insensitive prat.
The above is my initial, visceral reaction. I’m letting my rational side out to evaluate, but so far it’s not changing my opinion. He can’t have a baby with his wife, so he jumps at the chance to have one with someone else. He’s so eager to pass down his own genetic material that it doesn’t matter if it’s with the woman he’s married to, or with an acquaintance.
Do you understand the reason I want to be able to conceive? Yes, it’s so I can have my own baby, a child that is a part of me. This is why I am not interested in egg donation, because what’s the point if it’s a baby that is part Sean, part someone else, and not at all me?
Ruth’s post made me ask myself a difficult question. If it wasn’t my problem…if it was Sean who made it impossible for us to have a baby…would I jump at the chance to conceive another man’s child? Would I look for a sperm donor?
And all I can answer myself is this: What would be the point?
What is a child, but the product of the love of its parents? If I am to be the mother and Sean is to be the father, then I should be the mother genetically and he should be the father genetically…or neither of us should be. Why, why, why go through an artificial process so I can carry a child that only belongs to one of us?
If I am to carry a child someday, I want it to be ours. If we are to be parents otherwise, I want it to be a child that already exists, not a child that I have to concoct in a laboratory with other people’s parts.