Psych Consult

I had my psych consult today - a required part of the donor egg (DE) process by my new clinic.  I know some clinics require anyone using donor sperm (DS) to have a psych consult first, but my clinic didn't, so this was a new experience for me.

The appointment got off to an interesting start. The doctor's receptionist came to get me, and brought me back to a conference room.  "This test is going to take about an hour and a half to two hours to take..."  Me: "Test, I thought I was meeting with the doctor?" Her: "No, this is where you take the personality test.  If today doesn't work, you can come back and do it tomorrow." Me: "Are you sure?  I really thought I was meeting with the doctor today." Her: "Maybe I have the wrong patient...aren't you here to be evaluated to be a donor?"

At 41, it's awfully flattering that she thought I was a potential donor, instead of a recipient! If only my eggs looked as young as I apparently do.

I ended up talking with Dr. G for about an hour.  She asked me some questions about myself, and about how I'm handling being a single mom, how I handle stress, what sort of support I have, if I have a will...nice, easy conversation.  Then she asked me about what I'm planning on telling my children, which of course is full disclosure.  She had some amazingly great suggestions for telling - in a way that I had never before considered.  I've told Finn his story several times lately, just to get a feel for it. He has no interest, of course, but since it's something I want him to always know, I thought this was a good idea.

She suggested being even more low key about it - if I don't make a big deal out of it, he won't, either.  (She gave her suggestions based on telling about donor eggs, but it can work with donor sperm, too. ) Starting at around age 3, she suggested mentioning how, "When a mommy wants to have a baby, she needs to make sure she has plenty of eggs." And then later, as the child gets older, "When mommy decided to have another baby, she realized she was out of eggs.  But she wasn't worried, she went to see a doctor who had plenty of eggs that other people had donated."  She then made a suggestion that had never before crossed my mind: to avoid humanizing the donors as much as possible.  Use the term donor (which I already do) and to not refer to the donor with anything like, "a really nice person" - which is exactly what I'd been wanting to do.  Her reasoning makes sense - these people won't play any role in my children's life except for donating some cells.  If they only think of them as just "donors" at an early age, they'll be less likely to want to know more about them, to want to have a relationship with them later, or to feel as though something is missing because they don't know their donors.  Later, when my kids are older, she said it's ok to acknowledge that they were likely very nice people, but to make it clear that they were also probably getting paid to donate, as well.

She further recommended that I make sure they understand what donating means, by including them in donations of clothes and household goods to Goodwill (donating objects that we don't need to an agency that distributes them to those who do need them), or to blood donation.  All of these make perfect sense to me, and feel much more natural than what I had been trying to do.  The session was worth it, just for that.

I am now almost completely done with my requirements for RBA.  I have to get my consents signed and notarized, and a couple more labs from my OB/Gyn forwarded to them, and then I'll be ready to choose a donor.  It's just 3 weeks since I decided to go this route, I can't believe it's all moved so fast!