Chapter 11 - WHY WE KEPT IT PRIVATENot shame.
Not really.
David hated the phrase:
“Not really yours.”
He had heard Eleanor use it once about an adopted cousin.
Years earlier.
The cousin was fourteen.
Eleanor said:
“Well, he isn’t really a Bennett.”
David never forgot.
During fertility counseling, we discussed telling family.
I wanted to tell my sister.
David asked me not to tell his mother.
“She’ll turn genetics into rank.”
He was right.
So we kept the donor conception private.
We intended to tell our child early and honestly in age-appropriate ways.
Research and counselors supported openness.
We had a plan.
Books.
Therapist guidance.
Donor-conception records preserved.
Nothing about our child’s origin was supposed to be a secret from the child.
It was private from Eleanor.
Those are not the same thing.
At the clinic, Dr. Wells showed Caroline David’s consent.
Three separate documents.
Consent to assisted reproduction using donor gametes.
Intent to parent resulting child.
Acknowledgment of legal parentage responsibilities subject to state law.
David signed all three.
So did I.
One was notarized because the clinic’s counsel had recommended extra documentation for married couples using donor gametes where estate holdings were substantial.
David had laughed about it.
“Even my sperm donor needs counsel.”
May you like
I had forgotten that joke.
I cried in Dr. Wells’s office.
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