Inquiring Minds Want to Know... What is in That Turkey Baster

So lately as we have gotten to know formerly complete strangers better... they have begun to feel comfortable enough to him and haw around the questions of our son and how he came to be. It is quite an interesting story and still pretty unique I guess. The odd thing is it really is as simple or as difficult as you want to make it. Mama T and I are the go with the flow - see what happens type of folks - so for us it was rather easy I suppose.

Our deal was... I would carry and she would pick the other half of the genetic make-up from a catalog. Now mind you it isn't like a Sears catalog where there are pictures, dimensions and prices by the product, but it was similar. More involved and with no pictures. We sat down and decided on what potential eye color, hair texture, height, weight and nationality we wanted as the other half of this soon to be little person. It really is an interesting exercise to participate in, all while not knowing the individual at all, but only knowing them through their stats. It was like we were some sort of sports scouting agent looking to find the next big star athlete.

As we combed through and eliminated choices and put stars by the ones we wanted to pursue and think about further - the weight of the situation would hit us and we would put the catalog away for a couple of days. On top of all the stats - you could look at many of the donors bios and staff observations about them. Some of the interesting things you would find out about them were there favorite foods, sports or animals. Their hobbies, grade point average, likes and dislikes in life. We utilized these to assist us in narrowing down our choices even further until we had it down to two or three. Once we were at this point it was time to pull out the debit card and find out even more about these anonymous donors. It really is like unravelling a mystery and with each layer you delve in to more and more questions arised that you wanted to find answers to.

We were able to purchase voice interviews with the potential donors we sought and more extensive family history and backgrounds... in these interviews they were asked questions by the staff. You were able to gleen bits and pieces of these young men as to why they were chosing to do this for families gay and straight alike. Let me just state for the record our donor, is the age of my younger brother - 26 now, but probably 23 or 24 at the time. So much younger than Mama T and myself... ha ha ha.

Recently, we went back to the site and saw that we could purchase a picture of the donor. We assumed that it would be a baby picture, but it wasn't. The funny thing is I look at the picture and I really don't see him in our lil guy yet, but maybe the enormous amount of personality is what I would take away from the boy in the picture. The donor looks like quite the ham and the center of attention. Our lil guy is quite the charmer.

What drew us to the donor... well for me it was his drive and ambition in life and his willingness to help others. He sounds like a nice guy. I will have to let Mama T address her initial impressions of him. He is an architect and likes woodworking and was a semi-professional bicycle rider in college. It will be interesting to see if any of these traits will be ingrained in our lil guy as he gets older and becomes his own man. It was important for us to go with a donor who wanted to be known - who knows our lil guy may want to meet the man responsible for the other half of his DNA someday.

I am not sure what that meeting would be like when I try to picture it in my mind's eye... we have plenty of time between now and then to formulate it though. I just hope that when it all boils down to it our lil guy will always know that no matter where he came from or where he goes, he will be loved and cherished everyday. I am sure Mama T will want to add to this so stay tuned...