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| Can you see the resemblance? Sammie also brought his dad along and we had a nice picnic with wine and cheese. |
I'm not sure if this blog has ever spelled out how we all came to be a family, which is a common question we get since we obviously didn't do it the old-fashioned way. Our original thought was that Tori and I would each have a biological child (since we wanted to have the experience of being pregnant and giving birth) and we would also adopt two kids from the foster care system.
I used a sperm donor to get pregnant with Zadie (more on that in a moment), and then Tori had trouble getting pregnant, so we skipped that step and proceeded directly to adopting from the foster care system. We've had Skip since he was four days old and his adoption went through when he was nine months old. We were planning to wait a few years and then adopt an older sibling set, but then we got a call that Skip's birth mom had another baby and so that's how we ended up with three kids under three years of age!
When we were choosing a sperm donor, we knew we wanted an "open" donor, which is a donor that agrees to be contacted when the child turns 18 (obviously only if the child is interested). We always wanted this option for Zadie and figured it would be an interesting process many years down the road. As it turns out, we got connected to other offspring of our donor via the sperm bank's sibling registry and that has evolved into a blog that then attracted the attention of the donor himself. He has since started blogging about being a sperm donor and expressed interest in meeting one of the children so we set up a meeting with him at a local park.
I know that all of this is kind of new and different (the whole concept of using a sperm donor, much less meeting him at your local park!), but actually it was a very positive experience and I'm very happy not only with the product of all of this (Zadie!), but also the person we chose and his approach to this.
Meeting your sperm donor can be a little tricky on both sides. I want him to be friendly and interested, but not too friendly and interested. He's not her dad and I don't want him envisioning that kind of role in her life. At the same time, I appreciated his interest to know her, spend time with her, and really learn about her. We're so happy that we chose a kind, caring, and very likeable person to be Zadie's sperm donor. As time goes on, it will be up to Zadie whether this is a relationship that is important to her, but we are happy to know that the relationship is available to her if she's interested. Honestly, the meeting couldn't have gone any better.
As you can see from the photo, Zadie and Sammie have the exact same eyes. Sammie commented to his dad that she had the family's "cinnamon" eyes, which we've never been sure how to describe.
