freakout

A tipping point. The dictionary defines it as “the critical point in a situation, process, or system beyond which a significant and often unstoppable effect or change takes place”.

A volcano. All the build-up of pressure needs somewhere to go. You can’t see it happening, but when you see it- it’s there. Apparent.

The straw that broke the camel’s back. You stack enough, and everything has a weight limit.

I am, you see, what they call a highly sensitive person. That doesn’t mean being too tenderhearted or a cry baby. What it does mean is that I experience the world in vivid detail. My nervous system soaks everything in. When I feel an emotion, I feel it strongly. I am observant and empathetic to a fault. D calls it “the gift of understanding”.

So when, day after day, I see baby boy’s face from a side angle- his soft, round cheek and dark lashes- just taking in the world, it moves me. It always has. I give him a million kisses. I watch his expressive eyebrows soak in the joy of the world. His over-the-top cackles. His clapping and wringing little hands when he gets a simple sweet treat.

My heart is moved, but I am also punched in the gut. Baby boy could still be frozen. What if the embryologist had grabbed another vial and he was still in the freezer? Mere chance caused him to be born and loved and experiencing life. But, oh God, what if he was still frozen in time? Alone. Cold. No joy.

The sense of guilt and responsibility surges within me. For his two sibling embryos. It’s an odd predicament for children to be frozen. Ordained by God, I believe. Not a sin. But still not within the natural order of how the world was originally designed. Children shouldn’t have to be frozen. Waiting for adults to get it together to make a decision. And not just that they can be thawed or when but also by whom. Whose family will they land in? What a weight! I feel the gravity.

I didn’t give them much thought that first year. We knew financially and emotionally and medically and a million other reasons not going to transfer them. We had our clinic “unhold” them which would allow another family to match. Because our situation is open, any subsequent match would also be open. This seemed right. We shouldn’t be so selfish to withhold joy from another family. There are hundreds of families working with clinics to adopt embryos.

And once the profile was unheld, one of these families wanted to match with the profile. It happened a couple of weeks before baby boy’s first birthday. They picked the profile of his two sibling embryos!

Whether to match is the decision of his genetic parents to make; but in consideration of the very open relationship we have, his genetic mom included me in the decision. She forwarded me the information about the family.

I had a freak out.

I don’t want a third family. It will be too challenging (not to mention expensive with the travel we already budget to fly cross country as often as possible).

I don’t want to add lives into an already formed open relationship. Even if it’s a good relationship, it still won’t be the same. And it will be lots later to start the process. Will those kids wonder why we didn’t give them the opportunity to have the same relationships baby boy has? So much guilt.